“The wicked king used the stolen Pearl of Yesterday to lock his kingdom into an eternal night-time. Across the whole land, darkness reigned! The moon stayed still in the sky, and the creatures in the forests crept out of their burrows, feasting on the king’s subjects. Those forests died too, slowly, without the sunlight they needed to grow green and strong and healthy.”
Xastur made a bit of a moaning noise and pulled the bed-covers up to his chin.
“It’s okay, Xassy,” Jaid whispered to him. “It has a happy ending.”
Orstrum put a gentle smile on his lips to show this wasn’t something for Xastur to take too seriously, and his smooth, enrapturing voice continued. “The farmlands turned grey, the crops withered – and the people who remained in that land were hungry, so hungry! Under the cover of the everlasting darkness, the king raised armies of the dead and sent them out, expanding his borders, growing his domain. It was because of this, because of his greed and his hatred, that he came to the attention of Brenwe Bathor.”
Xastur lowered the covers slightly, and I could see his amazed expression. He was well-acquainted with many stories concerning the Lady of Life, and he knew that once one of the Five got involved, the bad guys were in for it.
“They say when she saw his armies she didn’t even stop – she just opened a way up through their ranks by spinning nets of grass, nets that didn’t break, that didn’t stop, fastening themselves around the bony men, pulling them back into the ground where they belonged! Then they sent wraiths against her, and she fought them off, one by one, green fire in her hands. They blocked her path with spells, ancient wards designed to protect them against their enemies, but she broke through them. Where she trod the ground it came back to life, flowers blooming, crops piercing up through the soil, trees regrowing their leaves in moments! And the birds and beasts returned to their slumbers, forgetting the taste of man-flesh.”
He said this last with a smack of his lips and a grimace, and Xastur, just happy that the story had taken this fortuitous turn, was beaming away regardless.
Jaroan had nodded off already, I noted, but Jaid was still enthralled, her eyes on the old man, chewing incessantly on a curl of her hair. It was a habit I’d spent years trying to break her out of, not for any particular reason other than that I was sick to death of hugging her and getting spittle-drenched cords of hair slapping against my skin.
“The people gathered and marched on the king’s castle, Brenwe leading them, shaped like a huge, golden hound.” He waved his right hand, his old eyes shining with fierce imagination, and it was like he put the image into my head, dwarfing even Leafcloak at her mightiest. “When they fought the king’s undead men Brenwe didn’t allow a single one of them to get hurt. When the rancid monsters that dwelt in the king’s hidden caverns came forth, gibbering and thirsting for blood, Brenwe fought them herself. In the end the people came before the king’s gate, and cried out for their freedom.”
Orstrum spread his hands. “But the king, he didn’t want to give them their freedom, oh no. Not when he himself was trapped. You see, the king spent so many years afraid of dying, he forgot what was natural, proper. He thought only of himself. He didn’t want to die. Why should he, master of his realm, have to suffer, go into the earth, let his spirit move on? Why should he have to be like everyone else? But the Pearl of Yesterday couldn’t make him live forever. The sorcery that made him undead could not bring him peace. And in the end, he listened.
“’Death is not a gift,’ she said to him, ‘nor is it a price to be paid. Life is its own reward, and bears its own costs. No, death is a duty. It weighs upon every elf, every dragon, every sapling, every man. In this alone is every soul equal. You have done what should never be done, and the time has come for you to set aside your crown. You are needed for greater things than this.’
“And it was only then that the king understood. He came down to the gate, and brought forth his men, their swords sheathed. And on the battleground he received the gift of life from Brenwe’s hands, and all his men too, and they were no more. The people rejoiced, for they were free once again – the sun rose in the sky, and they raised up the archmage as their saviour, their liege-lady, their queen. And that,” Orstrum said with a note of finality, “is how the Isle of Borabas was brought into the Realm of Mund.”
It intrigued me, to think of the kernel of truth that might lie within the tales such as these. Did an arch-druidess really confront a kingdom full of undead, like Zadhal, all alone? Could she truly use her powers to destroy undead, as the story told? I’d never seen it done. The druids I knew fought the undead with flesh against flesh, even if they sometimes used alternate shapes to do so. The green light from their hands – that was a healing thing, wasn’t it?
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Jaid’s eyes were closing too, now, as Orstrum slowly got to his feet, refusing to take my offered hand. Xastur slowly crawled forth from under the covers as the old man held out his arms to the four-year-old, then together we lowered him to the floor and I bade them goodnight as they went to Xantaire’s room.
“Uncky Morsy die, Grampa?”
“That he did, lad.”
I softly closed the door behind them.
“It’s time to go back to work.”
In a minute, Zel.
I waited until my sister was fully asleep before letting the wraith’s power consume my body, turning me to a faint grey smudge, then using Zabalam’s abilities to complete the invisibility.
I slowly moved myself outside then went vertically past the apartments above my own, drifting through floors and dark corners until I reached the roof where I would call upon my wings.
Stuff the alleyways, I thought.
But it didn’t matter. Cursing my hearing for the thousandth time, I wasn’t even half way to Lord’s Knuckle before I was getting in the way of a pair of vagrants doing their best to rob an old man of his shoes.
* * *
The waxing moon shone down on Hightown, illuminating little from up here. All but the most stubborn leaves had fled the branches, and I flew across what looked from above like an expanse of dead sticks, stretching patternlessly across the streets. The air was truly frigid to my wings tonight, but it was nothing compared to the winds of Zadhal, and despite having no wizardry to maintain my temperature I had no need of gloves or other winter clothing whilst my wraith was active.
When my glyphstone started burning and humming in my pocket, I quickly dug it out, and managed to maintain my flight while I entered the semi-real vision.
At once I saw Haspophel in his bluish, star-speckled magister’s robe, his severe expression unmistakeable. He was in motion – he was sitting astride Fe – and it appeared from the blurred background impressions that they were making their way down one of the branches off Funnel Mile in southern Sticktown; I recognised the roads around there by their unnatural straightness.
“Hasslepuff! You look like you’ve been dragged out of a trance to do some work again, my friend!”
“Feychilde.” The dark-skinned diviner’s voice was flat. “Emrelet needs you.”
I swallowed, scowled.
Dream, I knew at once.
“Where?” I asked.
“If you meet us –“
Good enough for me.
I almost dropped my glyphstone in my haste to stow it away again, and between sylph-wings and wraith-weightlessness I streaked across the sky, little more to those below than a blue-edged shadow against the stars.
I cut across the ninety-five-percent rebuilt Roseoak Way and its lines of towers, descended across Hilltown, and made my way towards home. Leaving the moon behind I entered the shifting clouds of the lower districts, fey-sight piercing the smog.
‘You must protect her, at all costs.’
Linnard Reyd’s words echoed in my mind, and as the exertion of maintaining top speed increased exponentially so did my resolve, doubling and redoubling. I didn’t know what she was facing, but I knew that stopping to listen to the magister’s explanation would only have delayed me.
“I’ve got your general anti-illusion sight prepared, updated with all the seals Dreamlaughter’s used for her advanced creations… up till now at least. You want to see?”
I blinked it into one eye as usual.
Thanks, Zel. Let’s hope this time it pays off.
“She has to run out of tricks sometime. She’s not infallible. They never are.”
It didn’t take me long to spot the yithandreng making her way up the tavern-riddled street, splashing through the muck with her ten legs akimbo. As I drew closer Feast jumped clean over a half-unloaded booze-wagon that’d been left carelessly in the centre of the road.
I dipped down next to the three magisters on her back.
“Where are we going?” I yelled.
Ciraya looked across at me from Fe’s neck. “Darkmage attack,” she said. “Diviner and sorcerer. Both archmages. Branbecks Bridge – we’ll catch up.”
I looked at her blankly.
“South! Past the Goblet!” Ilitar yelped, not looking quite as happy as the sorceress in front of him or the diviner behind him – Feast’s contortions when moving at speed like this didn’t quite provide the rolling gait of a galloping horse but rather something closer to the undulations of a centipede.
Diviner and sorcerer…
I looked towards the south, and just then a cord of lightning stretched down from the sky somewhere ahead of me. Thunder rolled down from the clouds.
I speared on and hardened my barriers as I’d been practising, reinforcing them; not with spinning stars on the interior like my circle – that would be impossible, too many lines would intersect for me to hold them firm. I did it by layering ring upon ring instead. If I made a given shield three-thick, for instance, it would be that much easier to raise blades of force on its perimeter, and afford it greater durability until the moment I decided to adapt it for that purpose.
“There she is!” Zel shrilled, drawing my eyes to the south-east, beyond the old courthouse, past Funnel Mile and off to the side.
I saw her, the lightning flickering and forking all around her.
* * *