This night was the third full moon since we became champions – the night of my third visit to the mystical chamber beneath the Tower of Mourning. We flew across the musty courtyard, entering the dark archway in the blue-veined black rock and making our way down the ancient stair. The moment Em mentioned racing, I skipped ahead of the others, flitting incorporeally through the stone.
It was the third time – and it certainly wasn’t getting old. I could’ve come here every night if we’d been allowed. There was a sense of majesty, age, in the air here – something that wouldn’t have felt quite right in daylight. I knew that in my imagination and memory, the Tower of Mourning was always going to be indelibly associated with the darkness, with the bitter chill of an oncoming winter.
Who’d decided we should only enter this hallowed place on the full moon, anyway? I knew the doors had to open at other times – otherwise Tanra wouldn’t have been able to enter and retrieve Tyr Kayn’s device from the Ceryad’s crystal roots. If the gods admitted us willingly, that had to mean the full-moon-rule was something we had invented… I mulled it over for a minute as I floated straight down through the steps in darkness, vampire eyes guiding the way.
I supposed the rule made sense, though. It would certainly make it easier for the diviners and enchanters to ensure no one came in using the Ceryad without oversight.
I wondered, idly, what a touch of the crystal tree would do to my powers. Would I be able to create a huge shield? Would I be able to just wave a hand and summon arch-demons from Infernum?
Yeah… maybe it was a good thing that we didn’t get unrestricted access to the chamber. If I was coming up with it, you could damn-well bet Redgate would’ve wanted to give it a go. I was still finding it hard to believe just how twisted that guy had been, but there was no way the adventurers were lying about what the arch-sorcerer had done to them. It was enough to keep you awake at night, just listening to them talk about it… Living through it? The notion made my skin crawl.
And by the sounds of things – setting aside Duskdown’s words about me and their potential meaning – Redgate was Direcrown’s only true friend…
I reached the tunnel at the bottom, only to find Timesnatcher and Killstop already standing in front of me. Tanra had her mask half-removed, shoving a slice of hot cheese-bread down her throat.
“She went for something to eat, just to prove a point,” Irimar said.
“Don’t sgkip ahead ob me,” Tanra said noisily. “Had to sglow down the cook while I paid him. Nice bloke. Pretty sgcared ob me at firbst.”
As she finished her food, Em and Bor came down the stairs behind me, Em in the lead.
“Damn it,” she said.
“Hey, Killstop went for cheesebread.” I pointed an accusatory finger at the seeress. “And you didn’t come last – sorry, Spirit.”
“Whatever,” the enchanter said, moving past us. “Flyin’s for losers…”
I flashed him a grin, but Em was frowning.
We approached the doors of Glaif and Illodin and, as usual, they swung inwards before we reached them, admitting us into the vast cavern’s darkness. The light of glowing orbs refracted through the waterfalls dripping through the high ceiling, through the leaves of the crystalline tree whose branches reached up to catch the transparent liquid and make it into ribbons of colour.
Almost everyone else was gathered, if I judged it right – there were a few new faces, but Wanderfox hadn’t arrived yet, and a handful of others were absent… Bladesedge and Bookwyrm were retired, at least temporarily, and were presumed gone from the city. I couldn’t criticise them for it, really, given what they’d been through. The new enchanter Ripplewhim hadn’t shown up this time, as expected, but the gnome wizard Copperbrow was here, chatting to Mountainslide. Other than those few recalcitrant champions, there was apparently always a handful who didn’t show up; however, we had arch-diviners orchestrating that aspect… Never before had I seen someone arrive after we formed the circle around the Ceryad.
For now, the champions of Mund were still milling about, talking and waiting patiently for the proceedings to begin.
I located Direcrown, found him standing alone near the edge where the waters ran off into the abyss. He looked impeccable in his rust-coloured robe, its tall collar and hood, the silvery crowns upon its outer layers. He had his arms at his side, looking pensive, the tall, jagged spikes of his diadem gleaming like a ring of golden daggers above his head.
His shielding looked as impressive as ever, but I could handle that, one way or another.
You can drop on it, Timesnatcher, I thought.
I’d had enough of the games. ‘Prodding’ him… He wasn’t livestock being driven to market – he was a human. A champion. So what if he were a darkmage? He deserved confrontation – even more so if that were the case!
It has to be put to the test.
As I moved away from the others towards Direcrown, Timesnatcher took my arm, halting me.
“No, Feychilde,” he said over the link. “Let me handle it.”
I looked into his eyes, watery blue orbs floundering beneath the twelve-pointed star surmounting his mask’s brow. I very deliberately moved my gaze down to his hand on my sleeve, then back to his eyes.
My mind rattled off various options, but I went for the juiciest.
“Let me go,” I said aloud.
I spoke softly, but it was enough.
My vampiric essence informed me that Direcrown was turning around to look at us – perception was typically a two way street for a vampire, and I sensed it. As he became aware of me, I became aware of that awareness.
Good. Let him look.
“Kas, this is Duskdown at work,” Killstop thought at me. “What are you doing?”
You should know perfectly well what I’m doing, Tanra. It was you who showed me the way. Not just him. Both of you.
But I wouldn’t say it – I just gazed at her.
“Let him go, Timesnatcher.” Em spoke aloud too.
“There’s nothin’ wrong in his head,” Spirit said in my defence, looking from Tanra to Irimar.
Bor wasn’t alone in staring. Slowly at first, then with increasing rapidity, a silence fell across the assembled champions – dozens of eyes and ears were focussing on our exchange.
It didn’t matter now, whatever Irimar said or did to try to stop me. There were too many witnesses for him to silence me – with a subject matter like this, no one was going to want him to anyway. I was certain I wasn’t the only one his reticence to provide information grated on.
“Direcrown,” I said in challenge. “It’s time.”
“Feychilde,” Timesnatcher growled, belatedly releasing my arm.
“Time for what, my boy?” The arch-sorcerer didn’t hold back in asserting his superiority with his tone and his posture, stepping closer gracefully and peering at me through the demon-face’s eye-slits. “My fanged boy… I do believe I have seen a performance like this once before, and I do not care for it.”
“You will care.” My voice shook, but only a little – just the right amount. It was anger seizing my throat, not sorrow. “Just because you can hide your thoughts and your destiny doesn’t mean we can’t guess at their contents. You can recognise your enemy from the shadow he casts, just as well as by the mask he wears. Tonight you killed over a thousand people, in the camps by the eastern –“
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“I can quite assure you, I’ve been present in this chamber for near-on an hour, with witnesses whose impartiality –“
“And your eldritches?”
“Well, come now, Feychilde.” Suddenly there was a hint of fear emanating from him, a twitchiness I’d never seen before as he paced slightly on the spot. Did he really think he was hiding it? “How might I prove such a thing? But surely you do not believe that I possess a creature of such deviousness as to elude detection when committing so heinous an act.”
“Come now, Direcrown. Would you force us to ask Spiritwhisper to touch the tree? I know you’re protected, but it can only take so much.”
Direcrown laughed, a high-pitched, nasal sound, all haughtiness and contempt. “Oh, my boy – and to think that I had such high hopes for you!” He turned slightly, pointing at Timesnatcher beside me. “Tell me now, how you recruited Spiritwhisper before he inherited his magic… oh, wait, was that not his predecessor? Your pet, whose pet in turn you were in truth!”
“Timesnatcher isn’t moving me,” I said coldly, and I felt the collective wince ripple through the chamber’s occupants. “This is coming from me, against his wishes. Trust me. I understand his powers.” I glanced at Irimar, then back to our foe. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill them, Direcrown?”
“My patience wears, boy,” the darkmage spat. “I hath no such demon, I caused not these fires –“
“Who said anything about fires?” I took a step towards him. “The gate-captain didn’t specify the attack! If you’ve been here an hour, how do you know there were fi-”
“You think I cannot smell it upon you!”
“You shouldn’t be able to,” Stormsword grated.
“How perfect. The upstart wizard knows all that might be known of the worlds of demons and the powers they might impart upon –“
“You’re just trying to goad us into striking the first blow, aren’t you?” I cried.
“– and her incorrigible lover takes the high ground, even as he contemplates violence –“
“Enough!” Timesnatcher roared, hastening between us. The green, coruscating blades appeared in the arch-diviner’s hands. They’d been freshly cleaned of Duskdown’s blood, but I found I could still smell it.
Perhaps he could smell the reek of the conflagration, still clinging to the fibres of our clothing…
“Enough,” the seer went on more quietly. “I see it now, Direcrown. I see what you have done. The fiend of conjoined essence, the fiend of true invisibility, the fiend of funeral pyres… It was clever. Not clever enough.”
Direcrown laughed again with his hands on his hips, cackling almost hysterically, tipping his head back into a stream and letting the water from the ceiling patter down on his mask – then he seemed to calm down, realising what this meant.
The grotesque mask turned one way then the other sharply, the droplets flying off it.
He was weighing up his options and assessing his opposition.
“You can’t fight your way out of this,” I said, feeling sick. His silence, now, was essentially a confirmation, an admission of guilt…
He looked behind him, at the ominous blackness of the chasm.
He could escape that way, I thought. He could try…
Then Direcrown sighed. “Damn you. Why do you think I attacked the camps?”
Exclamations of anger shook the chamber.
“It’s Yearseve,” he continued, unheeding. “Let the innocent children of Mund go free in health and prosperity.”
“And let the immigrant children of Mund die in smoke?” I snapped. “Whose ashes we crawled through, saving the dying babies, the feeble and sick?”
Direcrown lowered his face, and when he spoke it was in a cracking, husky voice: “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 –“
Timesnatcher blurred another six feet closer to him. “You choose to invoke the darkest name we dare speak – the Goddess of Treachery – in your own defence?”
“He died!” Direcrown moaned, and the words sounded 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 think I understand perfectly,” Timesnatcher said grimly. “I see Yathira.”
Direcrown went deathly still –
And then his hand shot out, fingers extended.
“Netherhame,” said the seer.
All at once I became aware of a pressure, a wave of wind that stirred only my mind – I heard the sound of a clear crystalline bell pealing out, and two azure spears of force leapt past me –
Behind me, Netherhame was touching the Ceryad.
The strikes were every bit as effective as Saff and Tarr using their newfound arch-wizardry to evaporate their enemy’s shields, back in Branbecks Bridge: Direcrown’s barriers were smashed, stars exploding and lines bursting – and he was left vulnerable.
There was a rush of air, a thunderclap that only rang out after the deed was done; Timesnatcher didn’t appear to have moved, but from the way his arm was bunched and the way Direcrown flew through the air, I could tell he’d delivered the killer a knockout-punch.
The arch-sorcerer landed in a puddle not ten feet from the chasm’s edge, unconscious on the stone.
Glimmermere – Imrye – was there in moments, kneeling by his side to ensure he’d entered a comatose state. Only then did the silent cavern slowly burst back into sound, the pitter-patter of water dripping from the ceiling drowned out by uproar.
Everyone was yelling at everyone else – Timesnatcher was answering ten questions at once, almost literally. It seemed some weren’t convinced Direcrown was guilty despite his admission, after everything that’d happened with Lovebright and Neverwish – some wanted to wake him up, while others were so enraged they wanted him killed on the spot.
I saw Copperbrow standing nearby on his own, practically quivering in his bronze-coloured apparel.
I crossed over to the little wizard, trying to ignore the mayhem. “If it weren’t for how placid everything was last time,” I yelled, “I’d think this kind of thing was the norm. My first time, an enchanter got an eternal prison sentence because of a dragon…”
“I d-did hope we were done with all that…” he mumbled.
He sounded young, though age could be deceptive when it came to the demi-human races, and the mask hid his appearance.
I thought about what Everseer had said. What the heretics believed.
The dragons fear the twins alone. They seek a resurrection of their elders, and only the twins… only they can stop them. Everyone in Mund – in the world, really – is as good as dead. The Age of Nightmares shall reign across the face of Materium once more…
The champions… we fail. The twins are the key.
“You never know your luck,” I said casually, trying to keep the anxiety from my voice.
Mountainslide walked over. The young dwarf wizard was wearing a new robe, reddish, granite-looking, with artistic little avalanches embroidered into it in gold. His upper-face mask, the overhanging boulder with eye-holes, was the same as ever – it didn’t cover his frown; nor did his beard hide it.
“Feychilde,” the dwarf said. “Can you tell me what the hell’s going on?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I can tell you I’m not a big fan of how people keep getting knocked-out mid-sentence tonight.”
I turned to look at our leader, and he was staring back at me.
“What are you hiding, Timesnatcher?” I asked plainly – my voice’s quietness undercut the crowd’s babble, and many of those talking shut up to listen to his answer. “Come on, if you know Direcrown could subvert your sight, why would you think you understand him any bet-”
“I found out Redgate made him. Redgate made him an archmage. He is the creature of Lyferin Othelroe.”
Gasps and mutters rippled out: I contributed my own under-the-breath “what?” to the sound.
Timesnatcher glanced down at Direcrown, then back to the crowd of champions. “Lyferin, last scion of what was House Othelroe, Lord Shadow to the Second Seat of the Arrealbord, inheritor of the ancient Domains of Carvedael and Ilswent. Yes, we have opened Redgate’s records, and unlocked his past; I was ready to submit my report to the Magisterium this afternoon but I wished to tell you first. You deserve to know. You need to know.” He gestured. “Lyferin made this man an archmage… He made him by making him kill – an irreplicable act, I assure you. Direcrown is just the latest of his victims to be uncovered. A victim, and yet no less culpable for it. Direcrown’s actions will resound across the oceans of destiny – the lives he took – the futures he destroyed.”
There was tumult again, and more uproar.
Yet all I could think was that if ever a secret needed keeping, this had been it. Was it my fault? Did he tell us all this because of me, my mistrust?
‘He made him by making him kill.’
Sweet Yune.
Even the notion that it might be possible… It could drive men to such misdeeds my imagination fled screaming from the concept.
“This cannot leave the room,” I said shakily, echoing others.
“That isn’t true,” Tanra said quietly from beside me. “It can. It shouldn’t, but it can.”
When I glanced at her, I saw she too was staring at Irimar.
“Will it, though?” I asked her.
She shrugged and sighed.
“This doesn’t answer my question,” Mountainslide rumbled. “None of this makes any sense, Timesnatcher. Start at the beginning.”
The doors opened, admitting Wanderfox. The elf’s mask hid his expression, but I could guess at the shock that would be on his face at finding us all in such disarray.
“Everyone’s here,” Timesnatcher said, and clapped his hands together smartly. “A Gathering on Yearseve is a special event, I feel. As befits the spirit of the season, we have a present for you all. It was our favourite malcontent, our apex predator, Duskdown, whose final free choice in this world gave away Direcrown’s.”
The hushed whisper was now like dry autumn leaves in the breeze, made of gasps, of breaths caught in throats –
“Yes. Lightblind is avenged, and all those thousands he has slain over the years. Duskdown is now held, pending his sentence. I have no doubt as to what that will be.”
There were cheers of jubilation, dismayed scowls transforming to joyful grins, and several people came forward to congratulate him. I heard at least one person mutter knowingly to their friend, “I heard the news on the way over.”
“And Kill-” I called.
“And Killstop – I owe it all to her!” the seer cried over the noise. “Without her aid, who is to say what might have happened?”
I stepped aside as champions, especially the mages, descended like a flock of birds upon Tanra too, all wanting to shake her hand, act like they knew her.
“Thanks, Kas,” she thought at me dryly, and I caught her glaring at me through the mob. “At least Irimar tried to avoid mentioning it.”
I grinned. “Don’t want accolades? You’re gonna have to stop saving the city, then.”
Timesnatcher and Dimdweller removed Direcrown from the chamber with far less dignity than had been afforded Neverwish, and when they returned I heard Sunspring calling out: “Come on, ladies and gentlemen, spread out. Might as well do it properly! Let’s get started – I’m sure we’ve all got places we want to be tonight.”
I found my spot in the circle, looking out across the assembled powers of Mund, as the second Gathering of Mortifost began.
And we were one more champion, one more arch-sorcerer, down.
* * *