QUARTZ 9.9: COMPLEX TENDONS

“Guilt is as the dam built across the raging river. Conscience has its uses, when the spillway is carefully managed – when the waters are restricted, when the dams upstream are in good order. Have you ever seen a dam failure? Our rejection of guilt is not philosophical in nature. We reject it on grounds of practicality. Do not build beside the raging river. Do not indulge greed in using it to power your wheels. A good mind is one built beside the placid stream.”

– taken verbatim from ‘The Maiden’s Way’ recordings, Ismethara 945 NE

We were left alone, alone in the motionless rain and the darkness. She was right. Here, at the end of everything, it was just the two of us. Everseer must’ve left her bubble active but how long it would last, given that it included another arch-diviner, given that I had the crown… I had no notion. Perhaps it helped that Tanra was technically dead, and that I wasn’t actually wearing the damn thing – it seemed that taking it off nullified its effects even if I was still holding it.

A small mercy. To get to prolong the moment – wait longer and longer for the inevitable consequences of my actions –

Another dead… Another murder.

“And what is this supposed to teach me, Mortiforn?” I whimpered, taking a half-step closer to her. “What lesson are you trying to impart right now? Th-that I n-need to be more careful? Lesson learned! FIX THIS!”

Tanra lowered her hands, carefully removing the mask in the same motion.

I saw her face properly this time, close up, for the first time in months and oh, oh how she’d aged. I could make it out clearly now – the pallor of her hair wasn’t just some trick of the storm-light. Half her fringe was tipped with white, threaded with colourless strands. The young girl’s face – it was more like a woman’s due to several different factors, all of them more or less inexpressible. Something about the subtle lines by her mouth, the dry cracked lips, the brittleness of her eyes… It was impossible to say for certain whether the transformation that changed her face had been purely emotional in kind or whether some form of dark druidry had been employed to actually warp her skin…

But even if it had been purely emotional, who could trust to that, in a world such as our own, where thoughts were bartered, bought, stolen, implanted?

“You should’ve come to Zyger with me,” I murmured. “You should – you should –“

I burst into tears suddenly.

“Kas. It’s… okay. We were always… going to end up… dead.”

I let the crown slide down my wrist to my elbow then hurled my mask off my face, pressed my hand into my eyes, my lone useless hand.

“Not like this!” I moaned. “Not because of me! Me! My stupid – stupid –“

I thrashed the whip-arm about in futile despair.

“It was my…” she breathed, “ill-will…”

She wobbled, and before she could sink to her knees I was there beside her, cradling her. I put my hand behind her head to keep it still, and followed her down to the ground, kneeling with her.

“Tanra…”

“I hated everyone… There’s no one… to save me… Gone. T-take me. Take…”

I had no idea what she meant, where she wanted to go.

“Tanra?”

She was silent. Holding her, I wasn’t in the position to see her face. I didn’t know why she wasn’t responding, but I knew she wasn’t dead.

The doorway opened silently behind her. The gleaming portcullis yawned. The hollow rush of a planar intrusion in my vicinity slowly raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

I was holding the ghost tight.

Take me.

I took her where I wanted to go. The last place I’d gone with her in a time of crisis.

Somewhere fitting – somewhere one might pass on in relative peace, in spite of the Incursion, in spite of Mekesta’s black hatred raging overhead.

If Nethernum was willing to chase us across time and space.

I opened the door to Etherium, and pulled it over us with sheer will, wrapping us in it like a blanket and taking us through.

For all that the area was dreadful in the material plane, with the Thirteen Candles and the demonic storm looming directly overhead – once we were in the otherworld the spatial limitations fell away. We were surrounded by raw wilderness, and so it was into a great, dead field that we plunged. The strange grass here wasn’t yellowing but rather bone-white, its hair-thin strands sprouting up out of pitch-black soil like reeds from a Telese marsh. The storm above us appeared to have dissipated, leaving the sky a solemn, solid shade of unbroken amber. It wasn’t even raining.

We were still on our knees, surrounded by the dead grass, pressed together in almost full contact. I couldn’t turn to look behind myself at the shadow-man draped like a cloak upon my back, clinging to the crown – no, I was still holding her, still trapped in this final embrace with someone who knew me, who understood me, who would’ve been willing to have my back and help me fight all the world’s sicknesses.

Someone I killed. Someone else I killed.

I couldn’t let her go. I could only look up through tear-filled eyes over her shoulder, and regard the bleak, unending meadow, stretching off into emptiness where the scabrous red-brown tower should’ve been standing.

More so than ever before in Etherium, it was quiet. The wind was low, almost silent, its soothing dirge tinted with notes of mint and pomegranate. The white grass-hairs didn’t rustle in the breeze, but seemed instead to hum gently. There were no signs of insect-life, of animals. An unexpected sense of peace stole over me.

I didn’t know what there was left for me to say or do. The crown was far heavier when robbed of my joined entities, despite the wraith still clinging to me – I felt awkward being here, painfully aware of the unhallowed things I was wearing – knowing only enough about the crown to know I didn’t fully understand its potential significance…

“Nentheleme?” Despite my continued ownership of the crown, I could say the goddess’s name again, the whisper coming hoarse but clear from my tongue. “Can you hear me?”

I shook, and did my utmost to suppress it.

“Wythyldwyn?”

Just the oppressive quiet of the place. No answers from on high.

“K-Kas…”

It was Tanra, not a god.

I slowly pulled away from her so that I could look her in the eyes.

I couldn’t speak. Nothing more than a ragged cry escaped my lips when I tried.

“L-let m-me g-go… now…”

“No,” I moaned. “You’re Killstop. It stops here. You can’t –”

“I can… die. Trust…”

Her eyes fluttered, and closed.

“Tanra? Tanra?”

Where was the ghost? I couldn’t see her spirit and now I thought about it I realised I was in the wrong place, she was in the wrong place – would I even see the essence as it left her? Had it already gone? How would a spirit interact with the time-bubble? How much longer would Vardae’s spell even last?

Hadn’t I played right into her hands here? Had she seen this, right from the moment I removed the crown? A way to manipulate me, to get me to bring her to another plane, where no one was likely to look for us, find us, help us? Where a passing arch-druid couldn’t spot us?

“Tanra!” I moved back, and stopped just short of shaking her. “Tanra!“

Even still I felt the limp movements of her arms, swinging to and fro, like a doll’s limbs.

Miles behind her, an azure smear took shape, framed against the amber sky like a sapphire floating on a stream of honey. I stared over her shoulder as the seconds ticked by.

And second by second it drew closer.

Two sapphires. Close together. Curved, pointed… facets glinting…

Wings.

By the time I could make out the bronze body held aloft between the two glowing blue appendages, my whole body had gone cold, shivers of pure nervous thrill lacing every fibre of my being.

She heard me. Nentheleme… She heard!

It had to have been a full minute since Tanra closed her eyes before Avaelar landed, a look of wonder on his face to mirror my own.

“My wings, Feychilde!” he cried, whipping the newly-enhanced appendages about majestically.

But I held none of the answers, and my voice, when I tried to raise it, was very small.

“Can you h-heal her? Please… essel majhar. Please… Avvie…”

Before I even asked, he was already crossing over to stand behind me, bending to breathe on her unmoving face.

Seconds passed. I listened to his breathing, his patient expression of his healing effect.

Waiting was worse than anything. A kind of non-existence. A present that would only be defined as a past, sanctioned or cursed by the vagaries of an unknown future. Would these seconds be transformed into a beautiful time of light, looked back on fondly, the moments awaiting Tanra’s revival?

Or would these seconds char in my mind’s eye, blacken and crumble along with what was left of my sanity, the vestiges of my humanity, fall aside only to never be remembered again, shadows cast by the thoughtless thoughts of an insensate animal?

“No, Kastyr.”

My chest tightened – the pain of it – I needed to be enwraithed again – I needed to breathe –

My eyes clenched shut.

“I cannot heal her; this wound is fatal in kind.”

I only held her closer. There was just this last instant in which to be free and I used it to squeeze her tight, consumed by regret.

If it had been possible for me to destroy myself by unfiltered ill-will, it would’ve happened, right there in the white grass. A multitude of black force-blades, darkening the sky as they hurtled towards me, every last one seeking my heart.

“And yet, whilst the injury itself proveth unwilling – I believe it is within my capabilities to prevent her death.”

* * *

Repairing the spine? Fixing the complex tendons? There were things that were beyond the scope of the sylph’s powers, but restoring the colour to her pale flesh? Sealing the sliced-apart skin, knitting the flesh, stopping her head from falling clean off her neck when we carefully laid her down on the ground? These were within his grasp, and it calmed me. It was just enough to bring a sliver of sanity back to the chaos of my mind.

“Any other weapon, and even this instant would not have sufficed,” he murmured.

Together we put her in a position of repose, like a corpse upon her back, elbows on the grass at her sides, hands folded on her stomach. The expression on her face had changed, the wistful smile of death replaced by a troubled look, her eyebrows pinched, lips thrusting up towards her button nose in a petulant little frown.

I kept my leg pressed against her upper arm, my fingertips on her shoulder, gazing down at her. I didn’t care if she scorned me when she awoke. Hate was a divide I could deal with; she’d be just one more magic-user in Mund who wanted to scratch my name out of the Book of Life. No big deal. She was alive; I didn’t kill her. This was enough.

How low – how low I had sunk, that this was enough.

Avaelar met my eyes across her body, crouching opposite me, then glanced pointedly at the crown atop my head before looking away.

He spoke, unsmiling.

“Never once before hath this happened, in all my lives, Kastyr. How didst thou call me hence? I now suffer no bond!”

“I… I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s Nentheleme I need to send a Yearsend gift to.” It was hard to judge his mood. “I called to her, and Wythyldwyn, and you… You were just there. How you can interact with us… I mean, the chronomantic field should… Never mind. I’m – I’m sorry if it was an imposition, but it wasn’t really my decision.”

I spread my ‘hands’ as if to indicate my powerlessness in the situation, the lack of options I’d had at my disposal when this catastrophe occurred. It was just another gesture that made no sense when you only had one arm. The force-tendrils flopped about, bereft of any meaningful presence when they weren’t being utilised in combat.

“Shouldst thou call again, answer I shall,” he said at last, and he nodded firmly as if to punctuate his words. “Glad-hearted I am to see thee strong once more, even if in order to actualise thy power thou hast found thyself returned to this metropolis of knaves.”

“You know where we are?”

“Quite. One can taste the impropriety on the air.”

I almost managed a laugh. “I’ve missed you, my good man. I’m sorry if I made you travel a long way –”

“I was not afar. When thou didst release me, I soon found myself upon the shores of Everstill once again. But it was not as I recalled. I bartered a portion of the power I gained from our union, thine and mine, in order to effect mine own return to Mund.”

“You… came back too?”

“Verily. My home, such as I have one, is in the place known to both of us as the shrine of Yune. Long hath it been so, and long shall it be after the walls of Mund are thrown low. The sacred spaces were not devised by men’s minds, Kastyr, but rather discovered, as a dowser seeks out water for a well. We all must find our way, and mine hath ever been hers. Hers… and, evidently, thine own.”

He flexed his glowing wings, and smiled, the beautiful face made even more so with the simple expression of innocent pleasure.

“I… I understand. Thank you, Avvie. Thank you, my friend.”

“Farewell, for now, Feychilde.”

He stood in a fluid motion and then took off, climbing the airs, and I gazed down at Tanra’s flushed face, listening to the motions of his wings until they passed away into silence.

Not Nentheleme. This wasn’t forgiveness from the goddess of freedom, or even a gift from the goddess of healing.

This was Yune. Reminding me. Where it all began.

Tanra was sleeping peacefully despite the drumming rain, swept gently on the tides of warm, wholesome dreams. Such was Avaelar’s gift.

Hope. Not just for me.

Hope for all of us.

I clenched my left fist, feeling fingernails bite into flesh. It’d been awhile since I’d been a fully-material creature. It was almost amusing that it took entry to another dimension to make me feel real.

But I did. I was still human. I was responsible for what I’d done, the role I’d played. I’d been irresponsible, because it felt good. Because of the wraith; because of the ancient. Because of the crown. Any number of excuses, whirling about me like shields, deflecting any attack.

Because it was right for me to judge. I’d earned it. I’d been at the receiving end often-enough. And when I did my job properly, I’d make mistakes. Of course I was going to. It was existing on the edge, every life on the line. It was the immaturity in me that wanted me to step down, step back, step away.

No. I’d learned my lesson.

I had to dig deeper. I had to get in the thick of things. I had to be who I was born to be.

Feychilde. Not a killer. Not Hellchilde or Deathchilde or Anything Miserablechilde.

Feychilde.

I drew the veil of the otherworld across us, summoning and ingesting multiple eldritches within a single gesture so that before I was even fully-returned to Materium’s Bells-blasted, storm-shaken shores, I was safe. Vardae’s spell had clearly faded, leaving us exposed to the normal flow of time, exposed to attacks. I couldn’t have a stray lightning-bolt ruining everything now.

I was left with something of a conundrum, so I started building shields, suspecting that by the time I came up with a solution a solid ward would be much more difficult to construct. For all my strength, it was beyond me to pick her up, at least not without violently shaking her head about. I didn’t doubt Avaelar’s prowess in stabilising her, but I very much doubted it’d be a good idea for me to start hauling her around one-armed like a sack of spuds over my shoulder.

I could summon something to carry her – a litter of imps, perhaps…

But my shields – should they get struck by some attack… should the imps get destroyed or dispersed… should she fall…

No. I had to carry her.

I’d done it to the twins easily-enough. I brought the wraith-state coursing down my arm, out of my hand, letting it trickle into her.

There was no feedback from the interaction to tell me anything was amiss. I’d never done this to someone on the verge of death before, and I really, really didn’t fancy making any more mistakes right now. After a few seconds of testing, however, I felt confident. I funnelled the state-change right into her.

Then when I indulged the satyr-strength she was more a bag of bubbles than a sack of spuds. Her recumbent form drifted up in my hand, floating like smoke on the air, and I brought her down my arm into position bit by bit, so that at last her head was resting into my chest, her feet sticking out to the side. Her legs were almost perfectly horizontal, bobbing up and down only gently, like those of a swimmer laid out on their back on the surface of a pool.

My hand firmly at the small of her back, fingers spread to their widest to maximise the contact between us, I opened my wings and gave a single great flap. I started to fly, rising up twenty feet.

Yes. My shield-work would be even slower and sloppier given my one hand was out of action, but it was going to work. The disruption caused to the stability of her body was minimal. I could get her to safety.

Safety. Where’s that again, Kas? Where can you go? Where can you take her?

The first image that burst into my mind was that of home. The shelves of trashy novels, story books, old dog-eared volumes picked up for a copper on the market – all their spines stuck out in a mess because none of us could be bothered organising the collection into some semblance of neatness. The bedroom, the bits of mouldy bread secreted away –

It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s all gone away and now you’re here, it’s you, you’re all you’ve got. Where do you go? Where can you take her?

I couldn’t trust to the Magisterium, couldn’t deposit her at a healer’s tent… Could I trust Kani? The priesthoods in general? There could be a temple nearby –

You came here for a reason, Kas. You need your old acquaintances. The ones still left alive.

My mouth went dry.

Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong!

It was up to me.

My old acquaintances…

Yeah, I was still doing this all wrong.

I focussed my mind, creating purple seams with my imagination, widening them with pure will – not a single gesture required.

At the same time I cried: “Netherhame! Shallowlie! If you can hear me – Feychilde has returned to Mund. I need you. Mund needs you!”

Four ascended ancients joined me, floating there before the Thirteen Candles and its impenetrable shield. I looked down on the pallid dark elven spirits, watching their flickering, purpling ghost-faces. Their expressions were attentive, servile.

Serves them right.

“Let’s start working on the nethernal ones, then,” I muttered to myself, or to the sleeping Tanra. “Slower, this time. Don’t want the things getting aggressive.”

I started attaching tendrils to them, aiming for the middle of the chest, right over their insubstantial hearts.

“Winterprince! Glimmermere! Fangmoon! I’ve got a pretty good idea what they’ve told you, and, just like you’ve been suspecting all along – they’re wrong! You need to fight! Fight like you used to!”

There was still nothing, no response from the creepy, silent candelabrum.

I didn’t even really know Brokenskull or Voicenoise, and my interactions with Dimdweller had been limited.

“Fine.” I attached the tendril to the last of the dark elf ghosts. “Looks like it’s time to bring the walls down, then. But I won’t stop at your shields. Soon you’ll have to either fight me or join me, or you’ll be living in a rubble-pile like the rest of us.”

I reached out with the fifth and final tendril, selecting the magenta net of force protecting the Candles and guiding my sorcerous finger to it with my eyes.

I was just about to touch the nethernal wards when Vardae decided to show back up, halting directly between my shield and the tower’s. ‘Nightfell’ didn’t even look at the ascended ancients, simply stopping and standing there panting, her hands on her hips.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I had to fix… there was someone I had to kill. Tanra, she –”

“Someone you had to kill.”

My fifth finger fell short of the mark, coiling up, preparing itself to strike instead. My four ascended ancients seemed to recognise my tone and, despite the leashes affixed to their chests, they started to float towards Vardae.

Now she noticed them, eyeing them cautiously and taking a step backwards.

“You don’t understand, we… Nighteye’s… his f-father – Tanra took his skin.”

My eyes widened. The mention of Nighteye threw me for a moment. The ancients slowed to a hovering stop, looking back at me hesitantly.

“Lord Vernays, he was running, and we were… we were going t-”

“I don’t know why you think you have to explain yourself to me,” I interrupted her. Exactly what part of his skin Tanra took I didn’t quite follow, but if Theor’s dad was running and Vardae killed him… good riddance. Still, it was probably the one justifiable murder she’d committed since her apostasy began; she was no Duskdown. “No. Don’t even excuse it. Not after you abandoned us like that. Stop pretending to be her. Stop saying we! You –“

“I am her!” Vardae screamed. “Don’t you see? She’s more powerful than I, more powerful than I could ever be! She won! I didn’t – didn’t abandon her… I didn’t know how, but I knew – I knew – you could do it. You could save her. Save us.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper, and I barely caught it over the wind, the Bells: “Save us both.”

Then her hand shot to her face in spite of the mask she still wore, two fingertips pressed to the mouth-opening.

“Gods below,” she gasped. “She killed the whole Arrealbord, didn’t she?”

I drew an icy breath, glanced down at Tanra’s sleeping face, then looked back at Everseer.

“If she did – it will be your head that rolls. Now.” I gestured by thrusting my chin out. “Open the wards. Show me the way in, or I swear, I’ll crack your Candles like an egg.”

She shook her head. “There’s no way in, and there’s no wards, not to you. Try to cross. You understand better now.” She gestured at me, my tattered robe, as if the wave of a hand could encompass the state of my soul. “Just say the name. Swear by Vaahn, or Yane – swear by Mekesta, if you’re really intent on becoming her disciple… If you will –“

“No,” I said. “You don’t understand. I’m over it. I don’t need some sense of belonging. You already took everything – everything from me! You can’t have my despair too. It’s mine – mine to face, mine to defeat. You say you want to fight everyone’s battles for them but then you go and tie your own hands and call the war won. No! No longer. I’m not going in. They’re coming out.

“By Glaif. By Illodin.

“By Kultemeren.”

I reinforced my shields and tried not to wince, affixing the fifth finger to a magenta rope of unliving energy.

I sit cross-legged on cold tiles in the very centre of the pavilion, bathed in a sourceless ink-blue light. The dimensions of the space do not confuse me; the undulations of the four midnight curtains make it look as though the walls might be just a minute’s walk away, yet I know them to be vast beyond sense. A mortal man would live his entire life in the seeking of a single side, and spend his son’s and grandson’s on the same quest, all to no avail, all to take but the first step on the journey. Yet only rarely do I look out upon my surroundings. All there is before me is the Great Game, the many-sided die floating, rotating slowly justabove the tiles, a single small figurine standing in each of the spaces. If I look closely I can see the figurines moving. Twelve worlds there have been since last I left the die, twelve planes born and grown and laid down as fertiliser for the next since I missed a move; centuries have changed grandsons to dust since my turn at the table but I sense, I sense it is coming, coming as inevitably as the changing of seasons. The harvest will return. Patience will be repaid tenfold and hundredfold and thousandfold. I have only to wait. And he permits it. So long as I watch, I can wait.

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Longer that time – two instants. My eyes went straight to Vardae but she wasn’t attacking my shields. She stood there, shaking, helpless but to watch as I tapped the power of ageless eldritches, fed it to my minions. The purple lines had thinned out to a greater extent than the red ones, condensed down to not just to the thickness of a finger but the thickness of a vein, to the very incandescent cores.

I studied the bloated ascended ancients, floating there in the rain, impervious to its touch.

I could tell without even glancing that they were still mine – if anything, the bond between us felt stronger than ever before – yet it was interesting to scrutinise them. Unlike Khikiriaz, who’d physically swollen up like an angry red spot, the ascended ancients merely deepened instead. The faint hues of violet comprising their deathly faces, their billowing grey-white bodies – those colours moved several places along the shade chart, becoming almost black and blinding at the same time, the only true purple remaining in their fiery magenta eyes.

Yes. Why not?

There were no gestures required, no words. The nearest ancient floated towards me, entirely submissive, and I swallowed her into myself.

She wasn’t moaning, even on the inside, and my control was absolute. I joined with her, and silence reigned within.

Cold flushes of pure power surged through my immaterial flesh, lapping against my consciousness like the icy tides of Northril. The sensation was repetitive and, moreover, reliable. The energy-source was being refreshed to full roughly every one-and-a-half seconds, an unending heartbeat pumping raw prowess into my physical structures.

I had to make sure I used it, before the tide turned.

I dismissed the remaining three overpowered dark elf ghosts, then glanced back to Vardae.

“You do know she still needs a healer, right?”

She replied by removing her mask, shocking me once more into self-doubt.

There truly were no differences between them. I knew Everseer had copied Killstop’s postures and poses, had captured the essential aspects of her demeanour – but now, seeing the face of Mund’s ultimate darkmage… it was something else altogether. The face – it was Tanra’s. Not a single tangible feature or discernible nuance to tell them apart.

Tanra’s eyes looked up at me out of the imposter’s face, and in a small voice she said: “I didn’t… didn’t realise, no. But it’s o-okay.” Her voice wasn’t just small – it was timid. Like that of a child awaiting punishment. “Now, I mean. I’ve called them, now. They’re coming.”

“You know that I still need to do it, though, right?”

I thrust my chin at the Candles, my hidden eagerness slipping through.

“We’ll use it against the dragons!” she pleaded, looking as though I’d pushed her to the edge of tears. “W-we need a safe place, and –“

“The eldritches supplying these wards – I think they work for the dragons.” I cut her off and she fell silently instantly, looking aghast. I gestured at the network of shields. “An ancient sorcerer, whose power hasn’t died over the centuries, fed instead, supplemented by snacks taken from our city’s selection of archmages. The Slave of the Sorcerer… Your whole rebellion – it’s just part of the same plan. A useful box to hold a particularly delicious feast. No, these protections… they’ll fall before Mal Tagar’s claws like he’s clawing through a spider’s web. I think the Maginox is where we make a final stand. The power there’s clean, at least. Or we could stash the population of the city in there. Or something. We’ll work out the finer details later.”

Without you.

I wanted to say it, but I couldn’t – not looking into that face. It was too easy to talk to her. Every intuition was going with the flow, inherently insistent that this is Tanra, that I’m just having a chat with Tanra.

Lies!

I turned my gaze from the speechless seeress, thinking it through.

One ethereal. One nethernal. One infernal.

Three Wellsprings of power.

Three guardians.

It was all linked somehow, wasn’t it? The same ancient entities whose minds designed the trap of Magicrux Zyger – they’d designed this place, this shield, hadn’t they?

Gong! Gong! Gong!

“They aren’t coming,” the false Tanra muttered, breaking my reverie. “They…” She jerked, as if tempted to glance over her shoulder and then thinking twice about it. “Hirazain’s stopped Ithilya, and Jacel and Ribara won’t sanction a mobilisation until I’ve got rid of you. They’re… arguing. I could…”

I no longer cared. My tendrils snaked out and, without so much as a gesture, I brought forth Sarcamor and Sarminuid, Blofm and Zabalam, moving them down to the grass in a flash of emerald energy.

They took a moment to get their bearings, finding me floating above them.

“What’s all this, then?” the goblin croaked, and the gremlin just hissed uncertainly – but the two satyrs folded their blue-leather arms, satisfied expressions on their goatishly-handsome faces.

“Prepare for a power-boost from a… painful place,” I said. I didn’t really know how to warn them, or whether it was warranted – but I had a strong suspicion that I at least needed the warning.

Wincing against the onset of unspeakable agonies, I attached the fingers…

I cannot breathe or see or speak or scream – nor do I feel the inclination. I am buried, and the soil is my solace, my salvation. I fracture and animate; I slip away and draw in; and still, in spite of everything, I persist. I cannot be anything else: I am the pain of constant consciousness, the paradox incarnate, the existence that accepts itself because existence is unacceptable. I am the pain and the pain is me; I am the change that comes of internal rupture. I am the distress that penetrates sleep and inserts itself into the dream. I crossed the threshold and this was my penance and I pay it without the ability to hesitate. His will is my guide as I writhe in the dark places. I will not shirk my duty. I killed my pride, my regret, my love. I gave him my strength, my respect, my spite. He alone shall show me the way to Celestium’s shores, and then I will know my name again. Then I will know my name. My name. My name.

I came back to myself, gasping for air as I felt the sudden withdrawal of miles upon miles of thorny vines from inside my body. The wraith-state had been no impediment to the tactile sensation this vision offered me, and, while I hadn’t actually been penetrated by the rose-man’s barbs, my memories bore the shadows of their trails, leaving my weightless body contorted, burning within.

The poor flagellant king only confirmed my suspicions.

The ethereal force-lines had thinned almost to the extent of the nethernal ones. My four fey were rolling about in the waves of dead grass, seemingly overcome with their own perceived agonies.

It did happen, then. They did feel it…

I felt sorry for them, but what choice did I really have?

I sank down closer to them, opening my mouth to apologise, but before the words left my lips my ears refined the sounds they were making. These weren’t exclamations of pain – the grunts and moans were more like those of well-fed patrons at a feast than those of the torturer’s victims. It was Blofm’s vile utterances and Zab’s hissing that threw me off. I halted, and heard the gremlin panting ‘esae, esae…’ between his snarls; I caught the luxurious, almost mewling quality to the satyrs’ groans.

The ground rumbled, and I quickly stretched my power out over them, withdrawing the quartet of fey back into myself.

I hadn’t been thinking, really; just acting on instinct. Whatever the meaning of the shaking earth, I wanted them safe inside me. It just so happened that when I joined with them once more, I received a fairly hefty portion of the rose-king’s stored energies along with them. The influx of power – it startled me. The faculties of illusion-creation, illusion-destruction – those were easy for my imagination to encompass. But the otherworldly strength and reflexes? Every nethernal muscle tingled, brimming with explosive potential.

And thanks to their heightened reactions I found myself pinpointing the exact spot upon which to centre my gaze, picking out the precise location that was the midpoint of the localised earthquake, thirty yards to my left.

“What is this devilry, Feychilde?” Vardae asked, a note of genuine fear to her voice. The rumbling sound was so novel that it took me unawares; I couldn’t help but feel concern, my instincts reacting to her voice just like they would to Tanra’s.

“I don’t know,” I called back, not daring to avert my eyes.

Then the dimension appeared to snap, a demi-plane brutally forcing its way into Materium. A thousand seams converged on the dead grass where I was staring, like an ethereal god was clawing its way out of the otherworld.

A shadowy Gilaela stepped forth, her hooves buried in a nest of thorns that was half-real, half-gateway.

Her tone was no less imperious than it had been at our last meeting.

“Do not flee.”

As she tried to advance, the vines caught at her hooves and tail, only letting her proceed a yard or two. The dark tricorn was only there in seeming, I suspected; she looked more like a figurine blown of green glass than her true self.

“I will not strike at you, Master.” Her sardonic tone was gentle, but I could sense the brittleness, the hurt beneath the words. “I merely come to echo the Aedervaeni. Call on me when you need me. You were so good, so kind, to each of us.”

My mouth was at desert-levels of dryness.

“Don’t suppose you fancy headbutting another shield for me, do you?” That was what I wanted to say. But I couldn’t even bring myself to begin.

“Princess…”

The pain she’s endured… for me… all for me, just so that I can jaunt about, pretend it’s all worthless, meaningless…

The mingled emotions in her eyes – all the hate, all the rage, all the sorrow – it was all for me.

I could speak no more. I lowered my face.

“You will need me, empty child,” the cursed eldritch said, “and I will heed the call. After all – under your guidance, I go only from strength to strength…”

The dark-green glass melted; the thorns swallowed her, the earth shuddered and then was still.

“What the drop did you do to your unicorn, Kas?” Tanra’s voice floated up to me.

I gritted my teeth.

Her hate. Her rage. Her sorrow. It was all me. It fuelled me.

The power swelled inside me.

I did this.

I looked down at Nightfell.

“This is why I’m here,” I muttered. “I wield myself.”

I brought Khikiriaz back to reality.

“Strike it!” I roared.

I didn’t stop to consider, didn’t build the sword, didn’t extend my force with thought and intention and attention –

Ismethyl was with me. The blade poured from me like a flood; I swung it back with my void-arm and it felt like it stretched behind me to the horizon, tense as a bowstring at full draw.

The blade filled with all my hate. My rage. My sorrow. Filled with Gilaela and Tanra, Xan and Xas. Mum and Dad. The stolen power of the ancient guardians of Magicrux Zyger.

The sightless eyes of three dead magisters.

Emrelet.

I put everything into it, without knowing how, without understanding. All I knew –

You’ll join us now, heretics.

My wounded ikistadreng gave no complaint, no moment of hesitation – the behemoth of a demon leapt, and, despite the way he staggered, the swollen antlers went smacking straight into the shield.

When I brought the blade down – when I let it fly – worse than mere thunder answered.

The sorcerous eruption was titanic.

THRAAAAAAANG!

A million Bells were struck all at once. Innumerable rainbows came shooting out from the shattered barrier, brightest at the point of impact, darts of pure colour streaming in every direction, condensed to the sharpness of arrows, the length of spears. Thousands and thousands of iridescent shards sprang away, rippling across the landscape, popping like soap bubbles.

The broken essences of the gleaming wards went bursting outwards at incomprehensible speeds, yet they themselves caused no actual violence. The excess energies ricocheted harmlessly from every visible surface, bounding and rebounding until they all found a route out into the sky, where the infernal storm swallowed them at last.

The shock-wave that followed was far less expansive in scope – yet far more forceful.

Nightfell vanished instantly, of course, but me and my tame fiend caught it full-on. The shield was gone, yet the wind of the its explosion battered even me, pushing me a hundred yards before I could arrest the motion with my wings. Khikiriaz fared far worse, given his magnified physicality and extra-planar identity; he was tossed a good fifty feet into the air, and on landing he ripped a ditch in the ground wide-enough to hold a chariot-race. I dismissed him once more to Infernum to recuperate; I sensed his condition had not improved yet since his brief encounter with Vardae’s blades, and I worried that he’d spent much of the stolen guardian-power that might’ve otherwise served to fortify him. Certainly he was reduced in stature to my eye – though not entirely reverted to his earlier size. Sending him through a gateway drank less from my Wellspring than it had moments earlier; that much I knew for certain.

I felt I still had some of the tapped strength in me. The force-blade I’d struck the Thirteen Candles with – maybe I wouldn’t be able to manage its like again, but if I spent it wisely I could eke it out in dribs and drabs. Bolster my shields, if I needed them. Give weight to my blades, when I was forced to use them again.

Which was probably imminent, all things considered. I’d achieved my goal – I’d brought down the defences.

The defences preventing me from witnessing the force awaiting me, the legion of insane magic-users buzzing about the Candles’ lower levels like a swarm of wasps about the entrance to its hive.

They would push back. But they had to understand the truth, as I did.

That’s my legion of insane magic-users, thank you very much.

* * *

The shattering of the wards seemed to have carried some implosive effect. None of the heretics appeared hurt, at a glance, but they were out of formation, moving not as a flock, instead clustered in small groups – many, many groups. Their wizards, enchanters and diviners were out of synch. The coordination of mass-flight was beyond them, at least in this moment. And yet by the time I’d dismissed my ikistadreng and looked up, they were too close for me to fully appreciate the number of them; within less than a heartbeat I was completely and utterly surrounded by mass-murderers. They came as a living cloud of floating mages, rotating around me in constant motion – but this was no orderly manoeuvre. On the edges of factional groups they jostled for position, thrusting one another out of formation towards me; evidently no one wanted to come too close to the returned-from-the-dead Feychilde, because whenever one of them was pushed out of place they scrambled to find a gap and fall back into the shifting patterns with the others.

A rabble. A completely useless rabble.

What had Vardae been thinking? Without a seer’s orders they floundered – whenever their all-knowing leaders were operating at anything less than maximum efficiency their military precision deserted them, leaving them a mob of overpowered individuals.

I was here. I was beyond Everseer’s sight, beyond the scope of any of the murderous diviners in the group. And it showed.

Even as they coursed about me, ostensibly attempting to intimidate me, I noticed one of their wizards lashing out at another heretic who pressed too close upon him. I noticed a group of imp-minions threatening to dive at one of their master’s rivals. It made me chuckle, the immaturity of it all. I wondered whether my arch-enemy was still amongst them… Aramas, Theor had called him. It could’ve been his imps I was watching, for all I knew.

“And this is what you gave it up for,” I breathed in disbelief. Then, far more loudly, I repeated myself.

“This is what you gave it up for.”

They slowed perceptibly in their movements – all of them.

“I don’t care,” I went on. “No one’s going to care. Everything’s gonna come down to this choice. This moment, right here. Are you with us? Or are you going to play right into the dragons’ claws?”

“So now you’re a believer!” someone cried.

“If they’re coming back, the only reason we’re here is to be Arreath’s defenders! To be weapons of war: to save the city, save the world! Yet you would remain sheathed swords. You’re afraaaaaaaid!”

The last word I said like a child’s taunt; they’d continued jeering and yelling, and I wanted to really hammer-home the point.

A number of destructive effects came streaking towards me, so potent that they should’ve withered a man, should’ve threatened the life of even an eldritch-clad arch-sorcerer. They were laden with true killing-intent – I could tell.

I dropped every ward, letting the attacks pass through me, forcing those behind to scurry aside.

“Afraid! Just like I was.”

Rather than exacerbating their protests, the jeers started to die down again. Maybe it was just that they couldn’t conceive of someone being so brazen, standing alone against their dominant presence.

“Afraid of losing. Afraid of winning! Afraid to act, afraid to be responsible, every last one of us, every sorcerer’s slave and seer! Well now the time’s up, isn’t it, Everseer? Go on – tell them. Tell them the truth at last!”

They slowed almost to a stop, every hooded head, every narrowed eye turning to the unmasked Nightfell who’d reappeared on the grass beneath me.

She said nothing.

I looked down at her too, at Tanra’s cringing face.

“You’ve been misled,” I went on, not wanting to leave an uncontrolled silence. “You lost the distinction between killing and fighting. They’re different, believe me. I bet half of you couldn’t fight your way out of a Sticktown coffin! The dragons – they trapped you here! You’re a rich boy’s snack-bag! You got lost, along the way, and it’s sad – but it can be remedied. The future you’ve all seen – it’s not written in stone. It’s sand. A glamour. A disease of the mind that capitalises on our weakness, eats away at the spirit till all that’s left is the emptiness. The selfishness. You think I haven’t known it? You think I didn’t run away? I ran! I’m afraid!

“But the difference between you and me?

“I’m willing to fight.”

* * *

The uproar was incredible. I’d taunted them to the utmost of my ability. I thought conflict inescapable – I’d have to assert my superiority, see to a number of challengers before they accepted my temporary leadership. I wanted to goad the worst of their number into action, cut them down, and see the others’ resistance weaken.

But, like I had my brother and sister’s gift, my words somehow seemed to cut through the nonsense between their ears. Slowly, the uproar died down into a kind of stupefied silence.

“What do you want from us, boy?” came the cry of an old man.

I laughed. How many ways did I need to say it?

Your life, old man. No more. No less.

“Come with me! Face the demons! Don’t give in to fear. Use it. Make it your own.”

“Enough words!” came another yell, amplified with its own dreadful nethernal majesty. “We must debate this turn of events, Feychilde.”

There were a million things I wanted to say to that.

“You have champions amongst you,” I cried back instead. “Not former champions. Champions! Let them fly forth! Come, brothers and sisters. I don’t know what she told you about me, but I don’t bite.”

And then, some of them hesitantly, my old acquaintances finally began floating towards me from out of the crowd.

It was becoming increasingly dark; I had to swivel around a couple of times before I spotted them approaching. They’d all been in one single little cluster, those brave defenders of Mund whose minds Vardae infected. Evidently they’d formed their own minor faction, of a sort, within the Srol Heretic movement. I’d been incapable of picking them out till now, but once they started moving their individual identifying features were made plain. Glimmer and Fang wore their humanoid shapes, which had thrown me off a bit, especially given that a fair number of the other druid-heretics were clothed in bestial forms. Netherhame and Shallowlie were discernible from the others by nothing more than the shadowland spirits they employed; their rag-robed bodies flickered with purple shadow much like my own, if less-intensely. I fancied Min had her mask on beneath her hood.

Yet it was Winterprince whose appearance most shocked me.

I’d anticipated him to be at the fore, berating me for my insolence, perhaps even wanting to duel me again, for the insults I’d offered him and the rest of his idiotic sect. Had I expected to see him lagging behind the others, the most awkward-looking? Had I expected the confused demeanour, the squirming hands? No. Not ever. I could only see his chin, broad and stubbly, and I recalled the ethereal clearing where we’d fought – the way he’d sat down, dejected in defeat.

It was him – it had to be. Closer inspection revealed he was missing the greater portion of his leg, the absence visible in the way his robes flowed about him.

No ice-elemental covering. None of the signs of the warrior I’d expected. But I had to continue to hope. Yune showed me the way now.

“I never thought I’d be so happy to see you. Uwaine, is it?” He wasn’t immediately forthcoming, so I turned to the others closer to me. “Min. Ly. Sol. Imrye.” I nodded to them in turn, then looked over at the others, noting Dimdweller and Brokenskull – nondescript rags did little to occlude their identities, the only dwarves in a group of humans. “Hey, guys. Gods… it’s been awhile.”

“I thought you’d died, Feychilde,” Lyanne offered, her voice guarded.

No fear in her, at least.

“They tried pretty hard to get rid of me, yeah.”

“What happened to you, lad?” Dimdweller said. He seemed to be eyeing the crown with particular interest, but there was genuine concern in his voice.

I just shook my head. “There’s no time. We have three eolastyr still to kill. And two dweonatar, whatever they are.”

“Dweonatar,” Lyanne grunted, “are what did this.” The tatty sleeve extended, and the sorceress’s fingers appeared, gesturing towards Winterprince’s leg – no, towards his missing leg. For his part, Winterprince only seemed to shiver.

Was that really all that remained of him? The lost leg on its own would be more useful than this quivering wreck of a man. At least you could throw it at a demon.

Then the sorceress raised her arm and flicked the pointing finger at my tendrils. “What did that?”

I smiled. “Don’t think it’s replicable, sorry. Look…” How to get it across? “I don’t know the first thing about dweonatar, but you’ll have to teach me on the way. We have to meet the others. I’ve wasted about twenty minutes already. The leader – of the demons, I mean – it’s at the Fountains of Merizet. The rest are fighting there already, and they’re going to need as many of us as we can bring.”

“Something worse than dweonatar?”

I took it as a rhetorical question – Netherhame obviously understood the implication – and I cast around at the dozens of hovering heretics. How many of their number were archmages – how few – I remained uncertain.

Archmages or not… we need them.

After.

“Ladies… I don’t know if I could trouble you? She’s okay but… she’s almost dead…”

I indicated Tanra with a glance, and saw the troubled expression as if it were bouncing between the faces of the druidesses.

It was Sol to whom I made my plea.

“It’s her. It’s really her. Please.”

I floated down towards the ground, and gently laid Tanra out on the rain-soaked grass before removing my wraith-essence from her form. Most of the champion-heretics followed, leaving only Winterprince and Voicenoise floating above. Whatever her reservations, Fang immediately went into glowing mode, tending to the pseudo-dead seeress with nimbuses of lime-green light. The radiance was so vivid it was almost like her gestures moved puddles of incandescent algae through the air. Imrye and Brokenskull were standing over her; whether they were somehow helping, I couldn’t tell, but it sure didn’t look like it.

Because they think it’s Vardae.

Because she is Vardae, still, somehow…

Dissent and violence was the order of the hour. Remarkably, only a few of the heretics had broken ranks – some six or seven chose to head back to the Candles, while ten or twelve shot off in random directions over Hightown. Yet there were still scores and scores of them buzzing around and chattering away disconsolately, only a few yelling threats or exhorting the others to attack me. Far more were attacking their fellows, with mixed results. Evidently the shattering of their protections hadn’t completely dampened their spirits. They were still here, after all. I could see Vardae, the real Vardae, trying to avoid getting drawn into their arguments and failing badly – she’d seemingly been pulled aside to explain herself, other high-ranked heretics massed in the air about her.

Her head was hanging in defeat. There was enough Tanra in her now to rob her of her evil glee, her overpowering confidence.

She wasn’t alone. I looked again at the milling masses, noting more and more of them turning aside to the Candles. I was losing it. I was losing them. How had I allowed the momentum to peter out like this? I’d almost had them in my hand…

I gave Dimdweller and the two sorceresses a glance.

“What do you think?” I asked quietly. “Will the heretics fight?”

“Will we fight, you mean?” Netherhame growled.

“Ly!” Minnerveve gasped, finally speaking, the sound of the single syllable equal parts bitter and scathing.

“If you count yourselves as heretics – whatever.” I matched Netherhame’s confrontational tone, ignoring Shallowlie’s outburst. “Will you fight? I’m sure you had your reasons but…” I looked pointedly at the Nightfell lying on the grass, then moved my gaze to the other one. “She never said a single word to you that was true. Not one.”

I’d tried to keep the true extent of my emotions hidden, but it was pointless.

“You want to kill her,” the sorceress breathed.

I looked back at Lyanne; through the purple mist-effect, her eyes were shining like lustrous lavender pearls.

Not narrowed in judgement. Opened wide, in awe.

“For her I’d make an exception,” I whispered.

My tendrils coiled up and clenched at the tips, like fingers making a fist, knotting into a barbed mess of force-lines that it took considerable effort to relax, release.

“Lad…” Dimdweller started.

“What?” I snapped. “Really, what? I don’t want to kill people – in fact I think about almost nothing other than how to save people – how to not kill the people I have to stop – and here I have a self-avowed heretic – a murderer-fan, a worshipper of Yane –“

I slapped my hand to my mouth, staring in horror at Netherhame.

She just laughed.

“Better get over that, hadn’t ya, heretic!” she said scornfully.

“Ly,” Min said again, quietly this time.

The taller of the two turned to the shorter, suddenly looking uncertain.

Shallowlie cast back her hood, but only to expose her stare. She was still masked, gazing coolly at her companion with unwavering dark eyes. “We still haf to trusty chudder. We cahn go on like this.”

“He doesn’t understand, Min,” Ly said, crossing her arms. “He’s the same as us.”

“Maybe I understand too well, and served Yane in all but name,” I sneered.

I let the walls down. It felt good. Nethernum raged and tossed inside me, and when next I spoke my voice was deep, louder than the thunder, the Bells, all of it.

“Vardae! Come to me now, or pay hell’s price for your apostasy.”

Everyone stopped their irritating debating instantly.

I pointed at her. Tanra. Everseer. Hierarch Twenty-Five. The upper-echelon idiots floating around her froze as if my finger indicated each of them.

Maybe it did. I wasn’t used to pointing with my left hand, still.

Let them all take it for a warning.

Looking morose, she approached. If she was using her magic to move differently, it was to slow her steps rather than speed them.

She came to a halt on the edge of our makeshift gathering, and though her eyes were lowered her voice was clear, loud.

“They don’t believe me,” she said, shoulders slumped. “They won’t listen, and I don’t know how to make them. Won’t you take that thing off, Kas?”

The voice. It wounded me, more than she could ever know.

“Don’t talk to me like that!” I cried. “Don’t make me kill you!”

I moved a few feet through the air, the motion completely outside my control; I was only vaguely aware of the activation of the nethernal powers causing me to float forwards, and the impetus? None of it was conscious. It was like my hate physically tugged me.

Then the Rivertown voice of the heretic came to my ears, from somewhere behind me. The voice I knew and loathed in equal measure.

Aramas.

“He’s always been a killer, Vardae. Watch out. Always.”

Damn him.

Damn him, he’s right.

I would’ve loved to have him in front of me right now, there in the space I was floating through: have him exposed, easy to carve without losing momentum. But to turn and seek him and murder him there in front of them all – it would risk losing the rest of them. It would look weak, especially if he ran, forced me to chase him or, worse, force me to give up the chase.

I didn’t lose momentum. I let him take his shot at me. There’d be time for a balancing of the scales some day.

Gong! Gong! Gong!

Not today. Today was a day for killing giants, not squashing mice.

I came closer to Tanra, the lying witch-face she wore, an imitation so perfect it made the skin crawl.

“Don’t do it,” she said. “Don’t.”

I drifted yet nearer, coming to meet her. She’d stopped in her tracks. No one needed magic to feel this kind of tension. Memories suffused me, their content indistinct; their meaning was the only clear aspect. The only thing that mattered.

The pain you caused me.

Us.

The world.

You broke my life in two, Vardae, and you used the lives of others, spent them callously, to do it.

I’ll see your ghost floating there, and know today I did the world and gods a favour.

I threw back the whip-arm, high and wide, causing disarray as its deadly lines swung towards a group who’d been overzealous, watching the proceedings too closely.

“Don’t,” she pleaded, dropping to her knees and staring up at the quintuple executioner’s blade. “I’m not me. I’m her now. Please.”

In the silence even the Bells seemed muted.

I looked back over my shoulder. Lyanne, watching me with a curious smirk on her face. Sol, her gaze drawn in concern as she stared towards me and Everseer.

Her pain too. Their pain. All thanks to the one who saw too much.

I turned back to Vardae and borrowed Netherhame’s smirk.

“Did you know Theor wouldn’t get that chance, when you sent him that night? Wouldn’t get any last words?”

Her eyes moved from the five near-motionless, vertically-streaming whips – to meet my gaze.

“Well,” I said. “You wasted yours.”

And then, appearing in the moment of satisfaction to burst and remake it all in the same instant – there were two Tanras in front of me once more.

“Thanks, Sol. And yes, Kas, it’s me. You can put the arm down, now. I mean, figuratively, of course. I don’t think you can put it down down. Hey, can you put it down? Like, I mean, make it go away? Or is it always there –“

“She has to… die, Tanra,” I said past the lump in my throat. I was suddenly feeling less than sure of myself, listening to the sound of my own wavering voice. “She can’t be allowed to continue. She can’t.”

“She has to be allowed,” she replied instantly. “That’s my purpose. I’m Killstop.”

I focussed on her face, properly focussed on it for the first time.

“You think I don’t deserve death? You think I won’t get what’s coming to me?” She laughed, baldly amused at the notion. “But it’s who I am. Who I’ve always been. I listened to what you said and – you’re right. I was afraid, I suppose. Once the Magisterium found out what I was, that I’d met with you and Theor – I let myself go. I let Vardae take me. We all did, for our own reasons. There was too much death for more to matter, and when death doesn’t matter anymore, nothing matters. But you can’t kill her. It was you who first taught me why.”

She moved aside and turned to regard her clone.

“Vardae Rolaine deserves your pity, as much or more than the rest of them. Think what you’ve been through, Kas – and imagine what I’ve been through. Then think who she was. She was Everseer, for gods’ sake. The whole world on her shoulders. You think she went this way lightly? You think she’s worthy of your judgement? Who are you to judge her? Look at what she’s been driven to! She might’ve been crippled but you can damn-well bet she struggled, with every weapon at her disposal. Is there a greater victim? Who are any of us to judge? She took everything from me. Well – I give it back!”

Vardae was weeping openly, and her fragility seemed to break the spell of anger clinging to the very air.

“Tyr Kayn warped everything, everyone,” Killstop went on in a softer voice. “If you’re going to blame anyone… we have to blame them. The dragons.”

It was too convenient but she was right, damn it, right. I lowered the whip, the lines retracting. I was close to choking, unfiltered emotions seeming to bubble up right into my throat.

“I can’t – I’m –“

“Happy Yearsend, Kas?”

I drew a deep breath, then laughed. I couldn’t help it. Even with the crown on my head, she still somehow knew just what to say.

“Ha. Yeah, that was the one, wasn’t it? Happy Yearsend, Tanra. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Thanks for, you know, not quite killing me.”

“Yeah… gosh. Thanks for not finishing the job. I am rather sorry, you know.”

“Hey, I tried to kill you first.”

“There seems to be a lot of that going around.”

“So you’ll let her live?”

“Her life or death – they aren’t for me to decide.” I let my eyes track upwards, and I cast about at the cloud of heretics. “The same for all of us. The same as them.”

I repeated Netherhame’s words, far off in thought, staring into the skies after the ones who were fleeing beyond the storm’s shadows. Vanishing into hidden doors on the towers, or sorcerous portals. Depleting the demon-smashing force I’d hoped to forge here, diminishing it second by second.

“I’m the same.”

I understood suddenly where I was going wrong.

I’m them.

I pushed myself into the sky and cried out to them again: “Heretics! Rebels and Chaos-makers! Truth-seekers. You who came to meet me – stay! Hear me. I speak to you, as one who would speak for you! I understand now. I was wrong. There are no cowards here, are there? You, you who came forth to face me – you are the bold! And are you not bold!More… you’re curious. You’re confident. You are the fighters! You are the ones I need. The ones Mund, the world needs. My elite. My champions.”

I spun about, encapsulating all of them in the sweep of my arm, trying to discern a familiar shape from the featureless crowds. He wasn’t wearing the spider-legs or the draconic claw, from what I could see.

“Even you, Aramas, wherever you are. You think me an enemy, and maybe that’s how I thought about you. But we were letting them use us, don’t you see! We’re more alike than different. We only wanted the same things all along. We don’t want Mund to die. We don’t want to hand humanity to the dragons on a silver platter trussed up for the banquet. This power…” I flexed my whips, looked down at them a tad dramatically. “We only have it so we can do our part. None of us tried to live the high life. We only wanted to do the right thing. But we all knew that things wouldn’t stay the same way forever. The time of trial was always coming. The Crucible is more than just the Dracofont. It’s our purpose too. It’s why we exist.

“Things had to change, didn’t they? We couldn’t sit still forever.It’s time, now. Time to cut loose, and kill. Opportunities like this are rare. Chances to show not who we are – but who we hoped to be, before everything else got in our way.

“So let the ones who ran flee as far as they want,if they don’t come running back right this second. Let them sit in the Candles that can’t protect them more than towers of wax. I don’t need them. I just need you. We can do the right thing. To… together. We can make the difference we always wanted to. And all it takes is courage.

“You already have everything you need.”

* * *

When we moved for the Fountains, it was as an army.