There was plenty of news to go around.
Neverwish was at times amazed, angered, thrilled, and saddened to the point of tears. Nighteye and Leafcloak, Shadowcloud and Withertongue – even Direcrown’s apostasy – all of it hurt him, but it was Starsight’s words concerning his fate that hit him the hardest, I thought. He was visibly gladdened to hear we’d finally obliterated the eolastyr and driven Lovebright, Tyr Kayn, from the city. I avoided mentioning Lightblind’s death, given our current company. The dwarf looked intrigued when I suggested we could find Direcrown, unlike Rathal, whose own thoughts about the evil arch-sorcerer were perfectly clear.
I made it perfectly clear right back at him that in situations like this you didn’t whinge about who your allies were. We had a common enemy: Zyger itself. That would be enough to see us through to the other side, even if Direcrown were untrustworthy.
I still erred on the side of caution, where it came to telling Rath he could do whatever he wanted with Direcrown afterwards. I knew this would bring the arch-diviner on board immediately. I also knew this would be a death sentence for the arch-sorcerer. I still wasn’t willing to cross that divide, even having crawled through the bones of a thousand burnt-up bodies.
This was what the darkmages were missing. They had their lovely little power-structures, always looking to the man or woman at the top to find out what to do. It did nothing for their instincts, and when they had no leader to feed them most of them starved. It was physically happening in front of me – they were wasting away.
For all our failings, as champions we’d always tried to listen to each other’s points of view. Take a little something from everyone. Hold off on judgement. Sometimes the solution to a problem could come from a surprising source, and this – this imprisonment – was a problem that demanded everyone lend their aid. What we needed most of all, the way I saw it, was some way to ensure we could return to air pockets if we encountered blockages, a way to leverage our combined strength if something was in the way down there…
But when we heard Ripplewhim’s tale, it took me aback, stymieing my plots and plans and stifling my confidence. I felt my desperate clutch on hope weaken, the tremulous grip loosening… bit by bit, loosening…
My fellow Sticktowner was the herald of doom.
“It’s all gone to hell, man! The Twelve Hells, the next Incursion! I don’t know how things are still operating, you know? I just – I didn’t show up for the Incursion, did I? But m-my wife, she didn’t want me to go, and look –“
“Slow it down now,” Rath said.
“Yeah – well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Things just moving faster and faster… Magister-bands getting attacked in the streets. Shallowlie’s still gone, and they all said she’s dead, but N-Netherhame, she spends most of her time looking for her – whether she means alive or, you know… I don’t know. But there’s hardly an arch-sorcerer left, now, ‘cept the ones the magistry brings, I guess…”
I felt sick inside – I hadn’t even thought about that until now.
Jaid… Jaroan… Get out of Mund. Just go. Leave, forever!
Even if Shallowlie was presumed dead, I presumed differently, given Vardae’s previous forays into alternative recruitment methods –
“Timesnatcher?” I interrupted. “Did he say Shallowlie’s dead?”
“R-reckon so – it was just before I – before I got in trouble…”
Timesnatcher knows better than that, I thought grimly. He’s back to his old ways, surely…
It was strange, to be in a situation where I was actually hoping Irimar was lying.
“… wasn’t until this magister tried telling me off – a real kid he was too, like eighteen, tops – no offence, F- Kas… but he was here in my face, giving it what-for, and I just – blam! – took him over, wiped his head. I shouldn’t have done it – I know that – but I was having a real bad day and then I didn’t know what to do, so I hid, and apparently they really didn’t like that… Thought they’d be short on champions, you know, with people starting to leave –”
“Leave?” Neverwish sat forward, his beard swaying. “What the drop’s this about leaving?”
“Well – what, you guys didn’t hear it?”
The pasty-faced enchanter looked at us in confusion and the three of us stared back blankly.
“But – everywhere heard it!” The rat-nosed man looked over his shoulder at the Inceryad and sighed. “Except maybe down here.” He turned back to us. “Vardae – Everseer. She spoke to us, to the whole of Mund. I guess maybe we’re all a little bit heretic, now…”
After ten seconds of stunned silence, Rath broke it with a choked whisper:
“I think… you’d better start at the beginning, young enchanter. And don’t you miss – a single – word.”
* * *
“People in the camps are baffled, more than angry, from what I hear,” Ripplewhim – Temcar – was saying. “Dunno if the population of the city’s actually getting any lower, thinking about it, but it’s all the same, isn’t it? The guys who know what they’re doing are quitting in droves, especially the rich… it’s gonna take some time to train up the new guys… That’s why everything’s breaking down, I reckon. Half the Sticktown watch stopped showing up for work, I heard, and the construction firms are short on staff…”
“So they’ve not only not fixed the problem, they’ve potentially made it worse,” Rath observed.
“They’re heretics.” Neverwish – Herreld, apparently – spoke with true derision in his voice. “That’s all they do. I don’t care what they think about themselves, why they’re doing what they do. They’re sick. They need putting down.”
“And it’s worse than all that,” I murmured, finally coming out of my reverie. “Even if they emptied the city entirely… they want to face the weakened, recently-reborn dragons head-on. They think they’re going to be the ones to deliver the death-blows – if the champions fight first, they won’t help. They’ll wait for us… for them, to die…”
“We’re still champions,” Tem whispered.
The three of us with more experience just stared at the rat-nosed little man; Herreld regarded his fellow ex-enchanter with something close to real contempt burning in the beady dwarven eyes.
“Well, we are,” Tem muttered grumpily, putting a nut in his mouth and looking down at his feet.
“But what if that’s what the dragons really want them to want?” I continued, still trying my hardest to make it make sense. “What if it won’t work? What if the only way to win is to join our forces with theirs – present a united front? They’ll kick out any number of people who could help us…”
Neverwish started talking but I slipped away into myself again. I glanced around through the chill, smoky air at the darkmage shapes in the cavern.
It’s not just organisation that they need. A sense of community…? What’s the betting the Srol Heretics are more fractured than the champions? Theor and Aramas clearly belonged to different factions…
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No. That’s not quite it. It’s a sense of… their place in things. Everyone wants to take on responsibilities that are beyond their strength to bear.
But I’m the same, aren’t I? I wanted to kill the eolastyr, and I chased it down and cut it in half. I wanted to finish the sphere, finish Saphalar’s work and undo the spell on Zadhal. I could’ve died, just like Withertongue, just like Leafcloak, oh so easily… It isn’t speculative, it’s not some game; it’s real. I did that. I took that on, because in each instance I thought – I knew – I was the best person for the job. How are the heretics any different? Isn’t Vardae, like, super-powerful? Isn’t she the best-placed to make such a decision?
And when has an arch-diviner ever been infallible, Kas? I asked myself sardonically.
If there were only one seer of such power in the city, perhaps I could’ve filled myself with absolute certitude upon hearing their prophecy. But the Line of Ulu came with divination beyond Irimar and Tanra, beyond Vardae and Rath. It would be like pitting Spiritwhisper against Tyr Kayn. There was just no competition.
Vardae’s wrong, I decided. I looked around again. We need alliances, not divisions. How many of these darkmages are truly dark? How many eat people and dig up bodies and slaughter innocents? How many were just put here because the Magisterium couldn’t be doing with them out there? Too intractable for their own good…
I focussed on Rath – he was telling the dwarf about his true identity, and Herreld only grunted every now and again, taking it in his stumpy stride. The dwarf’s reservations seemed to be buckled down tight; impressive, considering he was being informed that he was sitting down for lunch with the city’s most notorious killer.
Temcar’s reaction was less impressive, but at least my fellow Sticktowner managed to avoid flat-out fleeing – he shrank away from Rath as the ex-seer spoke, looking like he was being electrocuted, his eyes bulging and the tip of his nose quivering.
I turned my gaze back to Rath, back in my reverie, my ears only vaguely processing his words.
Was I being too forgiving, thinking of these darkmages in here as potential allies? At least Direcrown had proven his worth on multiple occasions, and I knew he had the willpower to commit to aiding us, see the deed through. It wasn’t like I’d have to actually forgive him for killing a thousand immigrants, was it? I was using him.
Perhaps to his end.
“… why Kas didn’t tell you. It’s obvious. I killed her. I killed Lightblind. No, don’t look at me like that. She was… She was his anchor. She kept him sane, even if he didn’t know it. But even then, even sane, he killed my wife. He’s told them it was because of the dragon, but it wasn’t. He knew she was my wife, all along. He knew what it would do to me – he hates me, hates that he can’t see me… No. He knew… he knew the price…”
The ex-seer looked down at his hands, holding them out palms-up, and fell silent.
Neverwish was staring at Rathal in renewed horror, but with undisguised understanding in his expression. A traditionalist dwarf might look on such a vendetta as perfectly ethical.
I took the opportunity to interrupt while neither were speaking.
“Rath, it’s time. Tell me. Which one is Direcrown?”
“I did tell you,” he said darkly, “he must’ve been –“
“Must’ve been brought here before you. You must think a prophet’s never lied to me before. Unsoothsayer.”
He drew a sharp breath, glared at me no less sharply.
“Fine. I strangled him, and threw him in the toilet, when he’d not been here five minutes.”
“That was Direcrown?” Neverwish muttered.
I stared back at him in shock. “You… you already killed him? You let me go on, about…”
I’d thought he was being recalcitrant because he didn’t want anything to do with Direcrown, not because he’d already betrayed my trust like that.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, with that one.” Rath shook his head, returning his gaze to his own hands. “We can try it without him – if that’s what you want. But we can’t take everyone in here with us, you know that, don’t you?”
I was still trying to come to terms with the casual discussion of murder.
Direcrown… dead.
“Why?” Neverwish – Herreld – asked in a plaintive growl. His voice contained more consternation than it did rage… and more exhaustion than consternation.
“Why did I kill him?” Rathal laughed harshly. There were no tears in his eyes but he was choking on his words, holding something back as he explained: “I would l-love to say it was for the good of society – that I was removing a danger to the m-masses, deterring those who would choose to em… emulate him. But no. He was in here, in here with me, and do you know what his first words were? His introduction? ‘What I would not give, for a single cup of wine’! I killed him because I enjoyed it!” Strength returned to his voice. “I enjoyed watching him struggle, gargle meaningless garbage at me, like I cared, like anybody cared for his last words! What even is Savalar?”
“His girlfriend?” Herreld said, stroking his beard.
Rath shook his head. “He was crying the whole time –“
“Stop, wait,” I groaned. “Savalar? Or Saphalar?”
He shrugged. “That could be right. What is it?”
“Not what… who. I was just – just thinking about him, actually. Not that we met, but Saphalar was a lich in Zadhal…”
A lich who figured out a way to undo the undead.
“I always wondered which way old Sillyhat was inclined, and now we know,” Herreld rumbled, finished with a dry chuckle, “heh-heh-heh. Downwards.”
I just shuddered. It was too close to the man’s death to make jest of him, even if he were a murderer of awful proportions. And why – how had his last words been of the buried lich? What significance could that hold? We hadn’t discussed Saphalar while we were there in Zadhal – the timings were all wrong – so how did he learn of him? Had he spied upon me in the following days, or had he been doing research for his own purposes?
And, moreover, why?
There were no answers forthcoming. Answers lay drowned with the strangled corpse in the sunken tunnels which, if I had my way, we would soon be traversing. A corpse that in any other place I might’ve awoken with a thought, chained its soul to Nethernum by links forged of pure will, questioned it as to its motives, its dark secrets.
Direcrown lowers his face, and when he speaks his voice is husky, cracking: “It is not the least of the things I have done – it is not the worst. You don’t understand – Wyrda, she listened to me and –“
He’d sounded… what? Remorseful? It was difficult, thinking back to that moment when I’d ignored Timesnatcher, gone against him to accuse my fellow arch-sorcerer of mass-murder. Had it really only been a week or two? Every day down here was like ten, at least.
Why would he have sounded remorseful, though? I remembered my anger, I remembered wanting him to be punished, punished for his crimes… dead, yes, I’d wanted him dead… and the obvious guilt in his voice had been invisible to me until now, until I thought back. No wonder so many of the other champions had been so conflicted about how to treat him. How must I have come off to the others?
“He died!” Direcrown moans, and the words sound like something awful being dragged from his chest, the jagged teeth of a saw caught in his breastbone. “You don’t understand! He taught me –“
I remembered the way Irimar had interrupted him, breaking a powerful darkmage’s confession with his attack for the second time in a single night.
Had he been trying to deliberately interrupt Duskdown before he mentioned Direcrown at the wedding ceremony? Did Timesnatcher obstruct me because Direcrown had some role to play in his plans?
Saphalar… “He died! You don’t understand! He taught me –”…
The ‘he’ has to be Redgate, right? Not Saphalar? Irimar acted as though nothing Direcrown could say would surprise him… Is that really likely, though? What did Irimar ask him once he was incarcerated? Did he visit him, get him to spill all his hidden nuggets of information? Why the invocation of Wyrda? Why the regret in his voice when he spoke of his evil deeds?
“Kas?” Rath touched my knee gently. “Kas, you okay?”
“Sorry.” I shook my head, blinking rapidly, and wrapped my arms around myself to ward off the chill. “Stick some more fuel on the fire, eh? I think I need to sleep. Sleeping will help. Too… too confused.”
“I know the feeling, for once,” he replied ruefully. “Night.” He turned away from me as I sat back, resting my head on its customary rock and closing my eyes.
“Night, guys,” I said, feeling the warmth of the flames on my toes as Rath stuck some more bits of freshly-dried timber on the stack.
Night? It might be two in the afternoon. Even Temcar won’t know, if his experience prior to the big plunge was anything close to mine. He’ll have been confined for days…
I imagined that it was two in the afternoon. Orstrum was walking north-west on the Plain Road, heading for the Sticktown Gate, Xantaire and Xastur right behind them. They were walking out of Mund, getting away from this horror, this madness.
I slept. I awoke. I slept. I awoke.
Night. Day. Night. Day.
It lost meaning. There was only the need to escape.
So it was that I looked on keenly as Herreld inspected the rocks on the wall with his cunning dwarven eyes; one of us would hold a fiery brand aloft so that he could see, and he’d clamber across the wet stones with a dexterity he didn’t possess before I arrived – before we got him eating again, and put the hope back in his heart. At times he’d have us hold our breaths and watch the guttering flames, tracking the movement of the air.
It took him days of meticulous toil to find the cracks, but he found them and marked them, all the small fluctuations in currents that only he could discover. Sometimes I thought he was mad. Sometimes I thought we all were. But before we were done, we drew our audience. Half the cavern moved their fires to better watch us. And half of those wanted to help.
We found boulders small-enough to wield, dense-enough to have an effect, and, under direction from our motley collection of dwarves, we got to work.
Magicrux Zyger – Mund’s latest mining operation.