BOOK FOUR: DARKEST OF DAYS
QUARTZ 9.1: BY MURDER BE KNOWN
“Retaliation says: that did not suffice to destroy me so allow me my attempt to improve upon your work; let us labour together to make something worthy of her glance.”
– taken verbatim from ‘The Swordfaith Lectures’ recordings, Urdara 966 NE
A quick glance at the harbour told me that it hadn’t started yet. The early-morning crews working in the dry-docks had abandoned their tools; the fishing-boats were still roped to the piers. Other than the chimes, the city had fallen silent and still. The people knew better than to cause a clamour when the dark elven envoys might already be walking the streets.
There was only a single Telese war-vessel at anchor, and it was a splinter against a tree when compared with one of the bone behemoths. The kingdom was only permitted a tiny navy since the Black Winter, and the fleet was off south protecting a trade-route from Melorkian pirates.
Not that a handful more battleships would’ve made a difference. This would come down to magic.
I held my breath and entered the mud, the rock.
Have they brought their own archmages? I wondered, feeling chilled at more than just the stone coursing through my flesh. I felt dubious about my own strength, for the first time since Zyger, and this, this was when they chose to invade.
I pulled myself through the wall into the throne room. The hall was filled with people, the hearths stacked high with logs. Smoke drifted on the air, trickling out through the huge open window.
After the stinking bogs and the breathless stone, smoky air was something of a relief.
“Lord Raz!” someone barked, pointing.
I smiled wanly at my audience as I slid through – then into – my accustomed chair.
“Don’t all start clapping at once,” I said as brightly as I could manage, half applauding in self-deprecation, like my right hand still existed. “Dark elves.” My eyes focussed on Deymar, standing in front of the throne’s steps. “What’s going on?”
“What has happened to you?” the king retorted, moving nearer through the crowd of courtiers and knights. “Your – your arm –”
I looked down at the ragged fabrics hanging from my shoulder, the awful nothingness that had once been my limb.
“My gods, Majesty, I think you’re right – there’s definitely something wrong with it. I can’t feel my fingers.”
“Was it zem?” someone asked in a hard voice.
I shook my head.
“He seems to be taking this well,” a nasal-sounding chap said from behind me, his Telese spoken quietly.
Not quietly enough. I twisted round in my chair, found him by his worried glance, and cast him a malign grin.
The courtier shuddered and lowered his face.
“Taking it well is my job,” I found myself snarling.
“Sin-Aidre!” Deymar called, looking across the room as he reached my side.
I followed his gaze – I caught a glimpse of Oedenfron and his little bastard son slipping out the door, and then a group of muttering knights parted. Greenheart stepped out of the crowd, Lord Orcan just a pace behind her.
Sin-Aidre. The arch-druidess was narrow-hipped, broad-shouldered, a few inches shorter than me but taller than most of the women. She wore a mask, like a champion of Mund, but her attire was pedestrian. The mask was a blank wooden face with barely a bump for the nose, a lipless slit for the mouth, hiding everything except her pine-green eyes. She didn’t even wear a robe, but rather some kind of long, hooded coat, open at the front to reveal plain, woollen clothing and leather boots.
“Lord Raz. I cannot heal this.” Her voice was a breathy whisper, and she spoke in Telese with such a thick accent I had trouble picking out her words. “We have not yet met. I am sorry.”
She came to stand almost over me, and I could sense her nervous energy, pouring off her in waves.
“Errr – no, we haven’t. Till now.” I took her hand awkwardly, gripping her woollen glove with the fingertips of my hand. It was hard to overcome the urge to reach out with the missing arm. In my head, it was still there, really. Half the reason I was taking this terrible injury in my stride was probably just that it hadn’t sunk in yet.
Her fingers helped – like, really helped. The pain had been reduced to a dull fire by my sylph’s – my former sylph’s – ministrations, and now it faded entirely. By the time she let me go, my wraith-form had slipped and I slumped down in the chair, almost catatonic from the relief. I cocked my leg over the arm of the chair and let my dead foot flop like a fish.
I was vaguely aware of the conversations going on around me. Small talk. Most of them had ended abruptly upon my entrance; I was the centre of attention, the king himself regarding me with concern on his face, his subjects looking on with a mixture of emotions, from open animosity to sympathy.
“Where are the… the twins?” I asked after a few moments. Greenheart’s magic had left me slurring a little.
“They are with my son, far below the cliffs, near an escape route.” A shadow crossed King Deymar’s face. “They are… they will be safe.”
Safe.
The word resounded in my head.
Tanra said she’d keep them safe. Tanra was gone.
Everyone… gone.
What’s wrong with me?
“I…” My vision started to dim. “I think I’m going to passh out. Don’t… don’t form a battle-plan without me.”
“Don’t form a battle-plan vizzout me.“
A lord spoke, and almost everyone seemed to laugh. Their mockery rained down on me, hard, like hail.
What was his name? He’d been friendly with me, last time we chatted. I recognised that voice.
What is his name?
They were laughing at me, and still the implications eluded me.
I tried to move my dead foot, move my leg off the arm of the chair, sit upright. But my muscles didn’t answer. Every part of my body seemed far heavier than normal, when judged against the amount of effort I could conjure. Such exertion was beyond me now.
“Silence!” King Deymar snapped in his native tongue. “This is not for your amusement! He treated fairly with us, always. This is a regrettable deed, and to our shame.”
Many of them did as their sovereign commanded, stifling their giggles.
But my eyes picked out the old, blue-robed priest of Wyrda who continued to snigger, and slowly the truth started to take shape.
Safe?
I’d let my shields down. In more ways than one.
“Buh… buh… buh…”
My chin fell into my chest and I drooled at them.
But I could’ve fought for you. Won for you. Together, me and Greenheart and Orcan…
“They wanted you.” The king’s voice, his sly, easy Mundic showering down on the back of my head and neck, every word more agonising through this fog than a thousand stolen limbs. “They know what you did to their ship. If we give you to them, they will not return for twenty years. A generation of peace, of the certainty of peace. Think, my young friend! Even in death, you will have saved the city. We will tell them all that you gave yourself up, willingly. You will be to us a saint, and to pay you homage I will honour our agreement. Your sister shall be our princess, as was foretold, and your brother held in such esteem –”
“N-n-n-o-o-o-” I rasped.
My eyes could still move. My throat and tongue.
My fingertips?
The blade I formed was weak, more a whip than a sword. It was impossible to aim and didn’t cut deep, but it bypassed artificial armour, and even the knights were mere mortal sacks of blood and organs beneath their mail-coats.
Give me to them. I chuckled internally as I swung my meagre force-weapon. Hand me over. I’ll kill them all. Again.
The Telese betrayers started running, screaming as they went, many streaming blood from deep lacerations. I recognised Sir Javen’s voice, his cries hoarse, panicked.
Maybe some didn’t get to run. I didn’t care. It only worked on those who wished to hurt me and I was uniquely equipped to hurt them first. Show them the error of their ways before they even stepped on the path.
Stop them ever stepping anywhere, ever running, ever again.
Was I dooming the twins? Even now, I cared about that. On the edge of unconsciousness, all I wanted was for them to live. To be free.
But they wouldn’t be. Couldn’t be. None of us could.
Would I rather them be killed, siblings of the warlock who slew or maimed half their nobles in three seconds?
Rather that than have them be the traitor-king’s prisoners for the rest of their lives, forced to live this charade. People died all the time. Why should we be any different?
Maybe I’d got Deymar. My head was at such an angle, I had no way to tell. I could sense a corpse near the spot in which I imagined he’d been standing – was it his? I couldn’t raise it right now, even though I wanted to. My focus was on the whip.
Then I heard his voice, barking again for Sin-Aidre. His pain and fury were sweet to hear.
I lashed out in his direction, as a billowing sheet of frost swept over the paltry shield whose surface I was using to strike.
Orcan!
I couldn’t turn my head in his direction, couldn’t even turn up my wraith. My body was going down – down. Whatever the druidess did to me, it didn’t work as fast as they wanted, but it was working.
The shield broke first, and I was still present to witness it as a dome of thick ice swiftly encapsulated me in my chair, leaving me trapped in its dim translucence with just a few inches of movement.
Not that I could move.
I succumbed to the darkness, closing my eyes on it all.
I’m sorry, again, Jaid. Jaroan. I’m sorry, but I’m beat. It’s over. I can’t keep doing this. Maybe it’s our time. Maybe we’ll see Mum and Dad now. Or soon…
Nethernum.
As I let go my will, my liberty, my life – there was one comforting thought. One bittersweet twist to it all.
Mal Malas was wrong. It’s not on me. I’m nobody. I die, and become no one.
No responsibilities.
And the final twist that only occurred to me then – I struggled to rise back into consciousness, breathe again –
Unless he’s waiting for my soul!
I was an arch-sorcerer, but who knew what traps one such as the dragon might set in the shadows, even for me? What tortures might be contrived to make my spirit submit to the greater power?
It was futile. Those shadows claimed me, taking me to the only home I belonged, the only place I deserved.
The void.
* * *
Atarvet’s fingers move over the instrument, her hair swaying as she sits on the stool in the centre of the room.
There is no going back. I have forgotten who I was.
Emrelet Reyd is under my right arm, held tight against me. I can smell her. I can feel her body, an undulating mass of snakes.
I turn to look. Emrelet is gone. My arm is gone. Nafala sits in her place, alone upon the rock.
She opens her mouth to speak, but the dark wave of music sweeps over her, drags her under. Where Morsus went. Where I sent Ripplewhim with my foolishness. Where I sent Shadowcrafter with my darkness. When the wave passes, the rock is bare. She is gone. The maker of the waves took her.
I look down at my hands, but one of them has removed itself in shame.
One more to go.
One more… one more… time…
She doesn’t put her hands on her hips but I can tell she wants to – her elbows half-swing into position before she catches the motion.
“Fine. We’ll go, then!”
He’s still reading.
“Do we have to?”
“Come on, you clod.” She adjusts the cat’s angle for the umpteenth time today and moves towards the door.
“Why yes sir,” he grumbles.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
He gets to his feet with the book open in his hand, finishing the paragraph as he puts on his boots.
“Back soon.” He puts it down, closes it without the bookmark, and the last page he read from is lost; its number is stored only in his mind. “Keep an ear and an eye on them for us, eh?”
“One on each,” she elucidates. “You hear, Kassy?”
As slowly as consciousness had faded, it trickled back in.
Sounds. Smells.
Blind? Shadowland?
No. Scent of the sea.
Voices slice. Waves crash.
No birds. No gulls’ cries.
And no sight.
Something across my face. A blindfold.
Bridge of nose, itchy.
Try to scratch. Can’t scratch.
No arm… Wait…
Other arm?
Unfeeling. As good as no arm.
Shield? No.
Summon?
No.
Tap essence?
… No.
Focus. Listening. Sounds.
“… entering the bombardment phase within four minutes.” A male, accentless. Bland, but subservient. “Every check has returned within acceptable parameters.”
“And the ethereal variable?” Another male, equally accentless. Voice harder. Superior.
“Calculated to within one eighth of a degree.”
“Expedite the process. Ah. It wakens. I’m informed it’s listening to us. Good. Leave us.”
As I made out the soft sounds of footsteps crossing the floor, departing, I slowly came to realise the voice was referring to me as the ‘it’.
At just the same moment, sensation came back in my lower face and I understood what was happening – I was drooling horrifically.
I attempted to release the excess saliva from my mouth, close my jaw, but then I heard myself groaning, without feeling the vibration of the sound in my skull. Somehow, I didn’t experience it from the inside. If I’d been deaf, I wouldn’t have known I was making a noise.
The disconnect between my inner and outer senses made me swoon, and I would’ve collapsed but there were bonds about me – there had to have been, because my back was to a post – I was standing upright. Upright, standing…
Wind on my skin.
I was there. I was on the deck of one of their ships. I was captive, again.
“I am given to believe it can understand me.” The dark elf officer was speaking to me, but the translation enchantment warped his form of address as befit my station. “If it can, it will answer my questions with its thoughts. It will weigh its answers. It will answer truthfully. Two answers. Then it will be permitted to die, and its siblings also.”
And its… siblings… also…
There was fire. Fire beneath the mountains, oceans of it.
But it couldn’t reach me here. Not in this coldness. Not on Northril.
I wept. I could tell, from the sounds.
“I inform it that it will suffer pain, and for each such physical injury inflicted, its siblings shall suffer five. I warn it that these injuries are designed for maximal sensory content, incisive telepathy used to refine the process. I will not bore it with specifics as regards our procedures. Rest assured, its imagination does not equate to ours.”
Of course it didn’t. I’d seen some truly horrible things – seen my friends skinned in front of me – but I was still just a seventeen-year-old newbie. I had little doubt that the combined malice of this ancient branch of elvenkind was beyond me.
“My first question is this: what did it do with their souls? This I would very much like to know.”
I froze. My sobbing stopped.
What did I… what did I do with their souls?
“My second question: where is its arm? It had its arm, when it killed them. I can ascertain this much. Its arm is owed to us. Its fingers in particular.”
Why… but why can’t they just read my mind? If they can enchant me – if they took Neverwish’s amulet –
“Its mind was not its mind. These questions it must answer. Now.”
My mind… The wraith’s mind?
I’d had no idea it was screening me against mind-reading.
“Aenosor,” the dark elf sounded bored, “bring my tuning rod.”
“My captain,” came another voice from behind me in acknowledgement, female this time.
How many of them were there, standing silently about me?
I weighed my options by instinct, and trying to endure the ‘tuning rod’ wasn’t even amongst them. My wraith was out of synch, and my other eldritches likewise dampened by druidry or enchantment. I was barely more than a mortal man like this.
I struggled to focus my introspection, bring the correct memories before my scrutinising inward eye. It was hard. Dredging the dark waters of the soul with fingertips that didn’t work. Clutching at threads of black hair in the deep.
There was no moment of warning. The captain didn’t thank Aenosor for the rod – he merely tapped it against something, producing a long metallic twaaaaaaaang, then pressed it gently against my knee.
The knee, the leg – that got it worst, but the agony radiated out across my whole body.
It was like being eaten. By a machine. A machine of rusted teeth.
Rippling crackles of pain, tearing like barbs into the marrow of my bones, churning, spreading.
It could never kill me. Only hurt me. Only break me down and put me back together again.
My body woke up properly now, as it was pulverised. It felt like every bone was being ground to dust then reformed unharmed in seconds, only to be ground down again.
Hideous screams enveloped me. Consciousness cocooned in a net of nauseating sensation.
“Yes!” I heard myself shrieking. “Yes! I know! I know!”
The tuning rod was removed from contact with my knee, but the screams didn’t stop.
Not mine, now. Two other voices, muffled, from below decks.
The twins –
He hadn’t been lying.
I almost had control over my voice again.
“Stop them… stop hurting… my brother and sister…”
“No.”
Yes, I remembered what I did to them. I remembered what they deserved.
I remember.
It had been there, on the tip of my mind’s tongue for so long, held poised like a knife at the neck of a loved one.
I enslaved them, I permitted myself to realise. I enslaved the enslavers… I did what I wouldn’t do, couldn’t do…
Their meaning about the wraith claiming my thoughts started to become clearer.
I am changing.
“And its arm.” The captain’s voice was cold. Colder than Northril.
The screaming from below-decks didn’t abate, instead growing only stronger, a bleating death-wail that cut right through the tattered remnants of my former spirit.
Mal Malas… Is this what you wanted, old wyrm? They’re going to torture my brother and sister to death.
“The Deathwyrm, indeed?” No fear or disbelief in the dark elf’s voice – only mild surprise. “It had lived an interesting life, in its last days. And so its fingers are placed beyond our reach; we shall have to be satisfied with a single hand. Nonetheless I congratulate you.”
The screaming of my brother and sister finally cut out.
You. He called me ‘you’.
“Now you will return those souls you stole. Return them, or we will subject your fine city to a worse form of torture.” In a lower volume: “It is prepared?” Then, again addressing me: “We shall have you watch. It will enlighten you. Yes, remove it.”
Whatever blindfold had been over my eyes, it was ripped away, the force of the motion causing my head to impact against the post to which I’d been tied. I blinked against the sudden glare, casting my gaze over my environment.
I was fastened right at the very prow of the ship, overlooking the wharves and winding streets of Telior in the distance. I could see the Tower of the Warlock. I could remember them there, my apprentices busy about their work, my brother and sister…
About me, the deck of glossy black wood, surrounded by a rail of warped bone that vibrated with pinkish energies. I could see elves, their clothing of purple velvet and armour of burnished steel, in my peripheral vision. There was no strict uniformity to their garments, and many of their accoutrements were nauseating: glossy belts and capes of rune-inscribed skin; necklaces and bracelets with teeth for pearls; human, orc, kobold skulls worked into their helms or shoulder-plates, staring eternally out with searing eye-sockets.
Then the captain stepped in front of me.
Every one of these elves was beautiful to behold, a work of sculpture, fascinating yet surely supremely lethal, like the pale corpsemaker spider sitting invisible on the edge of its bewildering web. For all their differences in apparel they were, facially and physically, all practically clones of one another, with far less diversity than even the noble elf-kin of Mund. There was no deviation in the whiter-than-white skin, the high cheekbones; the sharp keel of the chin, narrow nose and nostrils.
Yet the captain’s hair was perhaps an indigo shade of blue, his eyebrows and eyelashes the same vibrant colour. That alone would serve to differentiate him from the others, if not for the gold-trimmed sash of ceremonial mail he wore across one shoulder-plate.
“You bore witness to our weapon’s potential. Now you will behold what it can achieve against your kin when you are not there to save them. Give me the souls. Summon them, and surrender them. We will permit you access to only these eldritches.”
I peered about him, looking for a trace of power.
“No, I am not a sorcerer. My talents lie in other areas. We have provision for this.” He smiled briefly, teeth gleaming. “Call the souls of the ascended ancients you stole. As many as you might simultaneously manage, we will manage. You are not permitted to give them commands, do you understand? You will call them and then release their bonds. Do it, or we shall condemn the city. This is your final warning.”
I shifted my head, glaring off at Telior in the distance.
Avaelar was right. I was different. I was worse than one of the highborn now. I knew the plight of the people. I knew their troubles, their trials. Their suffering.
And I still didn’t care.
At least the highborn had the excuse of their ignorance. I was just malice incarnate now. Telior had been my home, but there was a slice of my soul that would enjoy watching it topple into the sea. It would be justice, wouldn’t it? If my home was the Fish-Queen’s maw, betraying it would only be an ironic comeuppance.
Return it to Wyrda, I thought bitterly. Isn’t that what I want? What it deserves? What they all deserve?
What I deserve…
“Northril claims everything, as the wave of the ages rolls,” the captain said with resignation in his voice. “Yet if you force us into such an action, you know already what shall happen to the bags of bones and ghosts whose company you shared until this day. She will not claim them soon, nor for millennia. Our art is advanced, our preservations made to last down the aeons.”
They’ll make Nafala into part of their ship. They’ll –
“Aenosor, send three shadowers to seek out one Nafala…” He actually smiled at me, a shark’s helplessly-evil grin. “One Nafala Ivratigo. Its head shall sing for him, from a stick, until the wind of its words sways his course.”
“My captain.” Footsteps behind me, fading…
“Please,” I managed to pant. “P-please, captain, c-call her back. I –“
“Give us the souls.”
I screwed my eyes shut, trying to sort through the futures, like how I imagined it must’ve worked for arch-diviners. “But you’ll just kill them all anyway!”
He didn’t reply at once, and when I gave up and opened my eyes again, I saw him looking down pensively at Telior.
“Of course,” he said softly. “They are traitors. Yet the souls, sorcerer. Think of the souls! Should you not allow your kin, and your lover, to go peacefully into the arms of the gods? These three souls we can trade. Yours is beyond my reach, as I am certain you are aware, but the thing in whose arms you wished to sleep entwined? Those who followed you out of the same womb? We can take them, and never let them go. Whatever you become, you shall never recover them, never recover from the loss. It shall be the wraith of you.”
His words made me shudder and moan, made my skin crawl, crawl.
“Permit me to punctuate my message. Five times your punishment.”
The screams started up again.
Their screams.
I had only one bargaining chip. The souls. He had so many – my brother and sister – the city – and he seemed to keep reducing his offer, reducing it until there was nothing left –
Unless I could trade him just a few souls…
Were they worth that much to him? I had no idea of the tenets of dark elf religion and, now that I thought about it…
Do you even get undead elves?
What had I done? Transformed his dark elf friends into a force of ghosts that was never supposed to exist?
“Nafala Ivratigo has been found. She will be visited. Now the choice is before you –“
“Eat drop,” I snarled over the twins’ screams, affixing him with the death-glare through my tears. I must’ve looked pathetic, but I didn’t care. “You want me to buckle to you? You think I’ve not seen things like you before? You’re going to do whatever you want anyway. If I give you those souls back you could use them… use them, to do more evil, and it’s not like you’re really going to do any less if I don’t. You want me to blame myself now? How about after I give them up, and you still take their souls from me, and smile like that as you kill me? ‘Oh, it’s all my fault, what have I done? I let them destroy the city, take my brother and sister’s souls – why? Whyyyyyyy?’”
After I wailed I hacked laughter.
“Ahahaha! It’s you! It’s always been you. It’s always you. Telling me I’m a dark thing like you. Telling me… telling me to kill. Go on, wreak havoc. Destroy Telior! You don’t need my permission, do you? You try so hard to make out we are inferior,” I descended into manic giggles, “inferior, hahahaha! It’s only because you know the opposite’s true, know it deep down. We’re superior.”
“You lack almost all our endowments. Where you were born, all those who are successful wish to be as us –“
“But you’re inferior to Mund’s elves! Look at you! A whole culture of children. Not one of you dares grow up, because that would mean facing – facing what you are, what you’ve done all along. Trapped in the need for evil. You don’t even get a choice, really. I suppose I should pity you. Dark elves: the race of victims. Tell you what, how about this – turn your ships around. Turn them around, go home. Leave my brother and sister here, leave the city alone. When we’re out at sea, I’ll give you some souls. Just a few. As a start.”
He wasn’t moving, wasn’t responding, until I finally ran out of breath, my tirade leaving me panting.
I’d stopped sobbing now, at least.
They were still screaming. Jaid and Jaroan. The warbling dirge they were being forced to emit sounded like it was close to snapping their vocal chords.
Unconsciousness. Please, please take me.
Their screams faded once more. I met his eyes, tears spent.
“Whose kill was first claimed?” he asked me gently. “My brethren loosed their volleys upon your ship, yes. This I am given to understand already. Yet you escaped them, did you not? You fled, but returned that night upon the wind, a shadow of death. This was not justice, or even revenge. Is this your vaunted superiority? Is this your vital human spirit of sanctity?”
“You –“
“We tried to kill you all, we tried to enslave you, flesh and bone, heart and soul. But you won. You did your part. You used the magic wisely, protected your interests. And so we find this chain of events was not of our forging. You, sorcerer. It was you whose sense of propriety was wounded by bloodless waters, your choice to ensure honour came to Yane. Did you think such acts would not resonate? Their consequences were felt even in far-off planes.”
Shadowcrafter, falling, blood arcing –
Nentheleme – if you ever had – if you ever thought of me, ever held me in regard – please –
“If you had not called upon death, death would not have knocked upon your door, young human. Of course, in the end, you are correct. Death does not knock. Death enters.”
BrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR –
I tried to tell him to stop. The noise was too loud for me to hear my own words, but it didn’t seem to disturb him.
Enchantments.
As soon as I thought about it, the cacophony of the frost-wand building its charge suddenly reduced in volume. I could hear again. Some elven enchanter out there was helping me, at least a little, probably without even realising what they were doing. Just tuning out the feedback.
I could focus.
I’d wanted to try extending shields for so long – the intention was still alive in the fragile bubble of willpower I still maintained, floating there on my mind’s choppy waters. Something had been impeding me.
I remembered how Mal Malas destroyed my shield, no claw-motions required. I remembered what Avaelar, poor Avaelar, said about his former owner.
The barrier fell, and I felt the force manifest, seeping out of not just my remaining fingertips, but the stump of my right arm. The lines flowed like luminous blue blood, extending barely a few feet over the area…
Too little. Too late.
To pin shields across the whole city would’ve taken me hours, even before my recent maiming – even if I’d had the opportunity to fly about it as I worked. To do it from here, now, with no proper structure – it was impossible.
Cover the front of the ship! I silently begged the aimless force-lines.
But then the deck shook lightly beneath us, a shudder of recoil as the icy bolt was released, lancing out, leaping forward –
The gigantic icicle was the size of a city-spire, and travelled far faster than any arrow ought. Where it struck, it destroyed, in an eruption of translucent shards, wood… and, surely, blood…
Distant wails echoed across the water. The city of treachery was no longer so silent.
The captain staggered and twisted away as the sharp outer edges of my shield connected with his body, releasing gobbets of his elven juices into the air.
It made no difference. There was nothing I could do.
The screeching hum filled the world, coming from either side. Other vessels, charging their huge wands.
I could say whatever I wanted to him. I could kill him, but it wouldn’t prove anything.
He was right. The dark elf was right all along.
It was my fault.
I watched a dozen magical strikes land almost simultaneously all along the city’s curving waterfronts, annihilating the docks left right and centre, the market levels, the banking-hall and the forge-hall – the Tower of Raz received a fatal blow near the base, where the novices would be busy about their work on any other day, and the thing collapsed, the top half crashing down into the lower levels. All my remaining worldly possessions were just additional weight, to help smash the houses beneath, help ensure those dwelling therein were pinned, crushed, killed…
How many I saw die in those first few fatal seconds before I closed my eyes, I had no notion.
I saw as a number of the statues beyond the ruins of my tower were eradicated. I saw as the king’s halls were struck.
Would they survive inside the rock? Would Orcan and Greenheart keep them alive? I’d never get the opportunity to confirm the kills, or finish the survivors off myself. Those who betrayed me, who gave my brother and sister over for torture – I’d die, never knowing whether they met their own ends.
I’d come back as a spirit of vengeance for that much, at least. Haunt Deymar. Place ice-cold fingers around Orcan’s heart, and squeeze this time. Drag Sin-Aidre into Nethernum, roast her in amethyst flames.
I kept my eyes shut. The elven enchanters had permitted me that much, at least. But I’d attacked their captain, and the other reavers were surely hastening to his aid, bringing him the tuning rod… This time they’d press it to my skull.
Yes, I kept my eyes shut, awaiting the agony, even as I heard the din rising once more, drowning the sky in its awful shriek:
BrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR –
Telior… Nentheleme…
Jaid… Jaroan…
Mum… Dad…
Kastyr…
I failed you.
I failed you all.
Better we all die.
The last instinct – that final flare was enough. They wouldn’t even let me properly think, but they’d left a single door open in my mind. They didn’t want to inhibit the natural flex of my power as it extended down the corridor of the planes.
But they were fools. They missed something. That, or they were too weak to inhibit the flow as it came crashing through me.
‘As many as you might simultaneously manage, we will manage. You are not permitted to give them commands, do you understand?’
Let’s test that, shall we?
I let the darkness out. There was no letting it in. It had been inside all along. My power. The dream of a frightened child.
It wasn’t quite my voice, but it came from my mind all the same. The voice of my broken soul.
I summon you, ascended ancients, bondsmen, bondswomen! I summon you here, in the face of the confrontation where we all lay low together! Come hence to Materium, and slaughter your brethren!
It would be too many for me. But it didn’t matter.
Come, feast! Come, sate your deadly hungers upon their flesh, one and all!
Let not one thing live.
Let it be over.