COBALT 7.2: HIGH GROUND
“I broke all the secret armies. I need your help. We need to build a new one, in the open. If you have the power… bring it. Use it. We need it.”
– taken verbatim from the recordings recovered in the Invocatrix
Timesnatcher’s voice still low, he spoke as though to himself: “I fol-followed him… all the way here. All the way to you, Yune…” He looked up at us. “F-Feychilde, you… thank you. Killstop – you were… You were, as ever… you know.”
She curtseyed. For my part, I just stared at him, thinking.
But I did nothing… Was this something he planned, somehow? But how could he – he can’t foresee Duskdown… can he?
It’d been weeks since I’d got a sense off him that I couldn’t trust him – not since he explained Winterprince, that night after the battle with the heretics… Now that feeling came back in spades.
Then I heard as Ibbalat whistled, and Anathta called, “Nice one with the light-show! Really pretty!”
In moments the crowds started to reconverge, the news swiftly spreading – “Timesnatcher killed Duskdown!” Cheers and hoots of appreciation started to fill the air.
But the whispers rippling through the onlookers were wrong on both counts. Timesnatcher hadn’t done it – not alone, at least. I was certain he’d ensure the Magisterium paid out to Killstop too. And, more importantly, Duskdown wasn’t dead – he was wounded and bloody. (I could smell it, and, no, it was not appetising.) He had, however, been struck a blow to the temple that knocked him out, judging from the huge injury on the side of his face – and he would be dead soon from it, if not from the daggers embedded in him…
I ignored what was going on behind me, the chatter of the crowd and their distant applause, the comments of Phanar’s friends.
“What will we do with him?” I asked. “He’s not a heretic.”
“Zyger,” Timesnatcher said with grim finality. “It will be my pleasure.”
He bent across the body, hefted it unceremoniously in his arms, and vanished.
I looked at Killstop. “He said ‘Die’ was about to do something. My friend Die.”
“I think, Feychilde, you’re dealing with a classic case of mishearing,” she said without looking back at me – she was facing away from us and turning on the spot, waving to the onlookers. “Hey, those vampire ears of yours…” she went on. “You aren’t hearing everyone say Die and Death and Blood all the time, are you?”
“Kill me,” I said with a sigh. “I’m almost a hundred percent positive he was talking about Direcrown.”
I didn’t have any friends called Di or Dye (or, yes, even Die – it wasn’t inconceivable for a champion or darkmage to have a moniker shortened to ‘Die’, was it?)… but there was one possibility I couldn’t discount, and the mention of Redgate brought it straight to the fore of my mind.
Direcrown.
Could he have thrown a fit at Redgate’s demise? Could he have been up to mischief? On Yearseve?
“So Direcrown is your friend now?” Em asked sceptically.
“Direcrown,” Timesnatcher said, reappearing in his place as though he’d never left. He was smiling, beaming broadly, but his eyes were still wet with tears. “Go on.”
“No, he’s not my friend, but,” I floundered, “Duskdown might’ve thought he was.” I turned to look at Bor. “Spirit, can you replay the memory for them?”
“Sure.”
It went through my mind as well, clear as day:
“He’s doing it, right now. He’s verified Redgate’s death, and he’s planned this out – I can’t stop him alone –“
“Who’s doing what?”
“Your friend, die –“
Timesnatcher spoke at once, and despite his words he didn’t sound worried. “Direcrown employs fiends of fate-corruption to hide himself from us. Regardless, I can say with absolute certainty that he is currently ensconced in the place we go on nights such as these.” He cast a glance up at the full moon. “Killstop, can you confirm?”
“No doubt in my mind,” she replied; however, her voice was a bit dreamy, distracted. “That isn’t how those… rhimbelkina work, anyway – if he isn’t deliberately using them –”
“I’m aware,” Irimar cut her off, then looked again at me. Was he trying to stop her blabbing divination secrets to me? “What is it you think is happening, Feychilde? We’ve had no rep-“
Killstop’s hand suddenly shot out, gripping him by the upper arm.
She said only one word, but the urgency in her voice slashed at me:
“Fire.”
* * *
“Guys!” I yelled as we lifted off into the air. “Get some drinks!”
I hoped they’d get the implication that we’d meet them later at the Mare – I could hardly shout it out.
“Is there anything we can do?” Phanar yelled back.
“Don’t die on your wedding night!”
He flashed a grin up at me, his arm around his new wife, Ibb and Ana just behind them.
“We can help!” Kani cried, stepping out of his embrace and looking up at me.
I just shook my head. I was certain these guys were good at what they did – the best, even – but there was no way I was going to let them risk their lives right now.
“See you later.” Ana offered me an out, turning away.
I nodded, then we were gone, riding the wild waves of our diviners’ powers just as much as we rode the wind.
From high up, the vampire senses didn’t fail me. I spotted the orange flickering almost immediately, even if it wasn’t where I’d expected.
Outside the walls.
“The camps,” I said over the link Spirit had established. “Gods.”
One of the larger nests of tents, on the northern side of the Plain Road, looked as though it had already been turned into a charred mess – all that was left were tattered bits of fabric, blackened bits of its former inhabitants – and its neighbouring camps were ablaze. Each one had to host hundreds, maybe thousands of immigrants…
I looked down, trying to judge our speed, but it was pointless. The avenues of Hightown whipped past far below as we flew at an incredible pace. We were far from the Fountains, and there were no crowds here in the frigid roadways to stare at the blurs we left behind as we soared.
When I’d first flown over these streets, there’d been a yellow canopy under me – now it was a white one, snow and frost woven in webs like brittle, tactile clouds between the branches. Aside from the towers and gardens and rows of houses, there was nothing but the snowy hills clinging to the dark, leafless trees, only exposing the road beneath at the long, dark ravine running up the centre of the street.
“Glyphstone message incoming,” Killstop said over the link Spiritwhisper had established. “Ignore it. We’re almost there anyway.”
“But then it keeps moanin’ at us,” Spirit complained.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The enchanter did have a point. Glyphstones would’ve gotten a couple of improvements if I were the king of the world, but it would’ve been a start just to post some guards carrying one of the devices in the camps, in case of an event like this… What had the watchers on the wall been thinking?
We cut across Hilltown and passed above the wall of Mund, following its course briefly, then descending sharply towards the flames beyond the Treetown Gate.
There wasn’t much that most of us could do – we were on rescue-duty, physically manhandling trapped victims out of the wreckage, transporting them to safety far from the inferno. At times we would stop and peer through the smoke just like any of the other witnesses to this chaos, doing our best to locate our next targets through vampiric senses or future-sight or mind-magic. The flight-spell massively helped, of course, still outstripping my sylph-wings in responsiveness. At one point I followed a group of brave individuals who’d covered themselves in snow and freezing water before plunging into the conflagration, seeking their loved ones – the heat was oppressive but the satyr-skin helped me escape unscathed, and with their help I found and freed a young boy whose leg had been pinned by a fallen, smouldering tent-pole. In the time it took me to save the single little lad, Killstop and Timesnatcher went whizzing past me with fifty, a hundred…
Stormsword, unlike the rest of us, was perfectly situated to turn the disaster around in less than a minute.
Before we even halted to assess the scene, the snow stopped and giant droplets of rain started to sheet straight down – then thunder rolled across the invisible darkness of the sky.
Within ten seconds the downpour was torrential – within thirty it was as though the storms above were literally emptying themselves, a flood of immense proportions crashing down on us, enough to catch the breath –
Yet it affected only the local area – fifty yards beyond the cinders in every direction, snow still drifted through the air.
It didn’t take us long – it was over.
“Nice work, Stormy Baby,” Killstop thought.
“How original,” Em replied in an overly-sweet tone. “Thanks, though.”
The arch-wizard started blasting us with air to clean the muck from our robes, and she hit Tanra a little harder than the rest of us, but the seeress bore it with good grace and a little floating curtsey.
“No darkmages I can find trace of,” I said.
“Nor I,” Timesnatcher said.
The murmur of agreement went around the group.
“It feel like a demon’s been here?” Spirit said.
“Are you asking me?” I looked over at him curiously. “What does it feel like when a demon’s been somewhere?”
“Why are you askin’ me?” he replied. “Don’t you know?”
“No…”
“Oh…”
“Gentlemen – we should put that aside for a moment,“ Timesnatcher began, then broke off to yell: “Wanderfox!”
At that very moment a gigantic, reddish-feathered falcon swept across the darkened sky; it wheeled and plummeted, then came to hover, flapping its tremendous wings, just a few yards from us. The crowds of immigrants, already awed at our sudden appearance and distraught at the disaster, let out a few more cries of anguish and surprise.
“Timesnatcher,” the elven arch-druid said in a tone of respect, his voice echoing calmly from the sword-length beak. “I was just seeking out the wounded –”
“You’ll have the most luck visiting them in there.” The arch-diviner pointed to a particularly-large pavilion nearby, in which most of the fire’s survivors had been sequestered. “But first – you can’t sense a perpetrator, can you? Anything that might be useful to us?”
“No, I apologise.” The great falcon tipped its head towards the pavilion, then back to the seer. “I will see you anon?”
The druid made it a question – he was checking we were still intending on making it to the Gathering.
Timesnatcher nodded. “Once the magisters take over, head back, will you?”
The druid inclined his feathered head in agreement then took his leave, the reddish falcon-form shrinking in size as he coursed down towards the tent full of burn-victims.
“Okay. I had to check, just in case. Let’s go to the Gathering.” Irimar swept his gaze across us, lingering just a little longer on me I thought. “We’ll keep an eye on Direcrown’s reactions – I’ll prod him, but don’t expect much. In all likelihood, Duskdown set this fire in motion before appearing at the wedding, and sought only to drive a wedge between you and your fellow arch-sorcerers… For all the good it did him. We’ll meet later to discuss things.”
“At the Mare,” Em suggested. “We must toast the newly-weds, remember?”
“Cool by me,” Spirit spoke up.
We started to fly away, taking almost the same route back as we used coming – Mund was massive, and though the Tower of Mourning and opulent Shrine of Yune weren’t near each other, from here they might as well have been.
I didn’t like it, the way Timesnatcher had taken charge. His decision was a poor one.
“Die… Die… Die…”
“Kas, you’re worrying me.”
“Sorry, Tanra… Didn’t realise I was thinking it aloud.” That wasn’t quite true, but it was better to generate some conversation than fly in silence – after what I’d just seen, the bodies, the horrific injuries than only someone like Wanderfox could heal… I was getting inured to the such sights, but it was still worse without a source of constant distraction – I supposed I was still missing Zel. “But it has to be a diviner, does it, if you can’t see it?”
“Not… necessarily…”
Em cut in suddenly: “I vill meet you zere.”
I turned, and spotted her heading down towards the guards atop Mund’s wall.
“I’ll catch up too.” I moved off to join her.
Tanra sighed. “No – Irimar, let’s let it play out.”
“If we must,” Timesnatcher replied.
We all followed Em in time to catch her opening barrage.
“Why were we not notified of this before it was too late? Do you have an estimate of the number of dead?” She glanced across the petrified-looking watchmen – two of them were astride griffons, and even the monstrous birds looked subdued. “Where is your captain? I would have a word with them, immediately.”
“Er – I’m captain of the sh-shift, m-m’lady Stormsword,” squeaked a woman in their midst. “B-but it’s the g-gate captain you’ll w-want to see – I’m new…”
“She’s new,” one of the other watchmen repeated just after she said it, a rueful expression on his bearded face.
I arrived at Em’s side just as her expression below the mask was softening slightly. I knew she wouldn’t have been acting quite so forthrightly in her magister’s robe, but here she was Stormsword, the up-and-coming wizardry-wielder of Mund… Her mask afforded her not just anonymity, but a whole new identity, a kind of power less tangible than magic but no less real –
I remembered the way I’d threatened Haspophel and his colleagues, when he’d misbehaved in front of me…
None of us were immune to the authority the champion’s robe afforded. It was greater than magistry. It said, ‘I take no drop from the likes of you’, and Em personified the role perfectly.
She ignored the quivering captain, the woman whose shift hadn’t just been ruined once, by a massacre, but now twice, the champion’s scorn ringing in her ears; and Stormsword moved on from this stretch of the wall, heading south, back towards the gate.
It only took seconds. We followed, watching and waiting, hovering just behind as Em floated over their heads and engaged them. Her weapons were words, no less stinging than lightning-bolts. We looked on as the gate-captain did his best to explain his failure to get the word out in time – he thought he had it under control, he thought those he delegated to had it under control… He was a big guy with big arms folded over a big, breastplated chest – he wasn’t young, or inexperienced, or new. His beard had grey in it, his eyes held wisdom.
And even he was shaking in his boots, on the defensive.
“And the number, captain?”
“Over a thousand,” he rumbled, lowering those wise eyes. “We’re not gonna get an exact figure, n’all likelihood, ma’am.”
“Over a thousand,” Em breathed. “I suggest you revisit your methods, watchman. Contacting us should have been your priority.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” he drew himself up slightly, returned his cool gaze to her, “you aren’t the chief here –“
“To whom do you report, then, captain?”
“– and the regs don’t allow me to contact champions directly without –”
“This is nonsense!” Em cried. “I have viewed the glyphstone – it was you whose message we received!“
“Yeah. Exactly.” The watch-captain shook his head. “You wanna meet the chief? He’ll be here to kick my ass within the next few hours – he’s entertainin’ guests tonight, I do believe…”
He sighed.
“I… see.” Em sounded suddenly deflated. “You – broke the rules to speak to us?”
She looked over her shoulder at me, and I could see the way she was embarrassed suddenly, confused.
Why exactly did Tanra want this to ‘play out’? I growled internally, not for communication. To show Em up?
Then I noticed as Killstop inclined her head to my girlfriend.
Stormsword returned her gaze to the captain, and when she spoke her voice was cool, level, even compassionate:
“Do you wish me to stay, or return, to speak in your defence?”
The bearded veteran stared back at her for a moment, then shook his head and chuckled. “No – no, I’ll handle it. The lads’ll back me up.”
The other watchmen gathered around started nodding, mumbling in agreement.
“And well done, you know, with that rain you conjured,” he went on. “Looks as if I did the right thing, calling you.”
She nodded. “Perhaps, a different thank-you.”
She waved a hand towards the watchmen on the wall beneath her, and I saw the change as the very air about them momentarily glowed a bright, sunlit yellow – the radiance swiftly faded, but I knew she’d put them under a warming-spell that would probably last hours.
“Something to keep off the chill. It is going to be a cold night.”
“M’lady!” the captain cried, then thumped his breastplate with his gauntleted hand in gratitude. His subordinates followed suit.
As we flew away, she called back, “And the new captain, down the ways? Please apologise to her for me. I believe I worried her.”
His chuckles rolled out through the night air. “It will be done, Stormsword.”
We made for the Tower of Mourning, aeromancy and chronomancy again entwined to produce that perfect form of motion – but as we flew, I contemplated which of the two impressed me most. Em, for the way she handled the gate-captain after her argument was undercut – or Tanra, for wanting it to happen.
Is Tanra seeking to change Em? Make her… better? Is this how diviners play games with us all, allowing an event this time, barring it from taking place next time? Is it really so simple for them?
But it was rarely so overt.
‘Irimar, let’s let it play out.’ She’d actually said it aloud – well, not aloud aloud, but psychically-aloud…
I looked across at Tanra sharply, and, although she wasn’t looking back at me, she was staring away with a studied purposefulness. It was as though she’d been gazing at me until the very moment I decided to turn my head, glance her way.
I had no way to know for sure, but I had a sneaky suspicion that the whole reason she wanted it to ‘play out’ was for me to see it, to think about this – nothing to do with adjusting Em’s outlook on the world.
Adjusting mine.
* * *