I wasn’t used to having to fly across the city without the faerie queen on board, but she’d asked for a bit of time before I left Etherium, and in the wake of Flood Boy’s death I hardly felt inclined to even question her thinking. She needed time; she had it. We’d left in a bit of a rush – Zakimel had been quick to point out that planar chronomancy was fraught with perils, and all of the non-sorcerers were in real danger of overstaying their welcome any minute and becoming bound, permanently, to the otherworld. Netherhame said he was massively exaggerating, but that didn’t stop everyone hopping through the first portal that got opened.
Ignoring the others, I’d taken a moment to thank my fairy, ensuring she knew I thought she was the ‘Liberator of dropping Mund’ too. And all she’d said was to not tell anyone how integral she’d been. Then she turned away from me, sitting down again beside the steaming green splat that had been my faun.
I looked from Olbru’s remains to Xiatan’s – back again – then let her be.
It was terrifying, to think what could have – would have – happened, if Zel hadn’t been as quick-thinking as she had been. But now it was all over I felt a bit queasy over how I’d used Olbru, how he’d died for me without hesitation. Sure, I could’ve been killed without him – but perhaps I wouldn’t have. Perhaps Em would’ve gotten there in time. Perhaps it was me, me that’d killed my faithful minion, not the elemental-armoured, elemental-hearted wizard who’d already stepped out of my sight, through Direcrown’s portal.
Still, I’d rejoined with my wraith upon returning to the Material Plane, and with Zab and Avaelar – and, just for the sake of it, I joined with both my satyrs. If I wasn’t going to have access to the fairy’s perception and danger-sense, the satyr-reflexes would do in a pinch, and their increased strength and durability would come in handy if we ended up getting attacked. We still had no real clue how to proceed. For now, we were doing what was deemed safest.
I didn’t personally like the idea of splitting up, but my voice had been only one of many, and in the end I’d given in – those Spirit cleared had to move the twins to a safe place, and there were a variety of other tasks that needed carrying out.
I was on my way back from Arrealbord Palace with Lady Sentelemeth, Stormsword and Starsight. We were flying as quickly as the combination of wizard with diviner could permit – which was horrifically fast. Star might not have been as powerful as Irimar or Tanra, but others joined their spells with his before we left, including Zakimel – and now nothing moved beneath us as we cut through the sky, even smoke from chimneys frozen, like dry paint on a canvas of air. Despite the lack of wind, Storm’s aeromancy and Star’s chronomancy worked perfectly together, seamlessly transitioning the air about us through the time-bubble – something I hadn’t questioned before but which, now I had more time to notice it, seemed strange. Almost on the level of how druids would transform their clothing, without possessing the power to just transmute random objects. How the line of what was and what wasn’t considered ill-will wavered, how enchanters could affect some kinds of minds but not others… It was a curiosity, nothing more – but surely someone had mentioned it in a book somewhere? I’d have to look it up, once this was all over.
I looked back at the First Lady of Mund, flying beside Em. There was a grimness, a reality in her eyes that hadn’t been there when I’d first met her gaze across the table in the palace. She’d seen things now, just a sliver of what our lives were like, and it was enough to start a change in her. Her golden hair bounced in the stream of air slipping through the bubble, her silver-scaled gown rippling. I admired the fact she hadn’t faltered when it was agreed she’d come with us, help smooth things over.
It had been decided that someone had to retrieve the weapons we’d left at the Arrealbord and explain to them what was going on – that was a task we’d taken, and it was only after Sentelemeth and a band of magisters explained it for the third time that the palace guards started listening and released our belongings. Starsight would come back with us to the Maginox, and after seeing us safely inside he would return to the Tower of Mourning, where Dimdweller, Bookwyrm and Bladesedge had taken Timesnatcher and Killstop. It wasn’t exactly frowned-upon to enter the Gathering chamber when it wasn’t full moon, but still, it wasn’t a done thing – the suspicion someone was attempting to misuse the Ceryad-tree was, of course, integral to the custom. However, Tanra’s flagrant breach of the doors in search of Lovebright’s charm – something a number of diviner champions had perceived the instant it happened, apparently – was eminently excusable. Now she’d been in once today already, and it had been made plain that the Ceryad had been in use for years, it hardly made sense in this time of emergency to not use the Ceryad to help restore them.
I glanced over at the arch-diviner. Without Zel’s augmentations it was hard to pick out the golden stars that blended almost invisibly into the gleaming white weave of his robe.
“How long since we came back to Materium?” I asked.
“As the sun measures it, eighteen minutes,” he answered, then looked over at me from behind his glittering five-pointed mask. “We wrangled with the guards for seventeen minutes.”
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I laughed, then drew a breath.
“I am sorry, you know,” I said. “I never meant – Neverwish, it was…“
He’d already raised a hand out towards me, indicating that he wished for me to stop.
“I should not have – I shouldn’t have blamed you,” he said, then looked away. As he continued, his voice lost some of the youthful wistfulness, the trance-like tranquillity it usually possessed – he sounded older, less solemn… more human. “Before Zadhal, I attempted to wound you with my words. I can only praise Kultemeren for the truth… and Belestae that you did not lose your life in that dreadful place before I could right this wrong. It is I who ought be sorry, Feychilde. It is all for Illodin in the end, I fear.”
I looked at him keenly. “For Illodin?”
He met my eyes again. “For grief. For loss. There is not one living thing in this world, my friend, that was not born in death; death is a wave, upon which life coasts like foam bursting, forever falling beneath the surface, being replaced… I mourn my lost friend, even as I smile, knowing I have found one again.”
He reached out, put his hand on my shoulder briefly as we flew.
I appreciated the gesture, but I was confused.
“Right back at ya – but why do you grieve for Neverwish? We might’ve been misled into thinking he was dark – but Lovebright never made us think he was a heretic. They didn’t take off his head, did they? I mean – he’s still… alive? We were going to get an update, from Leafcloak, when…”
I didn’t quite know how to end that sentence.
“You have heard of Magicrux Zyger?”
I sighed. “I’d meant to ask my fairy about that – I’m guessing that’s the hole Henthae throws archmages into? But…” I guessed his meaning, and suddenly felt sick, something no amount of wraith could help with. “But you can get them back out again, right?”
He shook his head slowly, sadly.
“But that makes no sense!” I snapped. “Well, why not just kill them, then? Why have them there – why torture them like that – why waste resources like that? Ah-h-h-h…”
I bit off the sounds. The Magisterium were crazy, and I was going to give them an earful in a few seconds’ time.
“It is not such a simple thing,” the arch-diviner replied, looking ahead of us again. We were coming up on the Maginox now, the five-sided multicoloured needle that dominated the skyline. “The blood of an archmage is a sacred substance, they say. To spill it coldly is to invite Glaif and Illodin’s wrath.”
“Bedtime stories! That’s just –“
He raised his hand. “Perhaps. And yet even in the execution of heretics, when it is done outside combat, the names of the gods are invoked. The old ways are not entirely forgotten. Still, it is not strictly a matter of superstition. It is a matter of policy. Some criminals expect clemency. All know that Heresy alone is punished by the blade. Yet consider now: how might one safely enter such a place, and retrieve a prisoner, without running the risk of freeing some of the world’s worst mass-murderers?”
“But with your powers –“
“My powers, which obviously do not function inside Magicrux Zyger,” he replied. “How else might they imprison those whose merest inclination alone might shake down the stones, tear the walls asunder?”
“They remove their powers,” I breathed.
Even just the thought of it –
He was nodding. “The place cannot be seen, exists in no vision. It is the darkness that is not silent.”
“But how? How is it achieved? If archmagery is such a sacred thing – how can they just take it away like that? I can’t even imagine the glyphs – which gods –“
“I have my suspicions,” Star murmured, “but we have arrived.”
“But I –“
“I know, Feychilde – I know. However, I do not have all the answers you seek.”
He settled down on the path, just outside the bridge, the shield covering the Maginox. There were a number of time-frozen students and waywatchers around him.
A little regretfully, I joined him on the path.
As Stormsword and Sentelemeth landed, he continued, addressing all of us: “My spell shall last a few more minutes – please, hasten to Zakimel. I must aid the others in reviving our fallen comrades.”
With that, he was gone, heading towards the Tower of Mourning. Now that we weren’t moving together I could see the white streak on the air that his blur left behind him, its residue like paint, lasting for longer than normal due to the chronomantic effect.
We still had a bit of a way to go – I let the ladies pass me and followed them across the bridge, towards the steps, the globe-lit archway which lay ahead. But I ignored the motionless moat beneath the spans of the bridge, and instead looked after the arch-diviner as I moved my feet, pondering his words; his light was still there in the sky, still fading away.
Zyger. Where Duskdown said I would try to send him.
Zyger. The name Zel spoke with such fear.
Zyger. Neverwish’s doom.
It was only as we crossed the threshold into the corridors of black stone, heading for the endless spiral stair, that I realised what was troubling me. Why it hadn’t troubled me till now I wasn’t quite sure – there’d been a lot going on at the time – but it came shuddering back into focus suddenly.
How was I supposed to do something with Neverwish, if he could never be freed?
”You. Neverwish. If we do it right, there comes a time when you and he… I can’t tell you much. If I say certain words to you, it won’t happen, and things will be worse. What I can’t see I can infer from the consequences. I just… I wish I could make you trust me, but I wouldn’t even if I could. I just hope you do – some day, if not right now. If it isn’t you, we know who it will be, and things would be worse. Far worse, in the end. Even if I were to do it…”
What could it even mean?
I knew only one thing for certain:
Timesnatcher better not die today. He and I need to have a long talk about honesty.
At least one-and-a-half seconds’ worth…