Being a lich gave her certain advantages. This wasn’t just confronting your average arch-wizard. Your average arch-wizard wasn’t ancient beyond the lives of elves, capable of wielding sorcerous forces on par with the best arch-sorcerers, or possessed of a bodily durability that would impress an arch-druid. Your average arch-wizard wouldn’t regenerate from as little as dust given half the chance to hang around on the plane.

Defeating Aidel would require a careful weighing of my advantages, and a watchful eye for her spirit when I parted it from its physical manifestation. It had to go back in the nethernal wind. It had to be lost, never to return.

She floated there, spraying a vast quantity of frozen air at me as if it were nothing; other than the infrequent movements of her fingers, refocussing the streams of white wind, she was motionless, expressionless, simply waiting for me to break. She looked bored, if anything, while I held myself taut in the centre of the rushing, booming cascade.

Winterprince had mentioned it once, and he was right. I would break, eventually. My circle wasn’t large – barely enough to cover my head and feet at the same time – and it didn’t prevent the frost from building up around me. Within seconds I was being buried inside a rising hill of ice, but she wouldn’t bury me completely – she would want to keep working on my shield, not just encase me…

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? I’d seen Winterprince and Mountainslide trading-off when fighting the avatar of Vaahn, and I knew it sapped a wizard’s strength to keep their power turned on for extended periods. We were champions, fighting monthly, weekly, daily, continually testing our abilities, pushing our boundaries. For all her ancient and undying nature, Aidel had gone unchallenged for centuries, until tonight. Now she was being forced to call upon her wizardry right next to a sphere that sucked on any excess energies. Sure, personal powers like flight, internally-ordered powers like shields – they were going at ninety percent output, perhaps. But anything directed externally? Shredding planar matter to open a gateway? Gathering the elements together to form an attack? Not so easy.

Perhaps she’d find this a test of her own skills. Boredom could bite you in the ass, if you let it.

There was the natural wobble granted to my shield due to my being in the sphere’s vicinity, but I waited for the first serious wavering before delivering a riposte.

I feinted first, bringing out arms of force as if to bounce around, strike behind her –

Just as I saw Aidel move her head slightly, following one of the lines, I delivered my blow.

I sent out a series of well-structured spikes, flowing like waves upon the backs of the ones that had gone before, striking straight between the two jets of icy vapour. Just like Dustbringer had done to me the first time we met.

My pointed battering-ram thudded into the centre of her purple barrier, and I saw the instantaneous fragmentation. I kept up the force, watched her squirm, doing her best to bring in other lines, trying to splinter my spike before it broke her protections.

I was right. There was no spare energy in the force-systems worked by my sorcery, little residue for the sphere to steal away. I’d done more damage to her shield with one carefully-placed hammer-blow than she’d done to mine with a whole minute of output, and I capitalised on my good fortune, pouring more and more power into my offense.

After five, ten, fifteen seconds she could bear it no longer and darted to her right, trying to evade my lance of force – I swivelled, trying to follow her, but she circled the sphere and came around at me from behind, this time striking out with lich-fire.

She was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It was time. I very obviously and deliberately spread my wings, lifting myself into the air, weaving away from her purple flames.

The responsiveness of the sylph-flight was surprising. Eldritches of fey origin had their powers exaggerated here – something to take advantage of. If she wasn’t going to exhaust herself with her wizardry, I’d see how much nethernal energy she could draw on while she was stuck here with me, and hold my sorcery in reserve, let my strength replenish itself.

The red-black braided gown she wore was so long that its hem extended out of her shielding. I tucked my wings and rolled towards her, almost low enough to slide across the icy ground, and as I anticipated Aidel rose up in the air, to afford a better angle for bathing me in her magenta energies.

As she did so I reversed my motion and took hold of the dangling fabric, leveraged it to swing her through the air and into one of the pillars.

Her shield absorbed the force of it – the first time.

I added every ounce of the wizard-flight to the steady beating of my wings, holding myself still, bringing her about again –

My shield took a full burst of the lich-fire, and I felt my stars fading –

Every shred of satyr muscle I could draw upon, augmented by the green glow bathing the room – the force with which I struck her into the second pillar was enough to shake it in its moorings.

I laughed mockingly as the purple lines about her broke, suddenly sundered at a thousand points between one moment and the next, their pieces dropping away into the air to be pulled apart by the sphere.

The sound of her body striking the stone was a satisfying crunch, but she pulled herself away from both me and the pillar using her archmagery, and after a quick stretch she continued to move with every bit of the uncanny grace she’d displayed all along.

Now, however, the tables were turned – every time I saw her trying to draw out the purple lines to recreate her barriers I could interrupt them with my own forces. I couldn’t steal her nethernal power like I could with the standard liches, but this much I could manage without any issue: keeping her on the back-foot, taking advantage of her vulnerability.

Over and over I sent my spears of blue light into her unnatural substance, piercing her weird robe again and again. Still she fled me, circling the room, reversing direction when I did, giving me no opportunity to catch her.

Did she suspect what I wanted to do? She had to know that getting close would allow me to direct this sickening glittery anger-stick right into her face – do to her what I’d done to her twisted lover. And while she evaded me she was surely healing, the old bones knitting with every second she retained her link to Nethernum. I doubted my minor attacks were doing much to bring this to an end.

But Zel had gained potency too.

“Turn! Now!” my advisor shrilled.

The sudden shift in momentum took Aidel off-balance, and for the first time since the approach to the Green Tower I used Winterprince’s flight-spell to put on a burst of speed, enhancing the already-potent sylph-flight – I closed my eyes –

The instant I should have connected, burying Gilaela’s horn into Aidel’s breast, I realised she had moved, escaped me – I opened my eyes, cast about with all my senses –

“The trapdoor!”

I looked at it just as the last twelve inches of her gown were disappearing across its rim, black and red fabrics snaking down to the next floor, trailing after the lich-lady. A gust of wind was tipping the trapdoor lid, and it was about to fall, close itself after her…

I aimed myself at the rectangular opening –

“No! No, Kas – Feychilde, I mean… Don’t follow her. That’s what she wants. Closing the lid is just there to entice you. Stay. Stay up here. You won.”

Slowly, extremely slowly, I unclenched my fists. Ungritting my teeth was an altogether different matter.

You… you can calm down now, Gilaela.

“She might come back!” the unicorn snapped.

When she didn’t immediately retract her anger I had to send her consciousness back to Etherium, then sank down to sit on the floor, breathing deep.

She really doesn’t like undead, does she?

“If you’d caught up to Aidel, you’d have appreciated that hatred,” Zel pointed out.

I know, I know… I sighed aloud. I still have work to do – and she’s going to be coming back with reinforcements if I don’t follow, isn’t she? I don’t think I can handle Aidel, even here next to this gods-loved little beauty, I gestured affectionately at the sphere, if she’s got a few dozen lesser liches at her back.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Or her sister.”

Or her sister…

Only half-conscious of what I was doing, I started matching runic sentences again, fastening them.

I need to speak to the others, don’t I?

I really didn’t like the thought of leaving it almost-complete a second time, especially after the way they’d undone it all after the first.

The bones were still sheathing the tower, covering the chamber’s windows. That meant my friends were nearby, didn’t it? Or at least one of them, I supposed…

I tapped the wraith again, and stuck my head through – then, after a moment’s consideration, pulled the rest of my body through. No point leaving a torso dangling from the wall for Aidel to take aim at if she returned.

A maelstrom of bone, snow and lich-fire greeted my eyes when I opened them. I propelled myself away from the tower, calling out over the link. Thanks to the storm (and possibly, in part, my current nethernal essence) none of the attacks were heading my direction.

It swiftly transpired that the avatar had reappeared. Timesnatcher was leading him away from the area, and he’d left instruction that I should finish up with the sphere as quickly as possible, get it working so we could use it against the Prince.

It was Spirit who reported this to me. Unsurprisingly, Winterprince said nothing; he’d been opposed to the notion of coming to the Green Tower in the first place, and would hardly be singing my praises now I’d been proven right all along.

A weapon, I’d called it, and a weapon it would become.

I’d been gone for less than a minute, and when I returned to the sphere-chamber I couldn’t help but stop and stare at the ribbons extending from the blinding ball. They’d fixed themselves faster than earlier, and with just two more minutes’ work…

Four minutes later, I was done. All the dangling spell-threads that I could find had been joined with their partners, and it was ready to be activated.

“And how exactly do you propose to do that?”

I was kind of thinking I’d ask this really helpful, super-knowledgeable fairy I carry around in my head.

“Oh really? You have to introduce us. I, for one, know next to nothing of necromancy.”

It’s pretty simple, really. Somewhere inside that thing there’s a shape. Lines of introduction, drawing in the surrounding magical energies like water down a drain.

“A hole in the plane?”

A hole in Materium and Nethernum, I mused. There’s an Etherial connection in there.

“I still don’t see what you’d have to do to wake it up.”

Wake it up… I mulled-over her turn of phrase. Like the Doors… How do they turn them on?

“They’re always on?”

The Autumn Door…

“True… But nothing’s been through that door for centuries. It’s dormant – I don’t think it’s off. What you’re looking for here is more like giving birth…”

Oh.

I saw it. The way I would have to do it.

The way I would surely die.

I could reach through, grip Etherium inside the sphere, and pull. Like reversing an inside-out tunic. Bring through as a flood what had until now been seeping out in drips and drabs.

The amount of power I estimated it would take scared me. I wouldn’t just be opening a gate – I’d be using my power, my body as a conduit – a highway. If Shallowlie or Direcrown were here – if we were permitted to go into Etherium, have someone push from the otherworld-side, while I pulled from this side…

The other option was to give it all.

“You think this will kill you?” Zel sounded amused. “You really have no idea what an archmage is, do you?”

You’re not trying to get us wiped from existence again, are you? I flexed my fingers nervously.

“Do you have to keep bringing that up?”

Errrr – Zel, it only happened an hour ago – well, to me at least… I’m gonna be bringing it up for aaaaages… If you think it’s bad now…

I sensed her irritation. Yeah, she was herself again.

Fine. I took a deep breath. Are you ready?

“Are you?”

I suppose I’d better be.

“I… I think you can do it, Kas. In fact I think you have to.”

I didn’t want to actually send my wraith home in case the sphere stole away the magic before it could be completed; for all I knew unjoined entities might become unbound under the sphere’s light, and I’d have no way to get through the tower’s casing if I lost control of him and was forced to destroy him. Instead I reduced the share of his essence I’d taken to virtually nil. It would have to do.

I drew back my sleeve, turned my face aside, and approached the sphere. It tore away my shield once I got close enough for the lines to meet it, which was lovely.

The thing was massive, a green sun. I wouldn’t be able to reach the structural glyphs in the centre from here at the edge, but that was okay. Any part of the internal architecture would let my senses follow the pattern, unlock the whole.

I stretched out my hand and touched my middle fingertip to the swirling stuff.

Had I expected heat? It was like ice-water. Who knew what it’d be like without Winterprince and Fangmoon’s protections suffusing my flesh.

Wincing against some anticipated pain that never came, I plunged my arm into the sphere up to the elbow.

Oh. Oh my.

“You can feel it?”

It… it…

It was a system of delicate gossamer, damaged even by my intruding hand; I instinctively put right what I’d broken as I studied the filaments of energy that whirled within the sphere.

A whole latticework, millions or billions of connections. It felt to my sorcerer’s-touch like the night sky from Hightown, an endless expanse of stars and subtle colour, here an unimaginable complex of runes and hidden meanings.

How…?

There was no time to ponder it now. I could spend weeks researching it in the Maginox library – so long as I got home. And I knew now there was only one way I was going home – with Zadhal back in one piece.

I put my finger on the arterial channel, followed it back to the beating heart.

Slowly, I closed my fist.

Inexorably, I pulled.

The weight of a plane in my hand, I pulled.

At first nothing happened. I held the living nexus in my fist, applying such pressure as my willpower itself could bring to bear.

I will go home.

I strained. Using my other hand I stretched out a line of force in the opposite direction towards the bone-wall, opening the channel, begging Etherium to flow through me.

Lost souls – it’s time you went home too.

Then I felt it. The slightest submission to my will. It moved, one tiny shred, an inch of the miles I had to travel.

And the moment the otherworld bent to my power, allowing me to pull a fingernail of its spirit-matter into my world, the bones surrounding the sphere-chamber came alive.

“W–h–e–e–e–r–r–r–e–e–e?“

The voice of the God of Tyranny rattled my brains, emanating from the fleshless lips of hundreds of skulls all around me, deafening.

Oh, drop.

Lich-fire blasted the bones on at least two sides of the four-sided room, and I could see them through the tiny gaps their spells created, before the unliving armour filled-in the spaces again. Dark shapes, teeming out there, enough to be visible through the storm. Many of the liches were under the effects of flight-spells, and had soared up to try to penetrate the bones, get through and stop me.

It was only a matter of time.

Pull… pull… come on, come through, damn it!

It was moving, but slowly, too slowly.

“Yune!” I cried aloud. “Kultmeren! Aid me now!”

I was no clergyman, had no special talent for prayer in moments of distress. I didn’t have enough hope for Yune to hear me. Kultemeren’s aid was probably already spent.

“Nentheleme?” I called lamely.

I was acting against Vaahn, her arch-enemy. Surely she could hear me. Surely she, of all the deities of the world, would feel free to break whatever rules kept the gods from interfering in our affairs.

Nothing special happened. No magnificent avatar leapt to my defence.

I was yet to devise a way to shield myself without allowing the lines to intersect the sphere’s surface – I’d need to use three circles, set close to me… But, praise be to Belestae, even the tower’s defence-system was working in my favour for the moment. The liches still hadn’t got through. Travelling down and back up through the tower would be faster –

It was therefore not without a huge dollop of horror that I watched as, not thirty seconds later, the grisly curtains undulated, then changed, forming whole bodies, bone-golems like those Shallowlie had crafted, slipping away to drop into the chamber. They faced me with their multiple skulls, their stances hostile.

I pulled, pulled with all my might, physical and psychic. I could see from the illumination it shed on my surroundings that the sphere’s light was intensifying, on the twenty – thirty – forty many-limbed, many-headed monstrosities. They were getting their bearings while their bodies finished formulating themselves. Fifty – sixty of them –

Worse, the liches were closing in, brewing powerful bolts of energy, preparing to unleash them once they got near-enough to inflict maximal damage.

And worst of all – Vaahn was coming. I just knew it. It was him, his power that was doing this to the bone-armour, transforming it into an army.

I couldn’t see any trace of my fellow champions in the sky out there, didn’t have anyone rushing to my rescue. They had to be close, but there was no one close enough to hear me if I screamed with all my dying mind’s strength.

I’d formed a semi-circle of shields, six stacked circles, each separate, each with five stars reinforcing it. The sphere at my back would absorb anything that came at me that way. I was protected.

I held the thought:

I am protected.

Then it seized my tongue:

“I am protected!” I said to the crowd of undead. “By Glaif, and Illodin! By the bondage you suffer! This curse that keeps you in your nightmare! By the memories you have of… of a place that can never exist again, because of us! I understand! I have to put… it… right!”

Over half of the liches who floated there in the great glassless windows stayed their hands, holding their spells aloft but not hurling them.

It made no difference. Not enough held back, not enough were stymied, mystified, intrigued by my words to give me a moment’s respite.

Almost half of them let loose their lich-fire, and my shields withered like dry grass.

The blue lines stuttered, cut out, stars falling apart in dissected triangles.

The barrier held long enough to take the brunt of the blasts, but half a dozen lashes of purple flame still ripped into my flesh.

I screamed, and the vast extent of my injuries seemed to actually help in holding off the agony.

Left arm and right leg, almost torn off. Lower torso, an awful vacancy. I didn’t look down. I wouldn’t have been able to see how much was left of me through the tattered, smoking robe anyway.

The wounds continued to sear, fragments of nethernal magic burning into me, working their way towards bone –

I staggered, of course. I would’ve fallen, if not for the death-grip I held on the heart of the sphere.

And as I gazed up through pain-wet eyes, seeing them prepare another volley of spells, seeing the bone-golems approach, I spotted the true threat.

Great long fingers, femurs strapped together with entrails and nails, clawing up over the edge of the chamber. Another arm, immense, gripping the pillar in the corner – the titanic wolf-skin, pierced through the snout by the wicked crown, rising above the lip, surmounting the face of skulls…

Vaahn himself had deigned to attend my destruction, climbing the tower to claim me, as I had known would be my fate since the moment I saw him break Leafcloak.

Looks like you got what you wished for, Zel.