Wilderweird was a man of advancing years, greying stubble on his neck, chin and chops. Above, the eye-drawing fractal mask covering his nose, eyes, forehead. He had a serious paunch, but was broad-shouldered and confident-looking as he strode across the silent Hightown street in front of the Oath-House of Glaif.
I could only tell he was striding by the angle of his arms and legs, their pose not quite hidden by the yellow-and-green robe’s sleeves, its spacious skirts.
He wasn’t actually in motion, of course; not that I could see.
Timesnatcher went to pass through the portal I was holding open, and even he slowed down, froze, on the threshold.
“What am I doing wrong?” I cried frantically.
“Oops – sorry,” Killstop murmured.
She did something – I saw the lurch in Mund beyond the jadeway as Wilderweird’s foot moved an inch towards the ground – heard a snippet of sounds come through, voices, footfalls of boots and hooves on the cobbles – and then Timesnatcher was in the frozen world, moving to Wilderweird’s side.
“He had to move through the portal in normal time; we were still going slow. It would’ve taken him a minute or so to step between the planes. Had to let the dragon have a second there.”
I watched as Timesnatcher started talking to our fellow champion.
“How long has passed since… since I pointed at the First Lady of Mund and shouted at her?” I asked as we waited.
How long has passed since Lovebright thought in my head that they had eight minutes? How much has she moved up her schedule?
How quickly can Springsun kill them with poison?
“Stop it, Kas.” Killstop sounded bored. “Just surrender to it. We can’t do anything till we’re safe from her. You know it as well as I do.”
My frustration was fit to boil over, so I clamped it down with a grin, screwing the smile tight onto my face.
“That’s better,” the seeress said sweetly.
“They’re coming,” I pointed out, then went to the portal, intent on pushing my arm through so I could bring him across the boundary.
My arm couldn’t go through the dimensional boundary – I looked over my shoulder.
She cocked her head at me. “Did you want to take a minute?”
“Tanra!”
She sniggered, relenting; the very next instant the arch-diviner stepped back into the otherworld with the arch-enchanter at his side. I waved the portal closed with my free hand.
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“Feychilde. Killstop. I gotta admit, I ‘ave no idea what’s going on.” Wilderweird’s voice was gruff – a Rivertown accent if I ever heard one – but surprisingly emotional, rough around the edges.
I reminded myself: This one didn’t volunteer for Zadhal.
He moved his head around, taking in Etherium – I couldn’t see his eyes but I could imagine his surprise. Unlike Timesnatcher, I didn’t get the impression Wilderweird had been here before – or at least not for a while.
“But – I’m gonna do my best ter help… Timesnatcher – he mentioned a dragon?”
Killstop blurred forwards, then she was holding Wilderweird’s pendant in her hand, its snapped chain trailing from her fist.
“Hey!” the arch-enchanter yelped, reaching out –
“Lovebright made this,” Killstop said wearily.
“Nah – she – wait…” The older champion slowly lowered his hand.
“Well-handled, Killstop.” Timesnatcher sounded just a little ruffled that he hadn’t caught it.
“Oh… gods…” The yellow-and-green robed archmage sank to his knees and I bent a little to keep in contact with him. “What ‘as she done? What has she done?”
“It’s the Ceryad, amongst other things,” Timesnatcher told him in a soothing voice. “Don’t blame yourself. Blame me, if anyone.”
“She can’t, she can’t do that,” Wilderweird muttered, “not without contact…”
“First we need to get some new pendants made, and grab the others.” The black-and-white robed arch-diviner sounded weary just like Tanra. “We can’t keep this up forever, and it’s going to extract a serious toll on us. Time is passing, even if slowly. The less chance we give her to react to this…”
“Rebellion,” I supplied.
“This rebellion…” he said the word heavily, “the greater the likelihood we get past this. The likelihood we win.”
“Win?” I blenched, just a little, at the thought. “We’re going to fight a dragon?”
He nodded grimly. “I think we have to.”
Wilderweird just shuddered like the rest of us had done, vibrating under my hand.
“So,” Killstop said to him brightly, “mind some light mutilation?”
She drew out her knife, and our arch-enchanter colleague raised his head, gasping in shock.
“Yeah, well-handled, Killstop,” I grunted.
* * *
We used ensorcelled blades to cut the chains about their necks. Yanking on the links, from slowed-time, would likely hurt our friends. We snipped the necklaces off carefully, and then took them back across the boundary.
It was eerie, though. Em was my first choice – it already felt wrong that I’d prioritised Tanra, but had I really had an option? – and even now we had others to rescue first: primarily Sunspring and his three victims. When I finally got chance, I approached my wizard girlfriend furtively despite her apparent paralysis. She was a flawless statue, and some part of me hardly felt worthy to go near her. Her pale hair and skin and robe made her like a graven image of Tauremei, of winter’s wild, winsome goddess – but she was imprisoned within a burning cage, bound by a phoenix’s blaze that was reflected in her eyes. The flames ringing her were no less affected by the chronomancy than she was, but still they danced, circuiting about her in lethargic searing spirals.
Whatever fiery spell she’d been preparing when the temporal stasis took hold, it looked formidable.
“Hurry up, Feychilde,” Tanra called over. “This isn’t easy, you know!”
I delicately reached through and withdrew the amulet from its place in Em’s bodice. Then, with a spark-trailing dagger in my other hand, I set to work, deftly gripping her chain in a loop about the blade and pulling away. A few links were cleanly sheared-through, and within seconds Wilderweird was working on her mind.
“Sorted,” he said after a few moments. “Done my best to prepare her, like.”
Once Em was cleared by the enchanter he went over to help Killstop with Spirit, and one of the diviners must’ve brought the wizard into the fold because she slumped, fires quenching as she did so.
“Oh, Ka- Feychilde!” She flung her arms around me. “Zere is a dragon!”
“I know,” I murmured, mirroring her motion, squeezing her back. “I know.”
“We are going to kill it,” she said, a trace of desperation, frenzy in her voice.
Stormsword’s voice, not Em’s. I couldn’t match its hardness.
“I know.”
* * *