AMETHYST 5.7: EVASIONS
“The Nightmare is the Shadow. The Shadow is the Wave. I see it by the light of strange stars – Rivertown is swallowed, and it climbs, over the hills, still rising as it courses up the slopes, to splash against the very shins of Obrosil and the Five Peaks. Is it a dream? Is this my own idiosyncrasy? It does not feel idiosyncratic. It feels like Truth!”
– from ‘The Notes of Timesnatcher’, recovered after the Fall
Why does your name sound so strange to me? ‘Zelurra’? It sounds like I’m pronouncing it wrong now – it’s only getting worse. What’s up with me?
“I can honestly say that I have no idea why my name would sound strange to you all of a sudden, Kas. You’re just being a – what was it? – a clod. Kastyr, Kastyr, Kastyr… Sometimes words sound funny if you say them too often, you know? It’s probably just that.” She sighed. “Or maybe it’s just that I’m not being myself.”
How do you mean?
She hadn’t replied by the time I fixed the next rune-thread, so I prodded: Come on, Zel. You tried to dive us both into the avatar. What was that about?
“You think I’m avoiding talking about it? Why did you want to attack it, Kas? After seeing what it did to Leafcloak…”
I had to! It killed her! But you – you were excited!
“You were excited! I felt it in you. The fact Vaahn killed her should’ve turned you off the idea, not spurred you on –“
That was your doing!
“No, Kas. Not really. You know it the same as I. We – how did you put it yesterday? We’re all broken. It applies to us too, you know. Think of the atiimogrix… We live, surrounded by death, but we’re unable to stop.”
I don’t want to die.
“See, Kas, you think you don’t –“
No, Zel, you’re wrong, I thought at her sharply. It was my head, after all, and I could shout over her if I had to. It’s not that I want to die. That’s not why I attacked the avatar. If there was even a ten percent chance Gilaela’s horn could’ve slain it, or even given it a serious wound, my life would’ve been worth it – it would’ve been a right reason to – you know…
“Would it? Leaving your brother and sister, to put a single dent in it?”
Leafcloak gave her life!
“So you agree with me! You wanted to give your life.”
No! You – are you mad, Zel? Do you think that’s why Leafcloak did what she did? You think she died deliberately? She’s – she was a druid, damn it –
“I didn’t say that – you’re the one who used Leafcloak ‘giving her life’ to justify your own actions! Don’t you see the contradiction there? You knew what you were doing!”
I shook my head. She was blind.
“I’m not blind, Kas, in fact I can see everything that –“
I wish I knew how to help you, dear… I thought it softly, and it silenced her all the same. I felt her… her shame. I’m not trying to say we’re not – I’m not broken – I know I am – I get that, I do. I charge headlong into near-certain death, the thought of the battle, it thrills me, sure – whatever. The point is that I didn’t do it to die. I did it to kill that hideous thing, even if it was going to be almost impossible to pull off. I had to try. Leafcloak had to try. We didn’t want to die. She wouldn’t have retired half a dozen times if she wanted to die –
“She wouldn’t have resumed the mantle of champion if she wanted to live, you mean.”
I had no answer. I fastened the spell-threads in silence, my mind in turmoil, every thought like a bubble on the surface of a cauldron, bursting into nothingness as soon as it was born.
“And you wouldn’t have stopped once Shallowlie brought you around if it was the sensible option.”
Well, I’m hardly trying to argue it was the sensible option…
“What are you trying to argue, then?”
That it was… understandable?
“Fine, Kas. It was ‘understandable’.”
No, not sarcastic-understandable – just the normal kind.
I felt her scepticism.
Anyway, how did you turn this around on me like that?
“I just started pointing out the inconsistencies in your –“
Rhetorical question, Zel!
“Well, what can I say; I must have a way with words.”
Yeah – but I’m not the one who said I wanted to never come back. Where was your way with words when you were explaining yourself through my lips to my sorceress-buddy?
She sighed again, and now it was her turn to be silent.
After thirty seconds, she came back to me, and this time there was no aggression in her tone. No apology either. Just acceptance, a touch of sorrow lined with amusement.
“I guess we’re made for each other, Kas. I didn’t see Shallowlie charging a god. We both… We hide from ourselves. But this is who I am. Who you are. We might be broken, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be fixed. I…” She chuckled, and I could tell she was going to be okay. “I once did something similar myself, you know. Flew up to a dragon, poked it right in the eye, blinded it for seven seconds – just long enough…Twelve Hells, you should’ve seen me back then, Kas. I was really something, once…”
You still are, Zel. I don’t care how old you are, where you’ve been, what you did. I… I trust you. I want you to have my back. You’re – well, you’re part of the family, you know? You need to know you’ve always got something to live for.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
“I…” Her voice cracked. “I’m – Kas! Danger!”
The work had gone more quickly this time. A sigil of Glaif, a closed book. A sigil of Nentheleme, a simple key. I’d almost managed to catch up to the point we’d reached when both me and Direcrown had been repairing it, when the residents of the tower in which I was currently an extremely-unwelcome guest finally decided to pay me a visit.
They used the trapdoor rather than coming up through the floor right under my feet, affording me a tenth-second reaction time, which was very considerate of them, all things taken into account.
The heavy lid banged open, and a blur moved towards me – then the vampire-lord was at the edge of my circle, fingers poised to rip it apart, nails digging into its surface. My other shields were already gone.
Twins indeed. The same haughty features and beautiful hair, the same rich, unspoilt white clothing.
Can he get through twelve stars? I wondered grimly, looking at those razor-sharp, steel-hard nails, remembering the severity of the wounds they could inflict.
“Hold, Ilthelor. We would have words with this one.”
The female skeleton’s voice was a high-pitched rasp this time, but nonetheless dripping with authority, the ease of familiarity. She came flying through the rectangular opening, surrounded by magenta shielding, moving under her own power.
“Unless she’s using magery, flying like that makes her a sorcerer or a wizard,” Zel mentioned.
Figured that much out… I let my senses lap over her. Wizard, I think. Very fine control.
“Watch out. Liches aren’t necessarily more powerful than they were in life, but she’s had centuries to hone her skills. She might be able to get around the sphere.“
She certainly looked the part. Her gown was a flowing thing ten feet long, hanging almost to the floor beneath her as she floated towards me. It was an intricate braiding of red and black fabrics, sleeves far too deep to expose her bony hands. To proclaim her true nature there was only the gleaming white head without a single trace of hair or skin, muscle or ligament.
A high black collar framed the face, stretching up from the neck of the garment to surround the back of her skull, extending almost a foot into the air over her head. The whole get-up was there to intimidate, to make this shrunken, dead thing look like some big scary critter.
I’d faced genuine demons. The lich-lady wasn’t scary.
That’s what I kept telling myself.
Still, someone this important-looking ‘wanted words’ with me…
At last! I forced myself to think.
“Well…” I cleared my throat. “Well finally, someone who actually wants to talk – you have no idea what it’s like trying to make inroads with the locals as a foreigner in this place,” I lamented.
“How awful thy trials,” the archlich said quietly, her voice hard. She came to a stop about twenty feet from me, glowering down at me.
I hadn’t exposed my own wizard-flight to them yet. They’d know I was capable of flight from the wings, so they wouldn’t be expecting me to take off without so much as a single flap of otherworldly feathers. A secret only to be revealed for whatever slight tactical advantage it could win me.
I moved my eyes to the vampire-lord, smiled blandly. “Your brother – he wasn’t all that chatty. He tried to adopt me, would you believe it – you’d have been an uncle! But then he met this murderous twig, see, and –”
Rage warped the porcelain features, and with a shriek Ilthelor drew back a claw to strike, strike hard, tear through my shield if he could –
His motion was too slow to be real – he was just trying to intimidate me, and I wasn’t going to let it work.
I moved to meet him at the edge of my circle, caught the hand by the wrist – saw his purple eyes widen in surprise at my strength – and headbutted him as hard as I could across the nose.
Gods, it felt good watch the vampire-lord recoil, stumble back with his palm cupped across his face.
“Revenge. Your brother took a few pieces of me with him to the shadowland, don’t you know.” I rolled my shoulders, stepped back into the centre of my circle. “I’ve learned a few things since then. Why don’t you let your betters have a bit of a natter before we have round two?”
But it was more serious than that. Glitter was pouring out from between his fingers; I’d completely forgotten about the horn.
“Ilthelor?” the lich-lady pronounced, looking down at him curiously.
The vampire had gone to his knees, one hand on the stone, the other still clasped across his nose – then he almost toppled, and thrust out his other hand to keep himself upright, revealing his face –
Most of it was gone; above his chin there was just an orb of softly-falling petals of light.
We both watched in surprise as the second Isromalle brother disintegrated, and drifted away in pieces towards the sphere.
“Well,” I said dryly, “I wasn’t planning on a hard-ball negotiation, but…”
“What hast thou done?” she said in quiet horror. It wasn’t quite a question.
“Erm – rid the world of a second great evil? Slightly increased the rate at which this magic ball gets up and running, to wipe you and all your filthy breed out for good? Erm…”
“Thou speakst so callously of the death of the man who was my love. Mine eternal love!”
They – they’re capable of love?
“If it can talk, it’s got a soul. Her soul might be lost, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t got one.”
“He’ll be back, won’t he?” I said casually, watching the movements of her own shield.
“Upon a time, upon a spell, dies the death; return the dead, upon a wish, upon a god’s breath…” she crooned, looking distracted, staring down at his empty clothing. “Thou slewest his twin, in truth?”
She might’ve been anguished; she might’ve wanted to close her eyes, frown; but she had no features upon which to display her emotions. She had no eyelids. She was forced to look, without sleep, without cease, to stare out upon the world the Magisterium had created for her.
Pity welled up within me then. If she hadn’t been a highborn herself, I might’ve even been able to put myself in her shoes. As it was, I felt it was ironic. Toppled into undeath by the very same institutions and organisations that had raised her up above the masses since her birth.
“The one who killed him isn’t in your city,” I answered, thinking of Em. “But I had a hand in it – well, he had a hand in me for most of it, actually…” I gestured at my side, the remembered pain flaring. “But what goes around comes around, and it’s now up to us to discuss a truce. You have to let me finish this.” I inclined my head towards the sphere.
“A truce?” Zel muttered.
I’ve got to report this stuff back. Got to keep her talking, not fighting. A chance might present itself.
“There will be no truce,” the lich-lady said quietly. “Thy Magisterium hath gone too far this night. I had thought to take it from the other one, but thou hast now come away blood-handed from both their deaths – yet can I use thee twice?”
“I… really don’t follow the question…”
– thought to take it from the other one –
“… but who is this other one?” I finished.
“The wizard of thy fellowship, deposited at our feet by the King’s men,” she replied, just carelessly dispensing information, looking off as if deep in contemplation.
That told me she really didn’t see me as any kind of threat.
And that told me she had Shadowcloud. She had him, she wanted something from him. Something she now wanted from me.
Something she now wanted from me twice.
“My sister shall simply kill me,” she said to herself in an almost-singsong voice, then sighed.
“Your sister… let me guess… also a lich-lord?”
The skull nodded solemnly.
“And she was in love with…”
“Rhinath, yes. The first thou felled. We made them, raised them up, when ye brought the desecration upon us.”
Two sisters, twin brothers, all archmages, lovers… The story was something that would’ve been in all Jaid’s books – Twelve Hells, it sounded like one of the fables of Brenwe Bathor – if only those who owned magic in the Realm hadn’t had free rein to expunge any mention of this lore from the record. Curse them.
“Just, for what it’s worth, I completely, one hundred percent disapprove of turning cities into undead wastelands. I don’t even like the Magisterium – I don’t work for them –”
“Yet thou camest here under their wings, didst thou not? What is thy name, sorcerer?”
I straightened, swallowed. “Feychilde.”
She nodded to me. “Very good, Feychilde. I am called Aidel, of the Sunseed, Eighth of my name. It is fitting that we know one another’s name, is it not, now that one of us must fall, never to rise again, unless it be in the dusts of the passage of centuries?”
“We’re going to fight, then?”
“We must. Even should I grant that thou art an enemy of mine enemy, I cannot befriend my love’s killer. And how else might I procure thy soul, and use it to return my love to mine arms, and my sister’s to hers? Wilt thou offer it freely?”
If this was a scare-tactic, it was working.
Gilaela. Wake up.
Wake up and help me take this thing apart.
Aidel saw my answer in my eyes through the mask’s slits, and lowered her head, the purple-glittering flames in her eye-sockets still centred on me.
As she brought down her chin she raised her arms; the sleeves drew back, exposing the thin, bony forearms, the fingers clutching the very coldness of the air – and all was plunged into tumult.
* * *