PYRITE 10.2: HEED THE STORM
“Can you be who you are in the silent hours of the night? That creature of cold to whom all of life is a daytime dream, in whose ear the darkness croons so softly? By the wind’s fury will the branches bend and scream suggestively, showing you the spells you should never have seen. You know it. It is no mere rustling! It is something more. The voice of the Forest, when the World was New!”
– from ‘Grandfather’s Open Arms’
I looked out across the grass, avoiding their faces, watching the sea of blades curling gently in the breeze.
“I feel inappropriate,” I said by way of explanation, “owning someone I know.”
Someone I’d fooled around with. Well, that probably wasn’t the most accurate way to put it, but the point was the same.
“Why did you take her into your control, then?” Ibaran asked archly.
“Magisters made him, I bet,” Liebor said with a grimace.
I wrinkled my nose, snatching a glance around at the others. “Not quite, but better than them going all wand-happy in her direction, right?” I turned to Ly and Min. “Are we on the same page?”
I wasn’t going to entrust Osi into the care of Hierarchs Four and Five, even if they’d apparently relinquished the Thirteen Candles without a backward glance – but Netherhame and Shallowlie were another matter.
Min nodded, and spoke furtively. “I will fine room for her in my hos’. She will be safe at my sigh.”
“I hope so.”
The sky was already purple; it looked as though I created a mirror reflecting the cloudless heavens when I made the gateway. Nethernal wind seethed across the grass, bending it the wrong way momentarily as the wight came through.
I’d provided her with a cloak, but beneath its folds I could still see the glimmer of the diaphanous night-dress her former master had forced her to wear, barely obscuring her alabaster skin. Her aquiline features were twisted in dismay as she saw the ring of archmages about her. I spoke calmly, attempting to sooth her with my voice even as I explained the conundrum. Thankfully she seemed to grasp the intent behind my words within moments. Her expression softened as I let her go, and Shallowlie took up the reins of control.
Would she blab… details to Minnerveve? I knew such concerns were beneath me – especially given the torment to which poor Osantya had been put, the upright character of Shallowlie – but I couldn’t help but worry all the same. I’d been extremely inexperienced during that summer when I’d been hanging around with Osi. Just me and Tanny, Osi and that other girl (Abella?), down by the river… Not quite so inexperienced afterwards.
I threw away my misgivings, rejecting them on account of their immaturity. Was I going to sit here at the end of the world, worrying about such childish matters?
Apparently I was going to try.
Shallowlie started reassuring her, cajoling Netheric pouring from her tongue, and I looked aside at the trees lined up like soldiers in the distance, chuckling at myself a little.
You’re an idiot, Kas.
“I’m certain I’d be thinking the same thing in your place. It’s just how our brains work, Master.”
You could say that again.
“Is that a command?”
I smiled grimly, looking out over the empty fields, and didn’t reply.
The heath by Ryntol Wood where we’d faced off had been as good a neutral ground as any. I’d hoped Aramas would show his face, that my choice of venue would intrigue him. As much as Nightfell had been able to spread the word amongst the homeless heretics, it made no difference – he was missing, and he wasn’t the only one.
Five of us. Just the five of us, of all Mund’s arch-sorcerers, had answered the call. Where the others had gone, few or none could say. According to Ibaran, her friend Wrynka was distressed about losing the Candles, and doubtless the majority of the other heretics were in a similar state. I had to go without answers for now: Tanra was only human, and she had to sleep, even if there were likely two of her out there running around. She didn’t have automatic knowledge of every single person’s whereabouts and searching the fabric of possibilities taxed her strength. And I’d have taken two Vardaes over Duskdown and Timesnatcher at this point… Rathal and Irimar were both absent, which was simply ridiculous considering the tumultuous state of the city. One of them, at least, had survived the Incursion, given that Doomspeaker had received help at Sigrand’s Rise from a mysterious arch-diviner. My money was on Duskdown. Timesnatcher wouldn’t take off the robe. Nightfell had speculated it was Bladesedge and Bookwyrm working in tandem, but the enigmatic pair of warped diviners hadn’t been seen in months. I was certain she was wrong.
“You should tell them who your last master was, Osi,” I said without looking. The moon had captured my attention, its disc near-full but pale, barely brighter than the sky in the fading majesty of the sun. “We’ll give them the whole story at the Gathering tomorrow night, but, for now…”
“Do I have to?”
I glanced back at her, but the Sticktowner was gazing at her new mistress rather than me.
That was right – things were how they should’ve been. This was better. Easier.
“As Feychilde say.”
The wight started explaining, and I tuned it out, returning my gaze to the slowly-rising moon. I couldn’t stand to look at her, listen to her. I still had a perfectly-preserved image of Osi in my mind, a nymph of delight that symbolised something inherent in me, unchanging in appearance. Not just unchanging – unchangeable. To see and hear her now: the hollow voice; the pale flesh and burning eyes… it made my skin crawl. I was having to grieve her and listen to her at the same time and there was no experience quite like it.
“Ahem…This all reminds me of something my last master said.” Dirk’s statement came quietly into my consciousness, as if my new minion was taking pains not to interrupt my reverie. “I wasn’t privy to Necrogirl’s conversation with the wizard, Ironvine, but I got the impression afterwards that she’d discussed something with her that… that distressed her… something about a foe worse than dragons. Could that be Redgate?”
I’m not sure, I replied. Ironvine… how would she know of Redgate? When my vampiric passenger didn’t reply right away, I followed it up with a quick: Thanks, though. Don’t worry. You’re not interrupting.
“I… hah… I don’t really know much about wizards, or Ironvine. Could she have gotten news somewhere no one else can access?”
If she were an enchanter or diviner, sure, I thought back, but it’s not something wizardry can typically accomplish…
There was a point, a single moment, in which I thought she could’ve been someone, someone who –
It was wishful thinking, that was all – on all our parts, if there existed others who’d dare engage the concept of it. Mekestan, Utenyan lies. Self-deception of the highest, lowest order.
“I don’t follow, sorry.”
Ex-girlfriend. You don’t want to know.
“You mean – Stormsword.”
I winced.
“I’m sorry –“
No, it’s okay. But… Ironvine… There’s a lot of possible explanations. She might’ve been speaking metaphorically. She might’ve had a vision from one of the gods… or if she’s been to some Council meetings –
“She’s a posh one?”
Oh, damn right.
“That might be it, then.”
A new pattern of azure shields dropped out of the sky, descending in sudden bursts of speed, and at their centre a woman flickered. She had so many imp-wings sprouting haphazardly from her robes that I couldn’t tell if there was an even amount of them; the eldritch process by which the assorted wings were distributed about her body was certainly fiendish, and had clearly abandoned all pretence at symmetry. The wings barely seemed to flap, and her motions through the air were decidedly gungrelafor in nature, snapping closer via a teleportation power every few seconds.
It was interesting to me. The faerie-queen I’d been fooled into thinking I owned, she had always encouraged me to join with a demon. Thinfinaran. Rhimbelkina. Dangerous entities from the Twelve Hells. Looking back, it’d always seemed like a part of her trap. It was the step I’d always felt would take me too far and, both consciously and unconsciously, I’d always rejected infernal joining. Even at the point of dying – rather my soul go untarnished into the great beyond, than have it twisted and spoiled in unknown ways, with my consent no less.
Yet I’d always fancied teleportation, and knowing I had a solid stable of reliable gungrelafor suddenly brought that option into focus. It would be so easy… Here was another arch-sorcerer, doing just that, with no outward or obvious ill-effects… There was probably a knack to it, and if I could quiz her on how she was pulling it off…
“Faerie-queen…” Dirk mused within me.
Pure instinct created an image of Zel before my mind’s eye, but I blinked it away and Dirk submitted to my unspoken intention. I didn’t need an internal dialogue to distract me right now. I had this newcomer to deal with.
”We really need to talk, Feychilde.”
Gotcha. For now, though, go to sleep for me, Dirk. We can chat later.
The convenience of having command was reassuring. I wasn’t used to having a talkative passenger anymore. I remembered it took some getting used to. Still, having a vampire volunteer for joining, a seemingly non-evil vampire, made joining a far more pleasant experience. Zero bloodlust. All the benefits, none of the drawbacks. A match made in the Twelve Heavens.
I raised an eyebrow at the newcomer as her shields overlapped Lyanne’s, then my own. No hostility here, it appeared.
“Wrynka,” Ly spat when the woman flickered into our midst, softly settling down via a more-conventional floating-power. “Where’ve you been?”
“To hell and back,” the heretic said breathily, staring right at me as if to completely ignore Ly’s existence. She glanced down at the blue tendrils hanging at my right side, and before anyone else could get a word in she stepped forward and extended her hand towards me.
“Hello, Liberator.”
She was beautiful, that was for sure. ‘Wrynka’ was an old woman’s name, in my mind, and I was surprised to find a very shapely, tall specimen with a red-brown flare of mid-length hair and classic, almost elvish features. Unusually elegant for a North Lowtown girl. Unlike Ibaran and Liebor, who still seemed to take a perverse pleasure in their status as former heretics, she’d abandoned the featureless rags for a chic black robe, fitted at the bosom with a visibly laced-up front. Where she’d found an open boutique in all this chaos I didn’t even want to ask; she’d almost certainly appropriated it.
For all that she was almost my height and very… physically developed, her complexion bespoke her youth, never mind the twinkle in her dusk-shrouded eyes.
I looked at her hand. She’d extended her right and, when she didn’t immediately correct herself by swapping it for the left, I resolved myself to the embarrassment of reaching out awkwardly, taking and shaking her fingers lamely with my unpractised left hand.
But the moment my fingers touched hers she dropped into a deep curtsy, lowering her gaze subserviently, and suddenly the shame of my disability evaporated. I felt like a liege-lord accepting the fealty of a vassal.
Her eyes flicked up, meeting mine through her long lashes…
Then Ibaran snorted, breaking the mood instantly.
“Don’t worry, Feychilde,” Liebor said. “She’s like this with all the guys.”
“You wish,” the new sorceress retorted in a small voice, not moving her eyes from mine. “So, what’ve I missed?”
She was still gazing right at me with that twinkling stare as she slowly rose to her full height once more, seeming to release my fingers only with reluctance.
“Prophecies of doom and destruction,” I said, as off-handedly as I could manage. “Long story short… uh… Redgate is alive.”
“Redgate?” Wrynka’s eyes expressed confusion but she couldn’t keep the thrilled lilt from her voice. “He got put down by the Dragonslayers, I thought. Corrupt little dropstain, no?”
“Corrupt, and worse. I need Nightfell.”
Liebor grunted at that, looking aside.
“I think if he… if he’s there,” I went on, “in Chakobar… it means it’s starting. Mal Malas told me the dragon-bones were coming. If Ord Ylon’s cache fell into Redgate’s hands, and Redgate’s turned himself into a lich…”
“Wait, what?” Wrynka looked from me to Lyanne. “Why’d he want to go and do a thing like that?”
“Evil is its own special kind of idiocy,” I said in answer, then continued: “The Dracofont. The Return. The Crucible. All of it… The end of everything. Everything you feared is going to come to pass.”
Ibaran let out a heavy sigh. “Well, you used her name and she’s not come running up. She must be busy.”
I understood what she meant. “No, no.” I tapped the top of my head. “It’s the shadow of the crown I wore. A Ring of Dismo. Worked in really weird ways.”
“What’s a Dismo?” Liebor asked.
“Not a clue,” I replied. “But it’s still hiding me from their sight, apparently, even after I tossed it in a lake.”
“Hiding you rhimbelkina-style?” Wrynka asked, naked curiosity, almost hunger in her voice.
I shrugged, and everyone here was able to see the way my whips flailed about when I moved my shoulders. I was really going to have to get used to this one-armed thing.
“Whatever it is,” Ly said, “it ain’t gonna help much when five ancient super-dragons get resurrected. Ain’t gonna be time for planning. Think what Tyr Kayn pulled off – we’ll have a dragon-enchanter ten times her power on our hands. The diviner will make mincemeat of our seers. Folks like us won’t even get a look in without them. We’ll be outmanoeuvred on every front.”
Them…
“That’s only if we let the dragons come back.” Liebor’s eyes shone, defiance in his voice. “Screw their predictions. I say we stop Redgate in his tracks. If he really is building some… some necromantic empire down south –”
“We need diviners’ eyes on the problem,” Ibaran interjected. “Like Kas says. We need Nightfell.”
“Screw Nightfell!” Liebor snarled at her, clearly more-willing to debate his sister than he was me. “Vardae? She’s the one who led us into this mess. These visions! Fight, don’t fight. Kill, don’t kill.” He returned his gaze to me. “It’s Kas I’m gonna follow now. You. Don’t let the prophets lead you round the houses. When a third eye opens, two eyes close.”
“I know, I know…” I passed my hand over my brow, down my cheek. “Believe me, if anyone knows, I know.” He didn’t look convinced. I didn’t care. “But there’s some things I still don’t understand. If Redgate took over Chakobar – well, at least Tirremuir… how don’t we know about it?”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“De Awealbod.”
All eyes turned to Min.
“Dey must have kept i’ hidden,” she continued. “De magisters, too.”
“How do you keep something like that hidden?” Ibaran said, half-laughing, as if the very notion was preposterous.
Ly frowned at her. “We’ve been played a thousand different ways. When I was a champion – before, I mean – we played you.”
“Then we –” Liebor cried.
“You played us back, next time,” Ly went on, more loudly, ducking her head in acceptance despite the scowl on her face. “That’s fair. That’s my point. How much worse d’you think they play the lot of us, though? Who knows what’s really goin’ on, out there?” She flung her hand back over her shoulder, thumb extended, as if to point beyond the walls of Mund. “There’s only so many ways word gets about, and they’ve got their eyes on the lot of ’em, I’d warrant.”
“While we true archmages are left to wallow here, incapable of even saving our city, never mind the world.”
The new voice called out from behind me, beyond the scope of my current shields, and I found myself unable to react until he finished. As soon as I could I whipped about, noting the others also turning their heads to see our latest intruder.
I doubted any of them would recognise him in the simple grey tunic he wore; he would look completely out of place in our company, just a lost gardener trudging across a field. His hair had thinned out a little more. His usual drawn, fraught expression had been replaced by a smile. Only his keen eyes, flashing beneath deep brows, denoted the calibre of his power.
His namesake.
“Duskdown,” I half-gasped, not unwarmly. My misgivings evaporated in an instant.
“You had me worried, Feychilde.” He came striding within the bounds of my shield as I moved to meet him, extending my arm. “You’re a tricky one to find. I knew you’d be coming back, then suddenly you vanished from my sight. If it weren’t for the whole city going on about your escapades… my lad…”
He, at least, wasn’t going to curtsy, and had the wherewithal to use his left hand. But as soon as our palms clasped and thumbs hooked he pulled me into a rough hug, slapping my back.
“Rath,” I said, grinning. “My man. Thank you. Just… for everything. You covered my ass, all this time. There’s no way to really show you what it meant. If I hadn’t stumbled into a big dark elf mess, I’d have been free and clear.”
“I dreamt of that,” he said in wonder mingled with trepidation, releasing me and stepping back. “That was you, Kas?”
I grimaced, nodding. Shame stung the corners of my eyes but I refused to tear my gaze from his. For some reason, I didn’t want him, of all people, to know I was a murderer. And yet I’d hardly been a few seconds in his presence and I felt the urge to divulge everything, bare my soul in all its icy depths.
“Well…” His smile wavered, then quickly reasserted itself. “We all have a lot to atone for, and you far less than I in the eyes of gods and men, I’m sure.”
“Hello there,” Wrynka was calling. “Duskdown? Did I hear Feychilde right?”
We came walking back towards the others. I noted that Liebor was reinforcing his shields, patching up a weak area just in case. He must’ve had a vampire or something in him too, because the moment I noticed he stopped the activity.
“That’s what they used to call me,” the seer said in reply, his tone grim. “That’s the robe. Right now – I just want to be me. Call me Rath.”
Wrynka eyed him appraisingly, lips pursed. Liebor and Ibaran looked suitably impressed, awe in their eyes.
Min and Ly seemed less fazed.
“Rath,” Ly said, managing to inject the lone syllable with more scepticism than I’d have thought possible. “What happened to Timesnatcher?”
A shadow crossed his face, and his shoulders fell in a dejected shrug.
“The last Ever… the last Nightfell heard, he was heading for you.” The tall sorceress wouldn’t relent, and it was her turn for her eyes to glow, this time with a dim emerald radiance. “Did he find you?”
The smile on his lips was a sad one by now, and when he spoke his voice was husky. “I think he perished. I’m sorry. I… I offered him my help. He didn’t want it. He fought the dweonatar alone, so I could go to the aid of others. If he – if he fell… it was a champion’s end, I’m certain of it.” His eyes flicked about us. “No irony.”
“Tamsnatcher,” Min said, morose.
I was surprised to find there were tears in my own eyes.
And to think, I’d just been thinking less of him…
“For all his, his ways…” I was going to say mistakes or faults, and both sounded too nasty. It wasn’t proper to speak ill of the dead, especially one such as him. “He was Mund’s best. He represented everything right with us. Let’s remember him as he was, before Tyr Kayn’s madness infected him.”
“If only he was here,” Ly said in a low voice. “T-Man…”
“I don’t know if he’d have known about Tirremuir,” Rathal offered. “I certainly didn’t. Redgate has rarely appeared in my visions, and I never knew to focus my attentions on him until it was too late. But you were right with what you said earlier, Netherhame. The Magisterium has a unique monopoly on divination – a complete stranglehold on scrying, in all its forms. One effect of such blanket control is to blinker the eyes of others. Who knows what sights we should be seeing?” He turned to me again. “I have places to be, but I was looking for you to tell you: they’re coming. I can’t perceive all their movements thanks to their arch-diviners but I know this much… They’re heading to Sticktown, seeking you. Better if you’re there than not when their patience snaps.”
“Henthae.” I clenched my fist, feeling the savage smile part my lips. “And I was starting to think I’d have to go hunting her.”
“It’s dangerous to go alone,” Duskdown began.
“But you know I can’t take you with me. Can’t take anyone.”
I have to do this myself, dangerous or not. Can’t surround myself with my pet killers, if I want to do it right.
“We’ll meet, tomorrow night,” I continued. “All of us. Heretics, champions – darkmages, and the light. At the Tower of Mourning. Let them punish us if they dare.”
I tapped the dark elves and reached out for Trappy’s hand. Only I could sense the eolastyr, of course, and I let the nethernal nature take hold of her flesh before I started floating higher. The last thing I would’ve wanted would be for her weight to pull me off-balance. I knew it would be foolish of me to give away my secret servant’s presence.
“Duskdown, I would be honoured to make your acquaintance properly.” Wrynka didn’t overdo the sweetness in her voice but it was out of place all the same. “If you’re leaving, I’d be happy to accompany you to your… next appointment.”
“Sorry,” was all he said. He didn’t even look at her – he was staring off at the summit of the hillock, where Tyr Kayn had been sitting before we made our move that fateful day.
“But I need your help.” The redhead started pouting. “I’ve lost something, and I don’t know what it is.”
“What?” Liebor snorted, looking at Ibaran for backup.
But Wrynka was patting the air strangely, like she was…
Hugging someone short. Hugging… a gnome?
Oh gods.
Nausea lashed me.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, suddenly coming to stop.
Realisation stopped my heart; I couldn’t inhale after my outburst, the sudden horror of their absence gripping me, turning me cold head to toe in an instant, far more effective than any nethernal joining –
And I wasn’t alone. Everyone groaned, turning pale –
“Then you, Kas?” Wrynka made it a question, and seemed to have completely ignored my previous statements on the matter. “I’d love to pick your brain if you’re expecting us to go to one of these ‘Gatherings’… Say, are we going to get to see that massive crystal tr-“
“Shut up, Wrynka!” Lyanne and Ibaran hissed simultaneously.
I felt myself smirking so I offered her a shrug in consolation.
“I’m kind of busy too. I’m not saying no but… maybe tomorrow.” For some reason I remembered that first interaction with Tanra, leaving her in the roadway outside the temple with her broken-backed boyfriend. The recollection reminded me just how much the young girl had changed.
Maybe Wrynka could too.
“Tomorrow, then!” the redhead piped, beaming, as though we’d arranged a date.
I was still smirking as I rose up into the air. The others were turning aside to leave, their eldritch energies firing up – Duskdown started heading up the hill at what must’ve been a casual pace, but his exit was far too fast for any of the rest of us to match.
“Tomorrow, all of you!” I called down.
I tugged on Trappy’s hand, leading her away.
“Let’s go – fast,” I murmured.
“Next appointment, a magisterial bloodbath,” the demon said with relish, wrapping me in her power and propelling us towards home.
I didn’t have true flight bestowed by a wizard, but she was still able to rustle up a speed that left my mind reeling, unable to sort through the perceptions. The wind roared in my ears and there was little fluidity or grace to the way she tore through the sky, but, otherwise, the experience was almost akin to moving with an arch-diviner of a less unearthly stock.
After a few moments of consternation, I surrendered to the flow of infernal power, closing my eyes and relaxing, forcing myself to enjoy the wailing wind as we cut through the evening airs. I could let myself submit to Infrick’s control, safe in the knowledge that it worked both ways – after all, she was mine. She would get me to where I needed to be with minimal input.
She was, of course, anticipating the killings to follow. Feychilde versus the Magisterium – it’d come around at last. And for all my hopes of ending this pointless struggle without violence, I knew my hidden hopes well, having nurtured them in a hundred dreams, dwelling upon a thousand bitter moments until they all blended into one, a delicious, noxious draught of death.
If it went wrong – if they refused my terms, made it a matter of me or them – then Infrick would get her wish.
Whether I wanted it or not.
* * *
I was high-up enough to make out the shadowy line of the river, half-demarcated by rows of buildings stretched along the banks. In several places those rows of buildings had been thrown down – such places, adjacent to the water, had always been slums, attracting crime and criminals in all their forms. But now they were great wooden carcasses, twisted shells of their former selves. Those left to scurry in the looming shadows of these timber hills were surely doomed to suffer the worst of the city’s evils, predators of an all-too-mortal variety slouching in to take advantage of any perceived vulnerability…
As I watched the remains of a hovel on the far side of the river lost some more of its intestines, part of an upper floor sliding free and hanging down over the fast-moving water. Planks and abandoned furniture dripped from the open aperture, joining the detritus-flows on the Blackrush’s glossy surface, hurtling downriver to join the clogged-up bottle-necks farther along the waterway.
The boundary came closer and closer to me with each passing second, the centre of Oldtown falling farther and farther behind. I had to get my head in the game. I actually snarled at the air a bit – though the target of my venom remained a mystery. Was it directed at myself? Or at the magisters? At the demons? The criminal scum of the underworld?
I didn’t know – but I had venom in me all the same.
“Do you not think you should share my cloak?” The eolastyr had a pretty way of putting it. “We approach Sticktown. If they spot you from below –”
“They’ll waste the charges in their wands, not to mention a ridiculous amount of gold in components.”
“They’ll know where you are. Trust me in this – if you wish to win a war, your first battle is logistical. Think of the terror they experience, these magisters preparing to face you. They have been warned already of your violence during the Incursion. They know their blood has sated you once.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“So speak all men whose thirst has been quenched, forgetting mere minutes later what it was that so drove them. The animal still lives within you. What drove you, last night? How vainly did the magisters behave, to tempt your slaughterous ways?”
Her words drummed into me, persuasive not by dint of some eldritch magic but by the sheer fact that she spoke truth. I could still see it, in my mind’s eye – the way the magisters slew the inkatra-heads, right there, Sticktowners dying in droves at the hands of those who were paid and trained to protect them, whilst all around the city fell to the legions of demons.
“Do not hand them victory. Obey not the rules. Be the harbinger of doom they fear, while all along you fear not; your cause is as righteous as any man might hope before he wades into bloodshed. You will not win through by engaging in skirmishes when you permit your enemies to designate the battleground. Choose your encounters wisely. The element of surprise is your most-potent ally.”
“More potent than you?” I asked, half-sarcastically, half-rhetorically.
“No, Feychilde. Nothing in this city is as potent as me, save you.”
I wasn’t expecting the grave reply. I tightened my grip on her hand, which was gesture enough for me to tease the goblin-shroud making her invisible, let it start slipping up my arm. Before a few moments had passed I fully shared in the spell’s concealment, and then, just to complete the effect, I dropped my shields entirely.
“If we’re going to surprise them, we’d better do it right, eh?” I said.
Now it was the purr I’d been waiting to hear. Just a single word, but so filled with satisfaction, with meaning, I couldn’t help but grin.
“… Master…”
* * *
“They call themselves ‘Cohort Two’, Master. Just one of seven such groups.”
Infrick’s whispers came from a few feet to my left, so quiet I had to strain to hear them even with Dirk’s essence within me. I hadn’t picked up the full complement of supernatural senses from my joined vampire, and it hurt.
The eolastyr was going out of her way to maintain our cover. I didn’t ask her to repeat it, but I still couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
“Seven?” I breathed.
If the other battalions were as strong as this one, there had to be almost a thousand magisters assembled in Sticktown, all hunting poor old me. About two hundred feet below us was Arnost’s Green, a grassy knoll surrounded by apartment-blocks. Usually it was occupied by the homeless, and any number of illicit goings-on would occur on that pleasant-looking patch of ground when night fell. This evening was different, however. The homeless had all been butchered, or had fled from the demons. The new occupants of the knoll were far less-welcoming to miscreants than the denizens of the Twelve Hells, and those who’d left were unlikely to return until the magisters had gone. They stood in groups of five or ten, wands and heavy pouches filled with reagents hanging from their belts. The assortment of colours was quite something to behold; it was only after a minute of staring that I realised some of their robes were cut in odd fashions, with pointy, triangular cowls, or decorated with glittering trims the likes of which I’d never seen before.
Out-of-towners?
A few gangs of yobs were hanging out on corners and the balconies of the intact buildings around the Green, their sullen stares directed towards the officials on the knoll. In spite of the Incursion’s inevitable death-toll (or perhaps because of it) there seemed to be no shortage of dispossessed lowborn, young and old, male and female, willing to loiter and glare. The brooding silence of the magister-host was hardly surprising. Very few of them appeared to be engaging in conversation. Perhaps they’d set up personal links for their private chats…
A deep yell brought my attention to the far slope of the knoll, where I was surprised to find a dwarven woman on her knees before a magenta-clad sorceress. (The mage-robe’s hue gave an indication of her chosen field, but there was no mistaking the web of tattoos on the back of one of her hands – giving away her role as one of the Swords to boot.) It looked like the dwarf’s pleas for help were falling on deaf ears, the sorceress refusing to even enter a dialogue. Soon a short, stocky magister was selected from the onlooking ranks to go down and speak with her. A fellow dwarf, I surmised. At first I thought it was because they wished to finally take pity on the wailing woman, whose grief-choked cries were bothering me all the way up here, never mind them down on the ground right in front of her. When the magister reached her, she turned her red eyes to her kinsman, still bawling, her desperation coming through clearly even if I couldn’t make any sense of her words.
The dwarven magister pointed towards the buildings at the perimeter, back the way she came. His voice was too quiet for me to even pick it out but, whatever he said, it meant rejection; I could tell by the way the supplicant’s grief and misery were transformed instantly to incandescent rage.
She cursed. She howled. She threw a handful of dirt and stone. When that didn’t suffice, she gripped her loose, tangled brown hair at the temple and audibly tore it free.
She couldn’t throw a clump of hair very far, but I’d be damned if I said she didn’t try her hardest.
The magister seemed to react to that last gesture of defiance, shifting his weight, padding from one foot to the other as though overcome with doubts. But it appeared his superiors took the decision out of his hands – a taller magister stepped up, wand levelled, and shot a blast of wet wind right at the supplicant.
The dwarf had no choice, no chance – the gust slammed into her, almost picking her up and hurling her away, torrential rain driving right at her horizontally, drenching her and blinding her; she tripped as she stumbled back, and I could’ve swore I heard some magisters chuckling at the display.
“How amusing.” I bit the words out with no concern for being discovered.
The groups of watchers on the balconies started heckling the magisters, not laughing along with them but booing instead.
“They do find it amusing, Master. One of the captains suggested arresting the dwarf.”
I turned to look in the general direction of her head, as though staring right through her could impart understanding.
“Wait – you’re listening to them?”
“The link created by Keliko Henthae is weak; weaker than I have ever seen before. I’d be embarrassed, in her place, frankly. I don’t know why she hasn’t used another nexus-point here, when she has her pawns in place, more than capable of sharing the load. Doesn’t she trust her own soldiers? Ah. No. Perhaps she shouldn’t.”
I spent a moment just reeling. The possibilities were endless.
“What else can you hear? Is Henthae close? How many of these are archmages? Here, I mean.”
The eolastyr laughed gently. The sound of it sent shivers up my spine.
“Oh yes, Master. I understand. We can get up to much mischief in this location. Henthae is not near here, such as I am able to sense.”
I gritted my teeth. “Shall we go find her, then?”
“And leave this force behind us? Leave these people to suffer?”
Her voice didn’t change, not one bit, and it worried me. I knew that the two questions were not equal in her own mind.
“What would you suggest?”
“Rout them.”
“And tell Henthae exactly where we are?”
“It doesn’t tell her where we are, only where we’ve been. Even with wizards and diviners, she can’t mobilise forces of that magnitude fast enough to stop us. Strike, and move on. Shock her with our brutality. She herself will conceal us, conceal our attack to conceal her own weakness. There are only two archmages here – an enchanter too afraid to unsheath his true weapons – a sorcerer of scant talents…”
She drew our clasped hands to point. I spotted the pair she indicated, my eye drawn to the enchanter standing on his own almost directly beneath us – the sorceress floating on the far edge, a faint blue bubble wheeling lazily about her.
The latter of the two arch-magisters was near the weeping dwarf woman, and my eye was drawn once more to her plight. She was staggering away from the knoll like a drunk, her face downturned as she continued to rend at her hair, cursing gutturally as she went.
Disgust filled me. I knew what I wanted to do. The devil on my shoulder was right.
The eolastyr… was right.
“For justice,” I said. “For Kultemeren.”
“Indeed.”
I turned my head to look Trappy right in the invisible eyes.
“Even your Mother feared the Judge.”
“Then let us be his gavel!” she roared, her voice too loud for it to go unheard.
That settled it. Not just what I had to do. What I wanted to do. What I’d decided.
It took less than ten seconds to break the whole cohort, when I finally set myself to the task. I dropped unseen into the very centre of their formations atop the crest of the hill, near their hard-eyed leaders. They hadn’t even set up shields, confident in their numbers, their petty systems of warnings, defensive practices that had led them into an unforgivably-false sense of security.
I set up my initial shields while I fell, and before I reached the ground I willed aside the gremlin-shroud, letting the glamour lie more-strongly upon Infrick. As I came to a halt a yard above the grass I was just becoming visible; only a few were aware of my presence and I chose that moment to proclaim myself, bellowing the words at ear-splitting volume.
And that was it.
“Feychilde is come! You found me! What do you want with me, fools? Did you think me craven?“
I had plenty more, but I had to stop – they were already leaving before I called them fools, scattering like petals before a hurricane, screaming as they ran. It was an exodus the likes of which I’d never anticipated, so smooth as to almost appear practised – my instincts assured me this was some stratagem, that they would turn and regroup, entrench themselves and encircle me. But they disappointed me. Before I even closed my mouth, I stopped bothering with the shieldcraft. Better to save myself the effort.
These magisters weren’t turning back and reforming ranks. They were broken.
Few among them could see the walls that I’d sent rippling out, and by my estimation I’d only hurled a couple of their leaders with the barriers. I saw them in their fancy robes, most overtaking their underlings by virtue of the more-powerful spells laid upon them. The two archmages made themselves scarce in record time, the enchanter splitting into a dozen duplicates that dispersed in every direction, the sorceress stepping into an ethereal doorway. A quick glance through the jadeway showed me my quarry, flying away on the back of a tremendous gold-feathered eagle.
I heard the eolastyr chuckling beside me as I withdrew my head from the emerald foam, and I frowned.
“Really?”
“Oh, Master, you have much to learn.”
“Now what does that mean?”
“It means I think your attempt at intimidation leaves something to be desired.”
“I was getting to it! I didn’t expect a simple declaration to get them all so worked up.”
She chuckled again. “I have access to their great working, now that the pillar of Fiano Daekassen has removed itself from the scene.” She clarified: “The thought-shaper, whose assistance Henthae sought this morning. Oh, ha-ha, he has been a naughty boy…”
“Trappy!” I barked, shaking her hand, and she stiffened instantly in response. “Trappy, you have access to the whole damn thing?”
“Covering the length and breadth of Mund, yes Master.”
“But… how…?”
“I locked them out, and was granted thereby the key. Henthae has almost spent her strength, it seems. Many of the magisters she has assembled today have no wish to be here. In fact many more would have fled the city by now, were it not for her meddling in their minds.”
And with that she’d truly done it.
“Henthae,” I growled.
The Mistress of the Pool of Reflections had finally crossed the line, the line her own institution had drawn for the betterment of all mortalkind. The line whose existence she herself had defended. The line Belexor crossed when he used his magic to warp my existence. She’d promised me when she took a personal hand in Belexor’s punishment that she could never take the same misstep, never stumble over the threshold set down by the law.
And here she was. Dancing to and fro across it with wild abandon.
What had I ever done comparable to this? Had I ever stolen the thoughts of hundreds, maybe even thousands of individuals? No. Of course not. I’d been a heretic of mere association and it was all because she’d been out to get me from the very start. Tyr Kayn was just a convenient excuse, wasn’t she? It wasn’t like Henthae suddenly changed her ways when the draconic puppeteer had been exposed. If anything she’d doubled her play. She used me in Zadhal then before I became too dire of a threat to her power she sought to discard me, kill me…
“I feel your wroth, Feychilde. Channel it. Let it be your guide. Where it might take you, none can say. Even the Sinphalamax.”
I cast my gaze out across the knoll, taking in the surrounding buildings. The magisters had almost all vanished by now, scurrying away like the rats they were.
Wish me luck, Tanra.
It was time.
“Are you not tired? Do you not tire of your shackles? Sticktown!“
That one word rattled the apartment blocks.
“When will it be enough, Sticktown? Will you bow before your oppressors, still?“
More and more faces, peering across the Green at me from windows and balconies.
“You hear me. You know me. And you have seen them. You know them. It’s time to rise up and tell them what you think of them. I’m going to leave Arnost’s now, and I’m going to find every last one of these so-called protectors, so-called defenders…“
“Feychilde!” someone screamed to my left.
“Feychilde!” another cried to my right.
“I promise you, I won’t rest until every single magister’s gone from Sticktown. They can choose the manner of their eviction. But they need to know now:
“They are no longer welcome.“
* * *
“She knows what we’re doing, but she’s keeping her slaves in the dark,” the invisible arch-fiend at my side reported with relish. “I can’t lock her out anymore, Master. But I’m sure I can… ah…”
I sighed, turning away to peruse the rout as Trappy entered another extended reverie – this was the third time in as many minutes, and I’d learned to be patient. Almost all the magisters in Ebondock Knot were gone from my sight, now, but that didn’t mean much in an area like this. It was the antithesis of Arnost’s Green. The Knot was a tangle of pitch-coated roadways that’d been built over and under one another; two or three such stacked-up levels wasn’t an uncommon sight in Sticktown, but this place had roughly a dozen major routes going through the same exact spot, walkways or even roadways sturdy-enough for wagons, supported by rows of thick pillars. Many of the paths designed for pedestrians were broad-enough for four abreast despite the fact they were only held aloft by ropes fastened to the adjacent buildings. The sun was finally setting, and in the summer twilight there were a million shadowy corners of this nest in which a magister or two might huddle, preparing a counter-attack.
Rather than break Trappy’s focus by pestering her with my concerns, I gently tugged her forwards, downwards, a little to the right… Bit by bit I manoeuvred my shields across my surroundings, in the process flushing out no more than a handful of hiding magisters. Even those were wearing expressions of distress; it appeared they weren’t would-be assassins, but rather those of my enemies who most feared my rebuke, driven not to flight but to paralysis.
Am I really that scary? I wondered. I couldn’t help but feel a little burst of ecstasy every time I caught one of the Magisterium slaves shrieking. A little amusing thrill every time I saw one fall over in their haste to get away.
A little twinge of regret, guilt, when I caught their panic-stricken expressions, momentary glances with terror-filled eyes. Terror that only grew tenfold if I managed to catch their gaze, as though they suddenly realised that by daring to cast looks over their shoulders they had doomed themselves.
I wasn’t even giving chase. I only had to show up and they were losing their nerve. Magisters who’d lived through Incursions, fighting their way tooth and nail through demonic hordes – now their ranks were shattering like glass at the mere sight of me. Maybe it was news of the riotous crowd moving this way that’d tipped the scales in the end. I fancied I could already hear their roar in the distance, slowly growing in volume as they approached, gathering momentum, gathering numbers.
“Much more impressive, Master,” Infrick noted, as if to answer my hidden thoughts.
“No chuckling this time? I didn’t say anything different. In fact, I purposely kept it as close to last time as I could…”
“You sounded like you meant it.”
“What, that I was here, and that they’d found me…?”
“You know what I mean.”
I really didn’t, but I knew she was distracting me, and what I didn’t know was why.
“Whatever. Report.”
“I… I’m not sure you want to know.”
I frowned. “I’m ready. Go on.”
What could it possibly be? Are we losing? I knew it was too easy…
“Why don’t you summon Pinktongue? He’ll tell you all about it, better than I can with words.”
I shrugged, and gestured with my mind, the flourish of will that would open up –
Not red fire. Empty air.
Open up absence. A vacancy not just in physical space, but inside my soul. A part of me that had been robbed away, transitioned into a formless, incoherent essence I could no longer summon.
“He’s dead?” I whispered. “How?”
“Cohort Five.”
I thought it all through, then asked the only question that mattered:
“Where?”
I heard the smile on her lips. “Oh, Master, where else but where this all began? Knuckle Market.“
I rose up, and spoke with the voice of the tempest.
“People of the Knot! I know you watch me. Watch, and wonder. Can you hear it coming? Can you hear Sticktown approach? Now I tell you: the time is upon us. I move to Lord’s Knuckle. Who will join their brothers and sisters? Who will go with me?“
And it was a storm that answered.
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