In my dreams, Arxine and Orieg’s blue shield turns first purple, then red, the deep swirling crimson of an infernal barrier. Just inside the border, beyond my ability to strike, Wyre is pacing – his body is normal, walking around, hands gesturing, but his head is the gigantic boulder of charcoal it’d become after Em executed him, balanced precariously atop his ordinary-sized neck. I laugh at him, and Em is with me, laughing too – still, I want to strike him down but the shield is in my way. Em joins her hand with mine and shows me how – the spear in my mind’s eye passes through the glowing bloody wall and pierces Wyre’s heart –
“They was there,” he says in explanation, the black lips falling apart even as he speaks –
I groaned as Xantaire shook me awake.
“Kas – Kas, I’m sorry.”
I opened my eyes to see that she was standing right over me, so I pushed myself up the bed into a sitting position. By the light coming through the shutters it couldn’t be much past noon; I’d only had a couple of hours at best.
“What’s up?” I managed to mumble.
“Sorry, you haven’t had long –”
“You couldn’t have picked a better moment to wake me, trust me…”
She gave me a sympathetic smile, but there was tension in her face.
“It’s, er, that magister who saved us in the Incursion; she’s here for you. She doesn’t look happy. Her… thing’s with her.”
I tried to reach my robe under the bed and fell out of it, landing unceremoniously in a heap with my sheets tangled about my legs.
It had to be an indication of the seriousness of the situation that Xan wasn’t stifling laughter right now, but she did spin around, saying, “I’ll just face away to preserve your modesty.”
“I’m wearing pants,” I moaned. I managed to grab my robe, pull it over my head –
“Let’s go.”
I scrambled to my feet and half-walked, half-extricated myself to the door.
In the main room, Fe dominated the scene despite her relatively-small size. The yithandreng would be no higher off the ground than your average dog if she’d been standing, but was at least treble the length, a mass of scales and horns and legs, the serpentine body coiled around her summoner. Her massive red eyes were closed. The kids were playing quietly in the corner with Orstrum but there were equal amounts of excitement and fear in their faces.
They shouldn’t have been scared, but Ciraya wasn’t exactly exuding confidence and her own fright, wild in her wide blue eyes, was infectious. She was standing near the front door, her hood cast back, exposing the dark-blue patterns wreathed about her scalp.
“What’s going on?” I said warily. “Don’t even tell me you’re here for help finding another book.”
“Kastyr…” Her eyes narrowed on me. “Your robe’s on back to front.”
“Gah…” I swivelled the damn thing around and started searching for the sleeve-openings again. “Ignore me.”
“Normally I would,” she croaked, “but recent events call for a bit of tact… Say, you don’t happen to be an expert on possession, do you?”
I pursed my lips. “Not really. I’ve got some books –”
“I’ve read a good chunk of the available literature over the years. I’m looking for a more… personal perspective.”
I eyed her critically. “What’ve you gone and done?”
“Not me.”
“Who, then?”
“Can – can we speak in private?” she asked suddenly.
She shrank her demon down to pocket-size and told her to be good before passing her to Jaid to mind; her fear evaporating in an instant, my sister eagerly cuddled the little many-legged lizard.
I let Ciraya into my bedroom and closed the door behind us.
“Tidy, just as I’d expected,” she drawled.
“Possession?” Seeing my bed, I longed to fall into its warm embrace once more, nightmares or not.
Let’s hurry this up.
She turned to regard me. “It’s my – it’s Mistress Arithos.”
I started putting two and two together straight away.
“You didn’t look happy, on your early errand to the vault,” I observed.
In a rare – no, unique – display of vulnerability, the sorceress fell back against the wall and sank down it, coming to sit on the floor, knees together, black magister-robe spilling over the mess.
“It’s not just that. It’s the – the other stuff.” Her bitterness was palpable. “She was missing all yesterday, but when she got back she acted like she’d been there all day. Then she said some of her friends disappeared last night; thirty-two to be exact. I don’t know how she knew, exactly…”
Belatedly, I started putting four and four together.
“… some eldritch power or other. So before I left for the library she asked me to find out whether the Magisterium had completed an investigation yet – these were ‘persons of some repute’, don’t you know? And it seemed normal, it seemed fine… I don’t like it, but I do it, you know? It’s just… something was off.”
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I sat down on the edge of my bed, listening, mulling it over.
“But when I took her The Science of the Past everything was such a mess – you don’t understand: she never leaves her desk like that, but she was looking down at the tip, all her ledgers scattered around, ancient textbooks open, sacred pages bent… and smiling, like everything was in perfect order…” The sorceress drew a deep breath. “Then she asked me to find out whether the champions had got involved. And I knew. I – I just knew something was wrong. She was wrong.”
“It’s her,” I growled. “Sure sounds like possession to me.”
“‘Her’ who?”
“The same thing whose tower we watched them build, that night, out of the ashes of Knuckle Market.” I sighed, realising I wasn’t going to visit my bed again in the immediate future. “The eolastyr, Daughter of the Sinphalamax.”
“Emrelet told me all about it,” she cut me off, her voice hard suddenly; but now her eyes shone, irises swimming behind a waterfall of unshed tears. Anger and terror and wonder, they warred within her. “You m-mean Mistress Arithos… it’s inside her? The eolastyr?”
Unless Everseer’s playing a weird-ass game with us, yep.
“I… I came so close…”
“How did you survive?” I asked, curiosity overcoming my empathy.
“Paranoia,” she rasped, smiling thinly. “Have you heard of the rhimbelkina?”
I raised a hand to stop her. “Look,” I said, “you’re pretty certain she’s acting strange. I’m pretty certain we’ve identified the cause of the thirty-two deaths; and she admitted they were her friends… Rhimbelkina or not, I’d definitely guess this is the eolastyr, using you to make sure she covered her tracks.”
I started getting my stuff together to head out.
“Is that how it works?” she asked, still sitting on the floor with her back to the wall. “I thought, with this being an arch-fiend –”
“She can’t see our arch-diviners very clearly, but that’s a two-way street. Every advantage we can muster, the better. Avert your eyes if you’re shy.” I turned my back and threw off my robe, hurling it onto the bed while I found my under-shirt and tunic.
“Once you’ve been sylph, you don’t go filth.”
I was surprised by the return of her usual purring voice; when I cast her a glance over my shoulder I found a caustic little smile on her purple-painted lips, her eyes boldly fixed on me despite my half-dressed state.
She focusses better under pressure, I realised. Now that she knows what the threat is, she’s able to get ready to fight.
“Hey, if she ain’t got hair, don’t go there,” I bit back.
“Wasn’t that phrase designed for a different purpose?” she asked, wedging her boots against the floor and pushing herself up to her feet.
“Probably,” I said with a grin.
What did I do with my damn glyphstone…? I wondered, plunging my arm shoulder-deep into a pile of junk bound together by worn clothing…
“Hey – Kas.”
I found the cursed thing, and spun around with a triumphant expression, holding it up in my fingertips.
“Well done… I don’t know where you want us to meet – should I leave, and –”
“No need.” I shook my head. “I’ll put my mask on, cos it’s the done thing, but they know who I am now.”
“‘They’?” She waved her arm in a general sweeping motion, as if to indicate the entirety of Mud Lane.
“If they don’t yet, they will the next time they hit the Griffin. Come on,” I led the way out, “I’ll have that go on Fe you’ve been promising me for months…” She glared at me, and I grinned. “Everyone will love seeing the demon back that saved their lives in the Incursion, come on…”
I wasn’t exactly wrong. A whole load of people seemed to recognise Ciraya and her pet, and Feychilde was more than a minor celebrity round these parts by now. We actually got some cheers as we made our way up the roadway, Laners standing respectfully out of our path in the narrowest parts. Fe skirted around the lane’s Time Tree and I ducked my head as we passed under the bridges; then we were out of Mud Lane, heading south-east through Helbert’s Bend towards the Oldtown bridge. So far, all I’d told her was that we were going to Treetown.
Travelling atop the demon was every bit as smooth as I’d hoped. The yithandreng’s gait looked crazy to the outside observer, but the relentless tread of the ten heavy feet seemed to absorb the shock of elevation-changes, the non-stop swishing of the meaty tail keeping us steady even when a sudden turn was executed. The first thirty seconds were awkward as I learned to grip with my thighs rather than hold the bone-spurs too tightly with my hands. Then, once I relaxed, it actually became a pleasant way to move through the city. Random obstacles – like wagons and shop-stalls and knots of extremely-squishable human beings – just caused Fe to take what felt like a gentle leap. While it was nothing like flying – we had to stop for the odd impassable crowd, and we had to abide by the lines of the roadways – it was still at least five times faster than walking.
While Ciraya guided us, I lifted my stone and sent my thoughts out to Irimar.
“Feychilde,” he thought at me – he was still sitting there in his drawing room, unmasked. His studious scribe’s-face was almost expressionless, unperturbed by our earlier argument.
“Timesnatcher,” I said, trying to sound amicable – but it sounded a bit brittle to my inner-ear. “I don’t know if you want to apologise for trying to split me and Em up, and frankly I’m not certain how much I care –”
“For the record, Feychilde: Em is here, and I don’t for one minute buy your explanation. You really must have been tired. An arch-diviner of such power, at the library? No. You lied to me. You lied to her. She may believe you. I do not.”
I felt my face flaming beneath the mask. “So you get to know what it feels like, for once.”
“I can tell enough to know you’re not falling to darkness, but then why? If you are doing this to cover some banal tryst, then I must admit, I am at a loss.”
“Don’t waste your breath on it. Or your mind-breath. Whatever.” I scowled. “What have you said to her?”
“I knew this conversation was coming. I’ve said nothing to contradict your story. I will allow you to do that yourself.”
I sighed. He was probably right. But what other option did me and Tanra really have?
“You are coming back to mine, aren’t you, Feychilde? What mist is upon you now? Who is this magister-girl I can see?”
“Look, I’ve got a lead on the eolastyr. With your permission, I’d like to bring the magister to you. She’s called Ciraya; Em will vouch for her. She’s got some meagre protections but she really needs an arch-diviner’s cover.”
“Meagre protections?”
“She cast some spell with a… a fiend of fate-corruption…” I cast him an unimpressed look and he mirrored it. “Anyway, the eolastyr couldn’t get a read on her.”
Timesnatcher grunted in grudging admiration. “She’s good, I’ll give her that. The spell’s fixed fast. I’m only just breaking it now.” He ground his teeth for a moment, then said: “Fine. Bring her to mine. If I foresee a need I can always have Bor wipe her mind.”
“The way this has gone down, she might want that.”
He nodded dismissively, and the connection broke as he lowered his glyphstone.
I lowered mine, my sleep-addled, sleep-deprived brain churning.
He basically just prophesied that I’m going to slip up. And if Em finds out I was with Tanra, and I lied about it…
She wouldn’t chop off my head. Right…?
I have to tell her the truth. Heresy…
But him… what would they do with Nighteye?
“So which end of Treetown?” Ciraya called back to me as we thundered along the planks, crossing over the Blackrush.
I looked to the side, over the rail at the river, the dark water making its own thunder beneath us as its icy flow struck the struts keeping the bridge aloft. It’d been awhile since I’d crossed one of the rivers without the benefit of wings or wizard-flight; I wasn’t used to thinking two-dimensionally anymore, so it took me a moment to realise why she was asking. She needed to know which route to take through Oldtown – which Whiteflood bridge we’d be using to pass into Treetown.
“Head north,” I called back. “I’ve got someone you need to meet – literally.”
* * *