Book 5 Chapter 6

INTERLUDE 10A: DISREGARD ALL I AM

“Do you ascend, or descend? In the darkness how can you tell? By following your gut, that’s how! Yet you remain unsatisfied, and there is no more that words can say. Let the rest speak for itself, and the words stay silent.”

– from Of Lord Ymer and Prince Rivorn in ‘Elturiel’s Collected Fairytales’

Magicrux Izian was bigger than most, a true tower with walls twice the height of those belonging to Falwyn and Jelix. Surrounded on all sides by large, well-maintained residences, the veritable fortress of reddish stone rose up over the houses and stores, looming like a bloody finger above the landscape. Once upon a time it’d been the castle of some lord or other but, like all structures of its ilk within the walls of Mund, it had been appropriated by public bodies when the chance came, transformed from a fortified home into a symbol of the magistry’s power. Its jail-cells were deep and its prison-cells were deeper.

All in all, she loved the place. If it were emptied of its occupants she could’ve spent a month or two just exploring its bowels. The criminals held here tended to be rather on the rough side, given that it was the number one destination for high-risk offenders. Mages with blood on their hands – unsanctioned blood – would, if they were lucky, find themselves carted here from all over the city once their sentences were pronounced. If Henthae hadn’t saved her after what she still thought of as the worst day of her life, Ciraya too might well have ended up incarcerated here.

And with that thought there was a trace of regret, even jealousy. The dank pits beneath the magicrux were unwelcoming in the extreme, of course, but damp and rats and gloom had never been things to bother her. And the inmates had unlimited time to inspect their environment, perusing the ancient symbols scratched into walls and floors and ceilings at their leisure. Not that there was any magic left in the age-old runes, the great patterns that the tower’s former occupants had used in their rituals. No, those spells were long-since spent of all their potential energies – the Magisterium command were sometimes foolhardy, even rash in their decisions, but they weren’t stupid-enough to lock dangerous individuals into a chamber which might itself present a means of flight. No doubt some of those brought here enjoyed some small measure of excitement, upon first beholding their new surroundings. Dreams of escape surely filled the heads of many such darkmages; most of the men and women who called those cells home thought of themselves first and foremost as scholars, and perhaps some would’ve even gotten somewhere, given the proper tools and implements.

Not that that was happening any time soon, of course.

Thanks perhaps in part to its imposing walls – and in larger part to the vigour with which she and her fellows had defended it – Izian had come through the Incursion largely unscathed. Once their assault proved futile the demons had turned their foul attentions towards the civilians just beyond the magicrux, clearly attempting to lure out the defenders, but Ironvine, the new wizard-champion, arrived in the nick of time – the archmage went about dissecting a whole horde of the fiends, thereby allowing the magisters to leave their red-stone fortress and crush the remaining hell-hosts in the streets.

The rest of the day was still, in large part, a blur. After the arena she clung to her orders like a child about the neck of an unsaddled stallion, trusting as ever to the machinery of the organisations to which she belonged. As she came riding about the bend and saw the magicrux walls towering over the row of ruined shops in front of her, she was reminded of the carnage that had occurred in this very spot, her role in stemming the black tides of imps as their summoner lurked in the shadows. It’d slipped her mind completely – there were too many experiences for her to recollect them in their entirety, at least for now, and she understood that. But to forget the whole encounter? It was almost like someone had been messing with her head.

She saw the wrecked shop-fronts, and she remembered, the whole thing coming flooding back to her in one go.

This is where the old man and his granddaughter died.

Heedless of the way her mistress atop her was wracking her brains, Fe knew where they were going. They were still a few streets away from the magicrux and there was no slowing the pace of the yithandreng’s legs. Fe went hurtling into a right-turn, bearing Ciraya away from the junction where the double failure had taken place. The remainder of the journey gave the sorceress time to collect herself, repressing the memories once more. They followed the roadway in a wide arc about the distant walls, and by the time they came up to the magicrux approach Ciraya felt like herself again.

The great gate was thrown open before her and Fe thundered up the causeway, swerving around the magister-band making their way down to the road. Timmin and another man unknown to Ciraya were at their posts on either side of the arch. They were looking rather the worse for wear, but Timmin, at least, knew Fe and her rider by sight, and stopping Ciraya in her tracks simply wasn’t going to happen – not if he wanted to have pleasant dreams. It was beyond her why her animosity mattered so much to her colleagues… or maybe that was just it. They weren’t really her colleagues, were they? The secondment to Special Investigations under Henthae’s sponsorship – the bond to the Seven-Star Swords no magisterial vow could truly equal – these were insurmountable obstacles, barriers that set her apart from those who should’ve been her peers. When Verdum hadn’t quite been quick-enough with the gate’s password that one time, Ciraya had been forced to halt and unthinkingly directed a scathing glance in his direction… and that’d been it. The next three times she ran into the cretin he fell over himself to apologise in increasingly fawning tones, and her stares of disbelief and dismissals had simply exacerbated the man’s urgency. In the end she’d had to take Verdum aside and put the fear of the Five in him just to shut him up.

Did they think she would bad-mouth them within earshot of Henthae? Did they think she’d send imps to sew their eyelids while they slept?

Cretins.

But that wasn’t all there was to it, was it? After her drunken tryst with Ronuth he went as pale as balsam wood before her eyes every time she saw him.

It was something about her.

Something about me.

She charged into the courtyard, shrank Fe down to her miniature form, and entered the tower. Those she passed on the narrow stair shrank into the far wall, a few mumbling half-hearted greetings; she ignored them, other than pull her robe tight to her side, as much to keep herself from being tripped as to show them the same courtesy. Finally the door to the captain’s office came into view around the bend, and she rapped firmly a single time upon its varnished pine surface before gripping the handle and entering.

The room was surprisingly spacious, well-lit by a wall of sun-blanketed windows. Captain Somerhil was sitting straight-backed behind her desk, practically propped up by piles of paperwork. Two pencil-armed scribes were busy scribbling behind her, their arms filled with sheafs of the white sheets, every visible inch covered in tiny, neat writing.

“… and tell them that the four properties on Mannerbrent Walk are going to need demolition.” Somerhil looked up, meeting Ciraya’s eyes. “Ah, you’ve returned. Did you have any success with our little problem?”

Ciraya ducked her head. “One less vampire and wight to worry about, sir.”

Fe was squirming in her pocket. She took her out and stroked the little lizard; instantly the yithandreng startled to settle.

“One fewer…” Somerhil corrected her absent-mindedly, reaching out for a piece of paper on the far-left corner of her desk and scratching lines through one of the sentences. “Very good, very good, Miss Ostelwin. I always hear good things about you.”

No you don’t, the sorceress thought. But she managed to keep the knowing smile from twisting her lips. The last thing she wanted was for this Oldtowner to start thinking she was a smug little shrew.

“May I enquire as to how you disposed of them?”

She put Fe back in her pocket. “You may.”

The captain looked up – the scribes looked across. Three pairs of eyes bored into her.

Drop it. She let them see her smirk. There was no way for her to make herself sound unsarcastic; she might as well look the part.

“Sorry, sir. Long day. The wight was easy – Zanib’s Eleventh Lecture was good enough to escort her home. The vampire was trickier. The Wilting did for him, though. Would you like a list of the specifics? I had to source almost a whole gallon of ethereal sap –”

“You performed a Wilting? Alone?”

She should’ve gone for something simpler – a bloodrose, or a Mirror-Gaze Snare. But Somerhil’s sceptical tone just made her double her play. She could’ve performed a Wilting alone, damn it. It was just that she…

“I guess I’m just that good.”

“But –”

“Can I go, now, please.” The way she said it, it sounded even less of a question than she’d intended.

“Miss Ostelwin, if the nature of your role at my magicrux has not been made crystal clear –” the captain leaned back, regarding her coldly “– I have only myself to blame. I admit that I was blessed to find you within our walls when the horde came calling. But I will not stand for insub-“

“I’ve been on the go ten hours and I’ve not been by the Star Tower for more than a courtesy call since all this started. I have rituals I must perform.” She played her trump card. “Mistress Henthae is always most accommodating of my particular needs. Shall I contact her directly?”

Somerhil’s cold eyes never wavered. “You’re playing a dangerous game here, young lady. Very well – dismissed.” The captain immediately went back to her paperwork. “Instruct Egret and Spindlers to begin renovations at once. We can spare them two bands for assistance – Maliko’s and Jorastian’s.”

The scribes started scribbling. Feeling slightly less victorious than she’d hoped, Ciraya turned on her heel and swung open the door. She didn’t close it behind her when she stepped through, and it creaked to a half-ajar stop; as she headed down the stairs she heard the distant scraping of a chair, followed by a loud thud.

Feeling slightly better, she reached the courtyard and withdrew Fe from her pocket once more. Moments later she was galloping down the causeway and back into the streets.

Time to go home.

* * *

Even Fe could tell something was wrong as they came to a halt on the edge of the courtyard. The demon quivered again beneath her, and a soothing hand didn’t suffice to settle her.

“Don’t worry.”

She wasn’t good at platitudes, especially when she shared her demon’s sentiments; Fe’s lack of reaction was proof of it. The yithandreng continued to claw at the cobbles while the sorceress looked up at the tower.

Star Tower didn’t seem to have been too badly affected, at least as far as appearances could tell. The spires were intact – which was more than could be said for the last Incursion, when a lone eolastyr caused a small fortune in damages. Black ichor and slime had stained some of the lower portions of the main tower, but surely that only spoke to the successes of her brothers and sisters of the Swords. It looked like the blood of dozens of demons had been splashed all over the outer walls. Surely that was a good thing?

But why then were there so few people in and around the courtyard? Was that what had bothered Fe too? Usually the benches on the small green would be full, even following such tumultuous events as last night. Classes should be suspended. Practicals postponed. Every square foot of the grass should’ve been covered in initiates, babbling about the turmoil, things they’d seen and done, awaiting their chance to steal a spot on a bench…

Did the wards fail? Are they afraid to come outside?

It didn’t make sense.

Fe safely tucked away in her pocket, Ciraya climbed the dark grey stair and passed through the open archway. Bladed kinkalaman and feathered ilshardical lurked there on either side, silent guardians sculpted in relief from the stonework of the pillars; the bovine faces of burly bintaborax loomed above all, their outstretched arms, locked in contest, forming the peak of the arch.

She didn’t have to go far before all her worst nightmares came true. The high hallway was eerily empty, but she was only halfway up the first flight of stairs when the door to the canteen banged open.

“Gods!” Urma cried, rushing out to take her by the hands. “Have you heard, Ciraya? Have you heard?”

“What?” she said blandly, keeping one hundred percent of the panic she felt from her voice. She wanted to pull her hands out of Urma’s – she didn’t like someone invading her space like this, even if her skin bore the same tattoos, even if she thought as Urma as being closer to her than her actual sisters – for all that meant…

“It’s the Mistress,” Urma blared. “It came in through her window! Th-the shields were nothing to it!”

Somehow Ciraya knew what her fellow Star was going to say, but instinct compelled her to snatch her hands free regardless. She straightened, steeling herself to receive the news, the inexorable truth.

Truth was always the same.

“She’s dead, Ciraya! She’s dead!”

* * *

When she reached the high chamber, the magister took a few moments to recover her breath. Urma had been replaced with Davon and another adept Ciraya thought was called Irithsia, both senior Stars with kind smiles and hard eyes. Ostensibly they were accompanying Ciraya out of pure altruism, speaking to her in compassionate and husky tones, but she knew how these things worked. They wanted to ensure she didn’t move anything – or, worse, remove something. They wanted to quiz her, gently, perhaps, as to those topics whose resolutions still evaded them. Moreover, they wanted to watch her. See where she went, what she did. Were her eyes drawn to the locations of Eneleyn’s hidden compartments? If so, which ones? Those they knew of already, or those still to be discovered?

Their position would’ve been obvious even if they hadn’t seemingly forgotten to contact her. It wasn’t as if she carried a glyphstone. Oh no. Even if they hadn’t been conveniently waiting for her halfway up the fourth stair to escort her, she would’ve known. Their eyes told the tale like any criminal’s.

They knew, or at least suspected, that she and Mistress Arithos had had a special relationship. She’d spent too many late nights in the high chamber for the others to not notice. Mistress Arithos been a mother to Ciraya – more than a mother. A mentor. A role-model. Someone who showed her the other side of what it was to be highborn. Someone who made her feel like she was highborn, even when she’d been nobody, when she’d had nothing, no one at all… The reason for Mistress Arithos’s tenderness had always eluded her, and if she didn’t know better she’d have thought Mistress Henthae had laid a spell on her. The two older women, together – they had given her something to strive for. And she’d thrown herself into the dark magic at their unspoken request, thrown herself into her magistry work. She’d sought their approval in every sidelong glance, every casual remark that elevated her, opinions not meant to be given voice in the presence of one of her station.

Both of them – they treated her as an equal.

Now the door opened onto a room painful in its familiarity, but Ciraya had eyes for only the desk. The empty chair, with its writhing serpentine arms, its criss-cross nettle-green embroidery…

The glass-shards on the carpet gleamed in the glow of ensorcelled candelabra. Her eyes were drawn to it – to the smashed window –

“What was left of her?” Ciraya asked.

The two adepts glanced at one another, then, sounding somewhat annoyed, Davon replied: “The remains of Mistress Arithos –”

“Cut the drop!” Ciraya brought up a pale hand to point at his face. “Not with me! Not today! You tell me – tell me what it did.”

“It was one of the eolastyr,” Irithsia tried to remonstrate –

“You think I’m stupid! What I want to know – did she die… die with her…”

Irithsia shook her head slowly, eyes narrowed shrewdly. “She was, I believe, ‘flensed’. Without the swift application of healing… I cannot believe she lasted long.”

“Poor lady,” Davon said quietly.

Respectfully.

Incensingly.

Ciraya very carefully crossed her arms and clenched her fists. “How… how did this happen? The last I heard, she was… she was at study. She was fine.”

“We believe one of the demons in here had imitated her voice. The corpse of Mistress Arithos wasn’t discovered for some hours, when a pre-activated detection-spell triggered upon the… the remains.” Davon drew himself up, and gestured into the room. “Would you like to enter?”

Ciraya didn’t move a muscle.

So when she called through the door… that wasn’t her?

She felt sick all of a sudden – then the nausea was gone, fuel for a fire of anger that rose up, consuming all other concerns.

I should’ve known!

“Why wasn’t I contacted?” she asked between gritted teeth.

“As you have been told, we were unaware of her passing for a long time.” Davon’s face was tight, a mask of emotionlessness. “We are uncertain… precisely when she entered Nethernum.”

“You still didn’t answer my question, respected adept.”

“Come now.” Irithsia was trying to sound sympathetic, but it came across as a reprimand all the same. “There was hardly some dictate, that you be contacted upon her death. We have had much on our minds, beyond reaching out to one journeyman serving in the Magisterium. Surely you understand this?”

No, she wanted to hiss.

“The rituals must be observed. The passing of a Master or Mistress of the Seven-Star Swords is not some minor event.” Davon seemed to read the answer in her eyes, and was even more obvious in his hostility. “My dear Ciraya, what would you expect? Next you will be criticising us for moving her body. There is an order to these things. If you stay with us, in time you will learn. You will see the reigns of more Masters, more Mistresses. Their deaths –”

“If I stay with you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that –”

Ciraya turned on her heel and strode to the stair.

“But – did we not come all the way up here to show you –”

“Did you not desire to inspect –”

She ignored their protests, their course-correction attempts. They’d already given away their real game.

Exclusion. Taking control away from unstable elements like her. Pushing her back. Back to where she used to be. Back down where she belonged.

As she hastened down the stairwell she looked at her hands. She had thrown herself into the tattoos as she had into all the other varied aspects of her career. There was no simple stopping-point. There was always another ward to trace, another rite to deconstruct, and there was no better place than the flesh to record her work, no more sacred sheet of paper than the runic skin that enclosed her, wrapped tight about her soul.

The ink… There was no questioning it. The designs weren’t just part of her. They were the best part.

I did it for me. Not for her. Not for them.

She thundered down the stairs, past the entrances to the vast Red Library, the respectable Purple Library, the bare-shelved Green Library. Ronuth was there, coming the other way, already paling and stumbling; she charged past him, ignoring his insipid salutations, the seven-sword pattern on his open hand as he lifted it to wave…

Fe beneath her, she pounded the streets, putting as much distance as possible between herself and them, that place, those memories. Her history. Her life.

An Incursion had never affected her like this. She’d had ‘friends’ that had died, many times in the past. People she’d held at arms length. People who knew her well-enough to know they only half-knew her. And she missed those people, in a way. At least once a week she’d think about Ilitar and Haspophel’s pointless deaths, think about wringing the neck of the heretic who slew them. She’d wonder about what’d happened to Emrelet. How the fierce Onsolorian met her final end.

There weren’t many of them left, and, of the sort who really knew her, only one of two remained.

Henthae, she thought as she rode south, the wind in her eyes. Mistress Henthae, where are you?

And, as if by divine miracle, the soothing, motherly voice answered.

* * *

She brought Fe to a halt on the edge of the cohort and Mistress Henthae came floating to meet her, buoyed up by a strong-looking flight-spell.

“Oh, Ciraya,” said the enchantress, and those two words, laden with such grief, were as good to the sorceress as the long, firm embrace she’d never let herself surrender to.

“Mistress.”

“I only just found out about poor Eneleyn – rest assured, we will discuss the matter. For now,” the enchantress gestured to the quiet ranks of magisters, “would you join us? I am overdue to meet Feychilde. He needs returning to the place he belongs.”

Ciraya eyed her fellow magisters. Their garish robes. Their sullen faces.

“You’re…” Her mouth was dry all of a sudden. “You’re mobilising… to fight him?”

“To crush him,” the old woman snapped. “He has broken every edict known to god and man, flauted every rule. To return, from Magicrux Zyger! Who knows what dark magic he has in his employ, beyond the eolastyr?”

Ciraya closed her eyes and the feel of his touch came back to her. Just one more part of a very long day… the arch-sorcerer’s fingers like electric on her neck.

Is it really true?

Is it Mistress Arithos’s killer?

She opened her eyes once more.

“You believe he has one?” was all she said.

“One or more!” Mistress Henthae’s eyes shone with fervour. “And you – you were the one! You found him! What – what dalliance is this!”

Henthae advanced a few yards, face twisted by murderous fury. With an uncanny simultaneity, the nearest magisters turned hostile expressions on the sorceress.

Ciraya balked, startled at the automaton-like reactions. Fe sensed her distress and coiled beneath her, readying the springy limbs to run.

“What have you done, Mistress?” the sorceress cried. “What – what have you –”

The enchantress eyed her like she was worthless. “Why, only what I’ve always done. The dragon began it, of course. But when I realised how easy it had been…”

The enchantress laughed – a throbbing, throaty, terrifying laugh.

“… how easy it would be… Whatever else would you expect of me, Miss Ostelwin? The fugitive must be put down.

“And you must help me.”

* * *

She was right there, right at Henthae’s side, as it all came tumbling down.

In the aftermath she abandoned them all. The Mistress didn’t cry after her, but some of the high-ranked magisters did. Their voices – they carried mixed motivations. The horror-struck, wanting Ciraya to stay so they could meld their miseries with her own, pull her down with them into the mire of hopelessness. The angered, thinking that perhaps Ciraya was complicit in Henthae’s madness, wanting to drag her over the same coals. The confused, still incapable of coming to terms with what had just been done to them.

Fe tore at the muddy roadway, carrying her onwards. She didn’t know where they were going but that was okay. Fe knew her mistress needed to go for a run, so they ran. The destination didn’t matter one bit.

As night-time came, the familiar, comforting darkness shrouding the city, she found herself in a North Lowtown pub. The walls and furniture were intact – well, as intact as could be expected for a tavern of its calibre – but the atmosphere was truly grim. Almost every patron drank alone. These were the people with nothing left to fight for, nothing out there to keep them from being in here… and she fitted right in with them. Even the balding guy behind the bar had barely a word for her – he simply stared at her until she produced copper, then dipped her a not-very-frothy tankard.

“Margister,” a drunk slurred at her when she went back to the bar for her second refill. “Margister, ‘ere!”

She slowly turned her head to regard the sloppy idiot.

She was only two beers in. She looked him up and down coldly.

“We’ll ‘as no trouble here, Rowle,” the barman said quietly, not even lifting his gaze to the sweaty-vested man; clearly Rowle was a regular. “Not terday.”

She went back to her table, unaccosted, though she felt the eyes on her from all corners. She didn’t know what the barman was so frightened of. She wouldn’t need spells to handle a staggering buffoon like Rowle, and one example would soon settle the tempers of any other belligerent patrons who fancied testing her mettle.

She kept her ears open, and focussed her gaze on the thin layer of foam floating on the ale. Using the long dark-blue nail of her index finger she cut lines into the froth, pointlessly practising her sigils like a good little girl, until all the bubbles fully dispersed.

Henthae and Arithos. Both of them in one day.

She half-laughed, then took a long swig.

By the time she finished her third she was already sauntering back to the bar, swaying as she went. She looked across with disdain at the drooling fool three seats over.

“Yeah, Rowse,” she croaked at the sleeping man. “Not today, Rowse.” She put Fe on the counter, where the tiny yithandreng stretched, extending her claws and scratching at the wooden surface. “All I got to do is say the one word, one word and this little thing’s gonna… gonna…”

“Don’t give him any grief, please, miss,” Mr. Almost-Bald said to her, sounding weary in his bones. His eyes were fixed on the miniature demon stretched out on his bar. “Poor man. Lost all what he had. Musta been two moons back now. Wife and son, gone in the slaughter they was.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s an ‘ard life, eh, miss? Eh?”

He was trying to engage, in spite of everything. Did he want to help her now all of a sudden, or under his tired exterior did he long for the violence too, just like Rowse had done?

She kept her eyes on the two coins as she slid them across the counter, suddenly unwilling, incapable of meeting his eyes.

She remembered what Kas said. She knew the symbol she wore for what it was.

She hated it, she thought. Yes, that was right: she hated it.

She took Fe and tramped back to her table, her little home away from home – not that she had a home, anyway, right? – not anymore – and pondered her options.

It’s not like the ink. It’s not part of me. I never painted their star on me. In me. I just wear it. My stars are… my stars are five-pointed. Seven of them…

‘Seven swords for seven lords, and all the hells can’t hold ’em; seven stars for seven bards and not a truth was told ’em…’

The legends of the formation of the Swords were a topic of much debate. Whether the original seven lords really existed – who they were, what they achieved – should have really been a matter of record. The tower was founded as little as two hundred years ago, and certainly its basements held none of the ancient mystery possessed by Magicrux Izian. But the turmoil of the Reformation had upended everything, and even the most ancient elves interviewed for academic purposes could recall little except the chaos. A few years ago Ciraya and some of her fellow pupils had gone over the historical record, searching for clues, answers to two-century-old conundrums. The most amazing thing was how people of the past viewed the times they lived in. The events that would be looked back upon and scrutinised for every minor detail were rarely those that captured the public opinion of the day. It seemed that by a hundred and fifty years ago the original seven Sword-Masters had already passed into legend, their identities a topic of conjecture and debate. Separating rumour from fact was beyond her skills and the skills of her ‘friends’, yet there was such enjoyment to be found even in base speculation. Even when she’d turned her attention to the academic literature she’d found the historians themselves were entangled in disagreements she thought of as, well, academic. Were the original Masters really all men? Several sources indicated the presence of Sword-Mistresses. Could it be that they were seven women, as one researcher boldly proclaimed? Or was it true, per the eye-witness testimony of one long-dead dwarf, that two of them were women, with five men? What about the swords themselves? At least one source said that one of the original Masters wielded an axe. Wasn’t that interesting…!

Why such meaningless facets of the lore had become the primary fixations of the historical societies, she had no notion. Respected authorities would sit in forgotten rooms to hold discussions for hours – she’d attended one in her youthful naivety, once – and the dry disagreements about swords versus axes had made her nauseous even then, when her interest in such matters was at its keenest.

She’d been such an idiot. Who even cared? Why should she have ever cared? Was it just to make two old women like her? A demon-addict and a thought-thief! Was it to gain power, prestige? What power? What prestige?

No. That had been the excuse she’d given herself, in later years, looking back at her sixteen-year-old self with a scathing eye.

The truth was… it still interested her. She was still a curious girl, in her heart of hearts. Her thirst was for knowledge, not power. If it weren’t for all the external layers she’d had to build up – when she almost killed those men, those absolute fools who thought a rust-splotched knife could contend with her sorcery –

I could’ve been a professor, she thought glumly, staring down into the flat ale with the side of her head supported by her knuckles. This pint was slower-going. There were no bubbles left in which to make patterns but she made them all the same, lines only her imagination could perceive, her free hand hanging above her beer like a witch’s over a cauldron.

The door banged open, louder than any sound she’d heard since she arrived… distant-enough through the fog of the booze to be ignored.

Professor Ostelwin, she mused. Famed on campus. Most-tattooed sorceress of her rank. Scathing remarks. Too cool for her age. Yeah. That would’ve been me. The students would love me. Love me, and fear me. Equal measure.

“A magister!” someone yelled. “What’s ‘er kind doin’ in ‘ere!”

Whoever it was, they were enraged. Slowly, like a creature stirring from a months-long hibernation, she craned her neck to see.

Oh, drop!…

She almost fell out of her chair, scrambling to her feet as the four thick-necked men lunged at her.

The grabbing-hand of the first missed her by feet or by inches, she couldn’t tell – she was staggering back by instinct, trying to put the corner of the table between herself and her attackers.

She attempted to glower. “I’m warning y-“

One of them had come around behind her without her even noticing, and yanked her off-balance by her hood. She twisted to get free and though she succeeded in making him lose his grip, she couldn’t do a thing about her momentum. Her warning was cut short as she tumbled, slamming down on her back between the chairs.

“Droppin’ demon-freak,” he spat at her, leaning over her face, breath stinking of wane and worse.

“Doan letter talk!” someone shouted. “Keep ‘er ‘ands out ‘er pockets!” There was a swift scraping squeak, chair-legs dragged across floorboards.

Ciraya was lithe and stringy. She’d gone down harder before, and the alcohol removed at least ninety percent of the pain she should’ve been experiencing.

Don’t use Fe, she told herself. Don’t lose control.

She stuck a bunch of her dark-blue nails in her attacker’s face instead, clawing down for purchase as she pulled herself up, pushing with the other hand –

Eyes can be fixed.

As he screamed, her middle digit sinking up to the fingertip inside his eye-socket, someone struck her support-arm with something heavy. A boot, maybe. Right in the elbow.

Gasping, she fell back again. Gore on her fingers. Boots and wails, pounding her.

Don’t do it. Don’t lose control.

She could take it. She’d been hurt before. She understood. In her bones. Her clan. The magisters. Magisters took something from the men. Now they took something back. She was the target. She would be made to suffer. She could take it. She’d taken worse!

“Aaaah! Kill the witch! Kill it, kill it and skin it! Look at it! What is it? What even is it!”

“Give us that.”

There was no metallic zing, no tell that she could perceive. But she knew it from the ice in that voice. He was asking for a weapon.

My weapon is wriggling in my pocket. My weapon can’t do a thing. Not a thing. Not without my say-so.

She glanced up between her arms, braced protectively around her head. Saw them, leering over her, one with his foot raised to stamp on her once more.

Die a fool, Ciraya. Die a fool, but not a criminal.

You’re better than both of them.

She shouldn’t have swivelled her head to look up; the booted heel landed in her chin. Her forearm absorbed the brunt of it but she still groaned as her teeth clattered, jaw ringing with the impact.

The same rage still lived in her. She snapped out with her hands and gripped the retreating foot, heaving with all her might –

She’d forgotten about her elbow. It hadn’t just been hurt, when it was kicked a moment ago – it was broken, almost inverted. What in her drunken mind’s eye would be a smooth manoeuvre became anything but; she flailed uselessly against the retracting foot and soon it was out of reach. Her brain couldn’t process it. Her motion had been a slick move that would be the first of many as she slid to her feet, slipping their untrained strikes, landing telling blows of her own… She couldn’t even grab his foot.

She was inebriated, outnumbered. She downplayed the strength of four full-grown, motivated men, while at the same time overestimating the value of her combat experience.

She’d left her flanks exposed by extending her arms and someone toed her full-force in the ribs. The agony of it ripped through her, the sheer power of the blow lifting her and dropping her again, so that the back of her skull gave a thick clonk! sound. Blood filled her mouth as she punctured her tongue with her teeth, almost biting the end of it off.

She’d fought alongside champions. Survived Incursions. Destroyed darkmages in duels. And it was this, this that finished her. The back of her head connecting with the floor, surrounded by fools.

What a stupid way to die.

And die she would.

She had enough consciousness left in her to form her final words. These last thoughts, given breath – it was the only way she could save herself.

But she didn’t call to the demon to grow, defend her. Didn’t call for the Feast to begin, as much as that was what she should have done. That was the way of dark gods, to use magic upon misguided men. And she knew where she was bound. She knew which gods would claim her soul, if she made a mistake.

She made no mistake.

“Mortiforn,” she whispered from the tornado of pain as she sank down into it, feeling the god’s name burst in red bubbles on her lips. “Mortiforn…”

Then the waters of unconsciousness closed over her head, and if they used the weapon on her body she never felt it. She was already gone.

* * *

When she came around there was something wet and cold on her face; her first reaction was to paw at it with her right hand, but it seemed to evade all her attempts to bat it away – it was moving, leaving her skin and then returning, softly, over and over –

“There, miss. Yer’ll be a’right.”

The barman’s gentle voice, close by. The wet thing – it was in his hand. He was… mopping at her face.

She pushed herself upright – her head felt like a melon, simultaneously far larger and heavier than it ought. Her vision swam when she braved the visible world, opening her eyelids just a crack.

Light hurt but the candles in here were sparse, the nearest far-off, their illumination rather dim. It wasn’t so bad.

She turned her stare upon the concerned-looking Mr. Almost-Bald, crouching beside her. Over his shoulder she saw the others who must’ve come to her rescue, loitering around the nearby tables. Rowse was amongst them, exchanging slurred words with another drunk, a bright smile on his weathered face.

Through the daze she heard her own words as a caustic croak, and it took her aback, to hear herself as they always heard her.

“What happened?”

“All I know, is what yer said.” The barman’s voice was low and calm, and he put the damp rag in her hand so she could dab at her own face. “Yer could’a ‘ad yer… thing grow big, right? I seen one ‘as like it, once. Fort it was a snake, ‘fore it went all massive. Gob liker dragon.” He drew a deep breath, then released it with a shudder. “All I know is, yer didden. They was gonna kill yer, miss. Why didden yer give ‘em some back?”

She forced herself to swallow. Talking hurt. Her tongue hurt.

“Couldn’t.” It was impossible to put into words. “Can’t kill them. Not… Not after Kas.”

I’m not dark.

She couldn’t put the thoughts in order. She screwed the rag up in her hand and pressed it hard into the centre of her forehead, praying for everything to stop spinning.

Then, belatedly, she sent her hand to her belt.

Pouches…

Fe was still wriggling in her pocket. The fiend’s affection for her, such as it was, always made her frustrated whenever Ciraya was hurt. Especially if it was a situation she could’ve helped fix only for her mistress to keep her on the side-lines. That frustration would have to be released in a gallop, soon, or else Ciraya would have to dismiss her and let the demon express herself on her plane of origin without any of the usual limitations. Otherwise the summoning-spell binding the yithandreng to the sorceress’s will would strain, maybe even snap, long before its proper expiration.

Mumbling apologies, Ciraya found the tear in her belt where the straps had been ripped.

“No need to ‘pologise, miss.” The barman stood up, and the people lounging around started heading back to their spots around the room. Ciraya only noted the chair-leg as the balding man retrieved it from the next table, smacking it down into the palm of his empty hand. “Sick to me tonsils o’ them rotten folk: Marbin’s lot, an’ that Gebbured too. No accountin’ the motivations o’ men. They gets driven by summat they thinks they can explain, only it’s not. It’s summat off, deep inside.”

She blinked.

I understand their motivations. I know why they wanted to kill me.

Doesn’t he?

“Doan look at me like that, miss. I tend bar, remember.” He misunderstood her sceptical gaze, responding by winking and smiling congenially – a bit of action certainly seemed to have perked him up. “Only too ‘appy t’ oblige yer. Like yer say, that Kas – yer mean Feychilde, right? You know ‘im?”

She croaked in the affirmative.

“Yeah, well… least one of ’em’s got ‘is ‘ead screwed on the right way round.” He glanced at her fumbling hand. “Ah, sorry they got off wi’ yer packets, like. Was they full o’ coin? Didden ‘alf jingle when they ran!”

Ciraya shook her head, then instantly stopped; knocking her brain around inside her skull made the throbbing ten times worse.

“Well, ne’er mind. Less it breathes, yer can get a new one.”

My elixirs…

Right now, with the city in the state it was in, the populace lost and leaderless… the asking price of everything was going to go through the roof over the coming days – food, clothing, protection – never mind magically-enhanced goods. She’d seen it before, back home: the value of the currency would plummet, at least until the city stabilised and the supply-lines were reopened… maybe permanently, if the magical colleges and guilds had suffered a similar attrition rate to the Magisterium over the course of the day.

She would’ve preferred it if they’d made off with every coin in her pocket – anything to stop them taking her last healing potion. They clearly hadn’t had long to search her, given they hadn’t found the hidden pouches on the inside of her robe where she kept her meagre supply of gold, her most important reagents…

Why didn’t I keep my healing potion hidden?

Because I might’ve needed it.

Like you don’t need it now!

She spent the next ten minutes recovering, her back propped up against a wall, trying and failing to sort out her thoughts. The barman, who gave his name as Dez, brought her a tankard of clean-ish water and she sipped at it until the pain started to recede.

“What do you think, girl?” she crooned down into her lap, looking at Fe. The yithandreng was coiled about the tankard’s handle, quivering, forcing Ciraya to lift it with two hands to save herself from pricking her fingers. “Are you ready to go?”

Fe met her eyes. The miniature red orbs were filled with hunger – hunger for motion, for violence. For food.

“Yeah, we’ll get you a pig if there’s one going. I’ll have to pay over the odds for it. But that’s okay.”

Fe seemed to smile.

“Come on.”

She had Fe grow, the tiny lizard-like demon inflating in the span of a second to the size of a big dog, or small pony. Ciraya crawled atop her, settling herself in her accustomed place. It was far less comfortable – far spikier – than usual.

She heard the gasps, the squeaks of flung-back chairs; by the time she was ready to lift her head and peer about, she was impressed to find that only a handful of the patrons had fled their tables, pressing themselves into the far wall with their anxious eyes peering unblinkingly back at her.

Fe pottered towards the door, obviously a bit unused to operating her limbs when locked into this medium scale.

“Thanks, Dez,” she said as loudly as she could without splitting her own head open. “Thanks, Rowse. Thanks, everyone.”

Dez looked concerned, but clearly thought better of trying to stop her, nodding to her gravely. Some of the scared patrons managed to wave. Others muttered. Some actually said bye without sounding like dropheads.

Fe poked the door open with her nose, then swelled to her accustomed size as soon as they cleared the doorway. Before Ciraya could even take note of the time, eyeing the dark skies in confusion, they were pounding down the roadways. Not for the first time, the sorceress thanked the gods for yithandreng impact absorption.

“Where are you taking me, girl?” she asked.

“Dweoslab,” was the panted answer.

“No, girl!” she cried in Infernal. The yithandreng instantly slowed her pace, tossing her head impatiently. “No. I’m not going back there. Not now. Not ever.”

The magicrux were enemy territory now. She’d been Henthae’s creature, and Arithos’s.

No longer.

“But you must be attended to by a healing magician, Mistress.“

“No,” she snapped, then, more gently, repeated: “No…”

This was the balance-point of her life. Like so many others within these cursed white walls, this day following the Incursion was the very crux about which all her future wheeled.

She had to be clear-headed, and the pain helped with that. It always had.

“Fe… Take me to the river.”

* * *

She sat on a patch of rock overlooking the Blackrush. The night sky was a smooth pearl, its bands reflecting the dark-blue heart of the oceans, swimming with stars. The gods were strong, tonight. One could almost be forgiven for believing that the only purpose of night was to accommodate such beauty. Yet the Blind Eye sailed on its course, almost open, a constant, persistent reminder of Kaile’s eternal vigilance. A constant, persistent reminder of the need for such vigilance.

The darkness doesn’t just exist to let the light shine. It was there before. It will be there after. And if we don’t make it to Celestium…

She looked across to Ismethyl’s constellations and held up her hand, letting starlight fall into its inky mirror as she had that sacred night, when she was initiated. A night of similar significance. She knew it in her soul. She had to decide, now, forever. Portent itself rose up inside her, making every second seem a minute, every thought an eternal etching on the substance of her mind.

I swore to do war upon the darkness, its own tools my weapons.

She closed her fist, trapping the starlight, feeling it burn there in her palm as she’d been taught.

It’s like Kas always said… I never swore to fight fairly. If you’re my guide, Ismethyl, where do you point me? Did I do wrong? Did I fear Kaile’s swift sword of justice over your seven swords of victory? Should I have shown those four fools the justice of Ciraya the sorceress?

She lowered her hand, the muscles in her arm beginning to ache.

A wind came racing down the river, and she looked up to see a blue-feathered condor, its wingspan almost half the Blackrush’s breadth, almost surfing the waves.

Glimmermere.

The druidess wheeled, coming about to settle down and shrink onto the rocks. It was only then that Ciraya heard the second wind, a great grey osprey following in Glimmermere’s wake. The latter druid wheeled about, landing a little more clumsily beside the champion-turned-heretic.

“You’re hurt,” Imrye said. It was odd, seeing the still too-large beak move as it emitted human sounds. “You’re in dire need of repair, magister.”

Or elvish sounds, she reflected, as the druidess transformed. Imrye was perhaps even pure-blood, she thought, now she was seeing her again up-close. The smoothness of her black skin, the vibrant colour of her hair, the delicate, chiselled features – no, there was no mistaking Glimmermere’s heritage.

The second druid followed suit, changing shape, and though her appearance was less otherworldly in nature Ciraya was taken aback even more to look upon her – the druidess’s likeness to her dead friend stunned her. The newcomer wore a strange coat and a stranger smile – an expression of astonishment, but dulled by overexposure.

She’s new to this, the sorceress thought. Or new to Mund, even.

Funny, how much she resembles Emrelet.

“This is Kirid,” Glimmermere said, gesturing. “She followed Feychilde down from Telior. I’m showing her the ropes.”

Feychilde’s latest lover, she realised with an inward sigh.

The newcomer ducked her head in an awkward nod, the oddly-wistful smile still on her face. “I am the please to meet you, magizter.”

“Ciraya,” the sorceress croaked.

“Ziraya,” the druidess repeated, beaming.

Ciraya moved her eyes to Imrye. In order to face her properly she was forced to first lean back, gingerly placing her hurt elbow on the rock behind her.

“No, and no,” she said with every bit of casualness she could muster. “No healing, thanks and all. And not a magister, either. Not anymore.”

“Oh really?” The tall druidess folded her arms across her chest. “Symbol on your chest says otherwise.”

“Carrying an extra robe in that satchel? It’s still warm out and I’m not too shy to change in front of you.”

“Fair play.” Glimmermere hunkered down with her arms back, as though she were about to transform into an avian shape again – but no metamorphosis occurred. The former champion must’ve just been too used to the pose; she looked altogether at her ease in what should’ve been an awkward position. “So… You another one that’s thinking of running?”

Ciraya just shook her head. No spinning anymore, at least.

“Good to hear. There’s nothing out there. Nothing like Mund.” The druidess regarded her sombrely. “It took me a long, long time to realise. But you’re wrong about the healing, child. You’re in need, as much as you tell yourself otherwise. If you’re thinking of helping out with this lovely dragon apocalypse we’ve got booked as anything other than a zombie – you aren’t, right? Planning on becoming undead, because –”

Ciraya snorted. Imrye allowed a small smile to cross her features, while Kirid stood in silence looking between them.

“Good. I know how to burn the undead down, now. It doesn’t look painless.”

“Pain is a teacher.” Ciraya clenched her good fist. “Pain heightens everything.”

“And you’re afraid that without the pain you’ll lose something of yourself?”

“I know I will.” She laughed. To her own ears the sound of her cackling was cold and haughty – in spite of the possible age difference between them, and the obvious power disparity, there were things she knew that this ageless druidess had never learned. “Every one of these was a lesson.” She held up her fist and unfurled her fingers, turning her arm so that the starlight danced down the inky designs. “There’s no going back.”

“Yet I could undo them. Kirid could, too. Take the body-parts off one at a time, regrow them. Or just take the skin off in one go. Better to put you to sleep first for that one, though. People tend to panic when their skin disappears.”

Was that a threat? She wasn’t afraid of Imrye, even after everything she’d seen.

“Speaking from experience?”

She let the question linger, hanging in the air between them. Imrye might’ve been older, might’ve had the seniority. But Ciraya had the superiority. And right now it had to be going through the druidess’s head: Did she witness the aftermath, deal with my victims once the rats were done with them? Followed by the inevitable corollary: Did she know it was me?

Yes and yes were the answers. Not everything ‘Glimmermere’ did after her descent to the Thirteen Candles was beyond the sight of Magisterium diviners. Most of it, but not all.

“Those animals… they deserved it,” the druidess said at last, managing to sound detached.

“That’s not our place to decide.” Ciraya looked pointedly up at the moon.

“Ah, but we’re the gods’ hands. They won’t serve our justice, sorceress. It is for us to serve.”

“I’m surprised you of all people think animals can deserve punishment.”

“Everything that lives, dies.” Imrye shrugged. “You mistake me. The rats deserved their food, more than Mund deserved those… those fiends-in-waiting.”

“And yet you want to just go right back to it. Healer supreme. Filling Leafcloak’s shoes, with blood up your elbows.”

“Don’t define yourself by someone else. Not a man you want to be with. Not a woman you want to be. It’s the first thing I told Kirid.” The two women exchanged a glance, and the foreigner’s smile slipped a bit. “But I’m still a healer,” Imrye went on. “I still want to fix things. The right things. Like you. My eyes are open now, ex-magister. I’ll only offer it once more. The pain’s one thing, child, and your brain’ll survive, but the numbness there in your side? That’s a bleed, in your kidney. The Seven-Star Swords will be miffed if I just pass you over.”

The sorceress sniffed. “They wouldn’t even know I was gone.”

That did it. For only the third time in her life, Ciraya felt a sob come ripping through her chest, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. The tears started to fall down her face and the shame of it made her angry, but there was nowhere for the anger to go but out, out, out through her eyes, as if she contained all the oceans of the world within her skull.

Then she flinched, but there was nothing she could do to reject that gentle, insistent embrace. The arm placed about her shoulders was immovable, a steel trap, when she tried to squirm away.

She beat at the archmage, but she might as well have attacked a mannequin. The woman’s head didn’t even budge. Her skin, when struck, was like heavy wood or soft stone.

Finally, there was nowhere to go, nothing to do but bury her head in the woman’s shoulder and weep.

She knew instantly that it wasn’t Imrye that touched her – it was Kirid. The fabric was some kind of felt and it reeked of the sea, salt stronger than any her own eyes could produce. The sorceress knew their healing didn’t require touch, especially if the wound was non-magical. This wasn’t some necessary step to the performance of her spells. This was comfort.

“Vill you let me do it?” the stranger asked her. “I may be new to your city, but I know my craft vell. It vill only take a moment.”

“Let me go.“

Kirid seemed to take her reticence for scepticism, and as the druidess slowly withdrew the arm enclosing her, allowing Ciraya to retreat back and mop at her face with her sleeve, the archmage continued to press her case, sounding confused:

“I haf healed many, many of Mund zis day. Im-yee trust me. I haf healed Raz – Feychilde, I mean. Efen… efen after ze Diphroniz, h-he trust me –”

“Oh, just heal me already, damn you,” she growled, glowering up at the Emrelet clone through her tears. “Of course he trusts you.”

Did he tell you how much you look like his ex?

Emrelet wouldn’t have been dead when he’d met Kirid, but how was that making him feel about his little rebound now? He surely knew of Emrelet’s fate.

Kirid’s face just flushed with pleasure at Ciraya’s compliment, the foreigner not capable of discerning the dagger hidden beneath the cloak. The eyes of the archmage came alight suddenly and she reached out, her hand gloved in a radiance that seemed to match the pine-green glow of her gaze. She placed her palm down on the sorceress’s hairless scalp, and there was no change in sensation – no numbness, no pain-relief of any kind. Yet just a few seconds later the druidess withdrew her hand, its light now spent.

“Is this vot you vont?” Kirid asked gently.

Ciraya just frowned. The tears were spent now. “I don’t know what I want. Apparently he does.”

She ignored their curious glances and slowly got to her feet. Imrye at least should’ve recognised the similarity between Kirid and Emrelet, shouldn’t she? She should’ve understood.

Fools. Fools, both of them.

Her motion prompted them to stand as well, doing it faster, better than she could. Before she even got up both of the druids were there, towering over her, tall, austere specimens that they were – aloof, untouchable demigods regarding her as if she were some novelty. The scrawny sorceress clambered to her feet then stepped aside to a flat area beside the rocks, digging into one of her secret pockets for her vial of cursed dust, her unlight-candle, her flame-maker…

“I’m summoning a demon,” she called over her shoulder. “No one freak out.”

“We’re leaving,” Imrye called. “No need to thank us.”

Ciraya kept her eyes and mind on her task, until she heard the two great birds take wing once more, rushing south-east down the river. Only then did she look after them, watching them vanish into the distance.

Thanks for breaking me, druids. Thanks for nothing.

She returned her gaze to her circle, returned her lips to her chant.

What can they understand? They see death as an enemy. A leashed dog, to set upon their foes.

How I used to.

Within a minute she was waiting for the red fires of Infernum to rise up, for the portal to birth Fe back onto the material plane.

It’s unfair of me to expect too much of them. They’re blind. They’re blind. I’m like the one-eyed man, lost in their land. Lost and alone.

The crimson flames shot up, then shrank back down once more. The yithandreng was coiled about the candle as usual, and Ciraya stooped to retrieve her.

“Not quite alone,” she murmured.

We have to find Kas.

Fe hissed.

“Good girl. C’mon.” She placed her down. “Let’s go for a –”

“People of Mund!”

Kas’s voice came roaring from the sky above her head, pouring up out of the ground at her feet. The foam of the Rush bubbled with it.

It was the Invocatrix, again.

Oh gods, what now?

“People of Mund! I am sorry to disturb you, and for those of you who still have beds, you can return to them shortly. But I must speak, and you must listen. For I need to present you with a choice. This will be the most momentous decision you ever make in your lives. Please, give me a minute of your time.”

“So long as you don’t expect me to stop,” she said, mounting Fe.

“I am Feychilde. I was born Kastyr Mortenn, of Mud Lane, Helbert’s Bend, Sticktown. Yes. I am still alive. I never died. They failed in their attempts to kill me. And as much as you would think I hate them, I would have you hear me now – the violence against the magisters must end. Nightfell and I will continue to intervene where lives are put in danger. We will not have you use us as agents of revolution, whether we desire change or not. We are entrusted with power as the old powers are fading. The Arrealbord is gone, never to return the same again. The Thirteen Candles melt. The Magisterium… It is ours now. We will no longer work against one another. We will work as one. Do not attack your own. They will be your brothers and sisters in the days to come.”

Well no one came to my dropping rescue, did they? she thought as she pounded her way northwards.

“The Magisterium’s rotten core has been removed. Transformed. By the will of the gods I have been forced to wrest control of the city from their hands. I act in the name of Kultemeren and Yune, and tomorrow night Keliko Henthae will be shriven in the eyes of Illodin and Glaif, reborn as Oathbreaker, a champion of Mund. But I warn you. We are no more heroes than we are tyrants. I do not claim to be unstained; I do not wish to rule. Nor does Everseer, who came before you once before like this. She works for me now. No longer must you fear her wrath. She and Killstop together operate as the champion Nightfell, and without their aid and the aid of many former heretics and champions there would be no more Mund remaining this day. Even if you hate them, I ask you also to love them, if you can find a corner of your heart with which to do so. They risk more than just their lives in fighting for yours. They risk their very souls. And you should recognise that.

“We all fell into the dragons’ traps. Heresy is more than an enchantment, more than a fatalistic philosophy. It’s truth. And how could the Magisterium ensure we survived the oncoming Crucible without planning for it, expecting it, even longing for it, like a man with with a rotten tooth longing for its extraction? Mund has always been a sacrifice. But we aren’t bound to the altar, not yet. We champions – we’ll be the knife in your hand. Maybe we can slit the executioner’s throat before the axe falls. And we’ll die trying. That much we can promise.”

Ciraya, riding up Funnel Mile, caught the glances of slack-jawed beggars, gangs of mucky adolescent brats – but only their eyes were moving. Almost everyone was stock-still, absorbing Kas’s voice.

“The dragons are coming. Redgate is bringing them. This is no lie. No one will come out tomorrow to tell you I was wrong. The criers will all be informed. We will only tell you the truth, from now on, I promise it. But what happens if the Magisterium loses control? Do all their worst fears come to pass? Do we all flee? Do you raise your children on foreign soil, surrendering to hope to save you? I tell you now – Hope would have you fight! I will not call you craven if you run, will not tolerate to hear you called coward. But Oathbreaker has become one of us. One of us.

“Champions. Me and you.

“You know who you are. I’m speaking to you now. Stop what you’re doing and listen.”

The sorceress slowed Fe to a walk, then a stop. She joined the crowds in their tranquillity, and, though it was powerful enchantment-magic that made the arch-sorcerer’s voice audible throughout the city, that tranquillity was not forced. It was simply the reaction of the people.

Simply her reaction.

“Maybe you’re a magister. Maybe you’re a darkmage. You work for a guild. Heretic. Bauble-maker. Rune-tracer. I ask you… I give you the choice… for the sake of Mund, for the sake of the Five and the gods of light whose stars we would preserve… please. Come to me, tomorrow. Meet me at the Giltergrove. I broke all the secret armies. I need your help. We need to build a new one, in the open. If you have the power… bring it. Use it. We need it.

“I understand the pitfalls. The perils. But I’m doing it anyway. I’m opening a new college, right there in Sticktown, on the remains of my home. The Hand of Hope, I’ll call it. A school of sorcery, bigger and better than all the others. We’ll make weapons of dragonslaying. Demonslaying. Weapons that put the undead back where they belong. And yes – we’ll distribute them. We’ll go into it with our eyes open, arm ourselves for the battle. No tricks, people of Mund. I will accept all. Highborn. Lowborn. Somewhere-In-The-Middle-born. If you need purpose – come. I have your purpose right here! All I ask is that you’re willing to accept each other. You’ll be equals in my eyes. My equal. Every man or woman willing to fight – they are my brother. My – my sister. Put aside petty hatreds. Sow no more discontent. We’ll have plenty of discontent to come. And ladies and gentlemen… Ladies, and gentlemen… You’ll see dragons. With any luck… you’ll see dragons fall.”

A splotchy guy nearby started crowing in excitement. A woman who’d been eyeing Ciraya mistrustfully from a doorway lowered her glare at last.

“If you want to go – go, and go with the gods’ blessings. No one will stand against you. Take with you such provisions as you may, and run, run till you feel safe. But if you want to stay… be prepared. We will lead you into the coming nightmare, and through it, if we can. The black storm, this Incursion like no other – that was just a taste of what is to come. And I’m as weak, as guilty as any of you. Not a hero. A killer, just like Vardae. So if you want to trust us to rule until the Crucible is passed – trust this.

“We will submit. To you. When it’s all over, Vardae and I – we’ll go before the judges – whatever courts remain. We’ll take our punishments. Judge us, in place of the gods, as is your remit, Mund. We’ll put power aside, once our need of it is over. We’ll let you do with us as you will.

“I only pray enough of you come to our rescue tomorrow. When the sun is high over the Autumn Door, we’ll see. We’ll see, and we’ll start.

“It’s not something you can be ready for. That’s okay.

“We’ll make you ready.”

The voice fell away and didn’t return. Slowly, Ciraya came back to herself.

“Mistress?” Fe asked over her shoulder.

“Come on.” She pushed the yithandreng into a trot once more.

She didn’t know where he was going next, so she decided to wait for him in the one place he had to go. She parked Fe beside the mound of debris that had once been Mud Lane, gazing out into the charred mess. The weather hadn’t been kind. The infernal rain had drenched everything, then the summer sun had baked the moisture out of it; the aroma was unpleasant but such things didn’t really bother Ciraya. It was almost a homely scent. She’d spent years on the streets, wandering the districts aimlessly, and squalor was nothing new to her.

It didn’t take too long before her gamble paid off: she saw him coming streaming down through the air towards her, the dark blues and greens and greys of his tattered robe overwritten by the purplish blur of nethernal energies.

She’d spent long enough studying the wreckage that she decided to immediately voice her concerns.

“Knew you’d stop by,” she called out. “I don’t quite know how you’re planning on building a school here.”

The arch-sorcerer slowly floated down until he was at her eye-level atop Fe, hovering above the pancaked ruin of the Gold Griffin.

“To be honest,” he replied, gazing out over the mess, “neither do I.”

She didn’t like smiling – it had a way of making her look skeletal.

She eyed the debris sceptically instead. “I suppose… if you get enough people willing to help…”

He was nodding as his eyes went strobing the morass of timber. “I’m going to put demons on it. We’ll take it all out or… or pack it all down into a foundation? I’ve got a wizard, from Telior – I’ll ask Orcan for help with the earthworks. I’m more worried about getting the actual construction done. Frankly, I don’t have the foggiest what’s involved.”

Do I mention the eolastyr? This would’ve been the perfect time to confront him – force him to summon her, so she could confront the arch-demon…

More confrontation.

What was the point? Kas was right. After everything… the fiend was just a tool now, wasn’t she? It was all over.

“You’ll want Killstop,” Ciraya said instead, and let the self-deprecating smile free, no matter how ugly it made her look. “Half the work’s in the architect’s hands – planning the right craftsmen to be in the right places at the right times – making sure the right materials get their aero-inscriptions, chronomancy to set the cement…”

Kas was staring at her. Now he’d stopped moving he’d seemingly let go of some of his ghostly essences, and she thought she saw the glint of his green eyes in the moonlight. Paler than his new lover’s pine ones. Brighter.

She lowered her head, feeling heat in her cheeks and hoping to hide the signs of it with the folds of her hood.

“Go on,” he urged, then half-laughed. “Ah! Why am I not surprised you seem to know everything about it. You… you’re too good for the Swords, Ciraya. I only wish…”

“You wish what?”

Would he ask? Would he request her?

“Nothing.” He sighed heavily. “I know how you… never mind. Do you – do you know anyone in the industry? I mean – contacts in the guilds? I suppose I can just go annoy Ghemenion tomorrow…”

He slowly rotated in the air, casting his eyes north-east, towards Hightown.

“I won’t beg, Kastyr Mortenn, but I’ll listen if you ask.”

“What?”

“I…” Her croak was worse than usual through the frog in her throat; she cleared it, as quickly and quietly as she could, then tried again. “What do you even think I’m doing here, Feychilde?”

“You… you heard me. You’re… thinking of joining me?”

She saw the incredulous wide eyes, shining bright under the moon, and almost let her smile become a grin to match his own.

“Let’s say it’s on the cards… I won’t be some bit player, Kas. Not this time. I want to be in on the top floor.”

“But – I know, I mean, the Magisterium will let you, sure – I’ll droppin’ tell them to! – but the Swords? What about your oaths, and Arithos? If…”

She felt the smile drain from her face.

“Is everything okay?”

“Arithos is dead. One of your… eolastyr…”

She shook her head, seeing the sudden horror cross his face.

“It’s not important. Henthae… Henthae is something else.” She curled her lip. “As you well know.”

He nodded, frowning thoughtfully.

“So… here I am.”

She looked back at the mound, gestured at it, controlling herself so that the tears didn’t fill her eyes. She wasn’t going to do that again. Not in front of him.

“You didn’t answer my question.” His voice was low… concerned.

“You didn’t ask the right one.”

It took him a moment.

“Ciraya… damn it, Ciraya, why don’t I know your surname? Wait… Ciraya isn’t your surname, is it? Because that would just be weird, now.”

“Ostelwin,” she said with a snort.

He smiled gratefully. “Ciraya Ostelwin… will you join me? You can be the Middle Finger on the Hand of Hope.”

“Now that is an offer I can’t refuse.”

The arch-sorcerer bowed deeply in mid-air. “What do you have planned for tonight?”

Nothing. No one. Nowhere. “Why’d you ask?”

He pursed his lips. “Ah, no real reason. If you’re busy, we can just find the time over the next couple of days, but… yeah, I’d love to pick your brains over a curriculum. I’ve got some ideas where to start – I did get a bit of experience, in Telior – but…” He held up his open, empty hand.

“I was planning on a few more beers, to be honest.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Somewhere a bit safer than a Lowtown pub. Those druids did more than heal my bruises.” She glanced aside, and said it as quickly and smoothly as she could: “Are you not hooking up with Kirid tonight, then? Or would that be –” she gave her slyest smile, looking back up at him through her lashes “– much later?”

“Kirid?” He frowned. “Oh – oh.” His face fell. “You think, b-because she… No, I hardly know the woman. She tried to have me killed. It was this whole debacle. I…” He looked across at her curiously. “I’m over Emrelet – I didn’t even know what Kirid looked like, before we were already on our way to Mund.”

The druidesses’ reactions earlier on suddenly made much more sense. Ciraya felt her cheeks flame once again. What was she doing, acting like a schoolgirl?

Thankfully Kas didn’t seem to notice; he was focussed on the content of her words, rather than her complexion.

“So, you were attacked?”

She shrugged. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

She put a casual face on it but his keen eyes seemed to peer directly into her soul. He wasn’t buying it.

“We did everything we could, to protect you all… Some people are just put on this plane to be belligerent, I swear. Assaulting mages sworn to protect the city, when we’ve got all this hanging over our heads…”

“You’ve spent too long looking at the big picture. Even Mud Lane’s destruction… you weren’t here, Kas. Your hate might burn hot, but it cools quickly. There’s some here who’ll hate the Magisterium forever. They might hide it, especially while you’re around, but there’s no taking back what we’ve done. We lost control, long before you came back.”

He nodded. “You’re probably right. All the same… are you sure you’re okay?”

She bared her teeth, and he laughed.

“Aha! Fine… fine.” His grin slipped again somewhat, a flicker of nervous energy crossing his features, like he was worried. “Let’s find an open cask, then, and maybe you can come with me, if you’ve got nowhere better to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere a bit more private than here, I hope. I’m getting more attuned to my vampire senses, and we’re definitely being watched. It’s only a matter of time before they start getting really curious.”

She didn’t glance about; it would be futile, and would only make her look more suspicious to any witnesses. There had to be two hundred different windows overlooking them while they had their little chat.

“Whatever. But I need to tell Fe where we’re going, genius.”

He shook his head.

“Fly with me again.”

* * *

“Well I’ll be damned.” She marvelled at the ghost as it hovered there in the middle of the room. Its near-humanoid dimensions were blurred by a smear of indigo energy, like vibrant pulsing paint that clung not just to its translucent flesh but to the very air about it. “He really is an elf.”

“A dark elf,” Kas replied, picking up his ale-jar from the table, “if that makes any difference.”

“Not a clue.” She heard the hunger in her own voice; while he was hefting his beer she was setting hers back down, leaning forwards and eyeing the thing appraisingly. The dark elf’s eyes were closed, nothing but serenity on the beautiful, smeared features – yet the nethernal light seeped out from beneath his eyelids all the same. “It looks powerful.”

“He got an infusion directly from one of Zyger’s three guardians.” Kas said it with feigned nonchalance, but she could tell from the twitching at the corner of his mouth that he was trying to shock her. “But even if it’s stronger, the essence is no different to any of the others. I don’t know if it’s just because of the speed with which I took them, or if their souls really are just… duplicates?”

He drained half his jar and let it rest on his thigh, his hand atop it, staring off at the shuttered window as though he could see clean through it.

Maybe he can, she thought.

There’d been plenty of options, plenty of places for them to go, in spite of the ransacking gangs, the hordes of foreigners clamouring for housing. She could tell the empty buildings just from the volume levels, and when they started gaining height she was convinced he was going to claim a penthouse suite from one of the apartment-blocks they soared by, lounge there in the relative opulence of a landlord’s lofty residence. But he took her straight through the wall of one of the middle floors without explanation, suddenly swerving at the wooden surface and pulling her right through it with him.

It was a standard apartment for Sticktown. Wooden benches, the arms hacked at by delinquent children. A tiny stone fire-pit, long cold. Almost everything removable had been taken away except for some heavy tin cups, a mouldy plate, and half a candle.

The arch-sorcerer didn’t need the candle; a wave of his arm brought a comforting yellow illumination to the room. He summoned forth an imp called Gristlehead to cleanse the cups with hell-fire. They had no need of an actual fire – it was plenty warm-enough as it was. Within a minute they were settled on the benches, the keg of brown ale on the table between them, talking shop.

“If they had no time in the shadowland, their essences didn’t get a chance to develop.” She smacked her lips. It was strange to think that she’d partaken in this mighty ghost’s power just an hour earlier. Arch-sorcerers were excellent insulators; there was no discernible feedback whatsoever, not the merest tingle in her tattoos. “I’d bet good money if you’d let them stew, oh, a good few decades…”

“Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.”

“What actually happened out there, in Telior? These souls –” she glanced back across at the ghost “– how did you…?”

“Liberate them?”

She laughed. “Oh, so is that how you see it?”

“With them? Yes, I suppose.” He wasn’t joking now, she could tell. “It’s… it’s all a bit foggy at this point, to be honest, but once they died I rid myself of all my unwilling eldritches. Well, fey and undead, at least. But them…”

He turned his own eyes to the hovering ghost and spoke harshly in Netheric:

“You! What would you do if I released you to the shadowland?”

Its head turned sharply to regard him and the closed lids opened wide, exposing the twin amethyst stars behind its eyes; but its pressed-together lips never parted as it spoke, only seeming to swim across the surface of its face while the indigo blur endlessly shifted.

“I would seek out my kin.” Its voice was an icicle. “I warn you. Do not release me. Blood and bone, Master. Yours, and others’. Yours, and others’.”

Kas waved a beckoning hand, rejoining with the creature. He seemed to sit more comfortably almost instantly.

“They’re far better off with me. You know how it is, with demons.”

“They aren’t demons, Kas.”

“What’s the difference?”

She almost bit her lip. The matter of the eolastyr was still between them… Then, with a sigh, she relented.

“Demons are cool.”

It was his turn to laugh again. “Oh, fine. You’ve got me there. Did you know your colleagues – former colleagues – killed my Pinktongue?”

“If someone did that to Fe…” She shook her head and gulped some more beer. “Drop on the Magisterium. Let’s go over there and kill the lot of ’em.”

“Haha! I swear, there’s something in the atmosphere.”

“It’s called beer.”

“Cheers to that.”

He leaned over the table with ghostly fluidity – their mugs made a tinny clink, and some of her ale got in his cup.

“Thief,” she said, her lip curling.

“Thank youuuu,” he sing-songed before chugging.

“So…” She drained half her mug, set it down on the bench beside her, then slouched down, sticking her booted feet on the table between them. “Telior?”

* * *

By the time ‘Zabby’ was done illustrating Kas’s overseas stories with luridly-drawn landscapes, she had both her boots off and an old cushion under her heels, thoroughly enjoying the experience. Kas disappeared for five minutes so she took the opportunity to go and relieve herself. He returned with a pouch filled to the brim with nuts and berries, and sat next to her so they could share. She didn’t ask where he found them, crunching her way through three handfuls while the tale continued.

The gremlin replaced the waves of Telior with a huge cave and the gargantuan form of a dracolich. The final mouthful went unchewed for a few moments, as she took it in.

“I can’t believe you fought it,” she said thickly. She took another deep swig of beer and swept her tongue along her gums, finding the last shards of nut left and swallowing them.

“Redgate fought one just like it,” Kas said quietly, “and he won.”

He reached out for the gremlin, rejoining with it and creating a more-atmospheric sphere of light once more.

“He had help,” she said, equally quiet.

“So did I.”

“You’re afraid?”

Kas nodded. “A bit.” He closed his eyes then slowly opened them again and it was like a different person was looking across at her. “More than a bit. The Incursion – this last one, I mean… it’s shaken me. They almost broke the city. I… They had me, Ciraya. I would’ve been dead, if – if the crown hadn’t saved me.” He took another swig then put the beer down and sat back. “Do you – do you ever get tired?”

The question was sudden and strange. She cast him what she hoped would be a quizzical look.

“Tired of it all, I mean. What we’ve been through. What’s going on. What’s going to happen.”

She found herself shaking her head, a minute but firm motion.

“No, me neither.” The smile that came to his lips then was a twisted, painful thing, but she fancied it was the first time she’d seen a true smile on his face. “We’re messed up, aren’t we? Five ur-dragons from the dawn of time, and it’s like… then what?“

The bravado wasn’t working on her. “You won’t be alone next time either.” She turned a little towards him and put her hand on his. “We’ll be there. Let me and Fe have a crack at them.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. That’s what champions are for, right?”

He smiled thinly, falsely, looking down at her hand atop his. “But Redgate?”

Maybe it was something the druid did to her. Maybe it was the alcohol, or just the way he looked, imposing and scary and scared…

For all that Ciraya didn’t care to take Imrye’s advice, she understood what the elven archmage meant, and she appreciated it. But Kas didn’t represent a new master. He was a new mastery. A doorway to a new life.

Maybe you’re overdoing it.

She moved her hand back to her lap and sighed. “What about him?”

“He’s the only sorcerer I’ve ever met that I… you know…”

She cocked her head. “You don’t think you can take him? I thought you’d just – sucker-punch him…”

“He’s already dead, Ciraya.” He bit briefly at his lip. “I’ve got this horrible feeling – he’s not going to drop like all the others. He’s… beyond me.”

“Mal Malas dropped.”

“Mal Malas feared him. I heard it in his voice when he spoke. And the crown misled him. It wanted to be with me, handicapped him for its own purposes. Damn, Durgil, where are you?” He laughed, but it was a harrowed, haunted sound. “It wanted me to fight the Sinphalamax… It doesn’t matter. Any day now they’re going to spot a whole dropping flight of dracoliches over the sea, and Redgate’s going to be there, winging his way towards us. He’ll want us to bend the knee, living or dead. Quite why the gods of undeath are going to let it happen, is beyond me… if Mother-Chaos is against it…”

She scowled. “You’re not making any sense. Start at the beginning.”

“Sorry,” he said blandly. He patted her familiarly on the leg, then left his hand there. “Suppose I should’ve mentioned. They want to become gods, Ciraya. That’s why they’ve been stealing our souls. That’s why all this has been happening. Incursions. Archmages. It’s all the same thing. God-power for the dragon-gods.”

“What?”

“They killed the god of magic. Oh, how stupid are we? Of course there should be a god of magic… Maybe that’s why the Five were able to harness it…”

“Magic… is… divine?”

He nodded enthusiastically, his hand gripping at her thigh. “You see it!”

“Locus’s eyes!” she hissed, grateful for the fast-flowing conversation, the means to hide her sudden flush behind the topic of debate. Did he even know he was touching her? Did he recognise her permissive reactions for what they were? “Is that why druids can only change the things they’re wearing? I swear, it never made any sense, and everyone just acted like I was mad…”

“Me too! It drove me crazy.” His smile was delirious. “It’s got something to do with expectations, hasn’t it? And… division of essences… Can’t have seers inheriting the power of planar speech, when summoners need that bit…”

He chattered on, and she stared at him, burning beneath the robe.

His hand on her leg – it wasn’t innocent. She felt the pressure of his fingers, their nervous twitches as he fought his urge to clutch her, caress her…

No. There was no denying it any longer. There’d always been something between them, even back then, when he’d only had eyes for Emrelet. She’d known it from the moment he gave her the sight, let her see the Maginox wards as he saw them. She wanted to have a part of it. His knowledge. His purpose. His soul.

Does he feel the same way?

She remembered the lightning of his touch on her neck. What she wanted and what she needed blended at last, and that purpose swept through her. The flesh had to be permitted to fulfil its imperatives. She couldn’t stand in its way.

“… couldn’t allow the wizards to affect the wood itself, when druids… druids…”

Her body moved itself of its own volition, bringing her out of her seat.

She disrobed in a single fluid motion and he finally fell silent.

Kas sat back, regarding her with a new, raw sombreness in his gaze. She stood over him, no longer quivering. The moment swelled between them, the tension inflating until it drove aside all thought.

His eyes ceaselessly raked her up and down, the arcane patchwork of her skin bared to his hungry gaze. He cast aside his beer, hurling it to the floor, as if incapable of sparing it a single thought.

She put her knee across him and sat down in his lap, straddling him.

“I’ve wanted you since the first night we met,” she breathed, placing her hand on his face.

Lips found lips. Velvet crushed velvet. His kiss filled her, his hand tracing her spine then pressing on it, pressing himself into her.

Fingers sank into clothing, flesh into flesh, until it was like there was a joining, a meeting not just of body but of soul. Purple light enveloped them, a cool cocoon against the summer heat, and the weightlessness of his embrace came over her even as she melted into it. The adoption of the ghost-essence only brought more texture to her skin, an infusion of pure excitement, sensation in its basest form. Everything was heightened. Flesh itself fell away and the substance of her mind was exposed to him in its true nakedness. She knew what he was, what his power meant.

Exhilarating pain. Excruciating bliss. The need and the desire were intermingled, existence incoherent in its intensity.

She was still astride him even as they came free of the mortal coil, leaving the material world behind. She was still in control. His teeth at her neck – she laughed and pulled him in deeper. Her nails in his shoulders – his grunts – his breaths, breathing in her own –

There was a part of her that knew he had chosen Emrelet. That the love between herself and this arch-sorcerer could never be the pretty, perfect thing he’d found with the Onsolorian. But that was itself a facet of perfection. The recognition of the ugliness of things. This wasn’t some immature expression of lust, everything left neat and tidy inside the mind. No. This was real.

She knew he didn’t want her to see it, to touch it – but she didn’t fear it. She knew wounds; she knew death. She knew what he was. He didn’t intimidate her. His past. His future. The dark fate awaiting the both of them. None of it mattered.

She saw what it did to him, and she caressed his stump, nuzzled it with her cheek.

His eyes widened, and he spoke her name like it was a prayer.

“Say it again,” she commanded. “Say it again… Say it again…”

Was he really over Emrelet?

By the time the sun rose, even she believed him.