GLASS 4.5: UPSTART

“The arch-sorcerer’s mark is merely an offering. Theoretically there is no reason this cannot be served by a constant draw upon her Wellspring of Power. We have only to find a practical instantiation of this process. All research has heretofore fallen short. By what paradigm shall we approach this hole in our logic? This is our topic this evening.”

– from Mistress Arithos’s Lectures to the Adept Assembly

“Feychilde! Ve are coming!”

Seconds whipped past like the rooftops below us. I couldn’t be rid of my hateful consciousness. Couldn’t rip off and cast away my awareness. Where was the sweet slumber of non-existence?

I felt every adjustment of our course with a grinding sensation as his fingers moved minutely upon my naked rib-bones. Again and again he dipped his face, his teeth tearing into my head, splitting my scalp open.

The pain was my world. I couldn’t form thoughts. I couldn’t think. Only feel.

Still, I was alive, and breathing. The blood welling inside my chest cavity wasn’t yet stopping my one remaining lung from functioning. He hadn’t yet cracked my skull open or drained so much blood that I passed out.

Probably thanks to my screaming passenger. Was it her I had to thank for being trapped here inside this useless bag of nerves?

Where was Killstop? Was she still with me? Where was Em?

The vampire-lord held me before him, so that his chest was right in front of my face, the fine white-silk doublet with black rosebud-patterns embroidered near the seams. If I jerked my head back I could see his symmetrical face. Noble. Unearthly.

Inhuman.

Either way, I couldn’t see past him, couldn’t see whether they were following –

The white shape of the vampire became black, violently back-lit by a wave of lightning. Thunder ripped the air, and I heard him grunting.

So he could be hurt. He hadn’t even seemed to react when he’d impaled himself on my shield’s spikes.

We descended. Sharply.

Suddenly we were taking dozens of turns, whipping this way and that – I felt my crushed, dangling ankle impact on the corner of a building, flaring up from a dull pain to a searing agony – the vampire-lord was leading us down the streets, alleys, close to the ground – my bare ribs in his hand squealed as he twisted them –

Then I caught a blurred glance of it, chasing us: an unchanging frowning face, displaying its utter contempt. Killstop, not Em. She was barely ten feet behind us, advancing relentlessly, wood-carved stakes still gripped in her hands.

I heard Em crying out: “Killstop! Killstop! Vhere are you!”

“Stormsword!” It was Spiritwhisper replying, not the diviner. “We need help!”

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We were lower now. I had an idea.

“No, Kas!” Zel, this time. “I’m the only thing keeping you alive!”

It… doesn’t matter… Zel.

“It does!” she sobbed.

Once he got me alone, even for a few seconds, he could drain me. Change me.

I spoke to the group: “Killstop… be ready…”

If we left him alone, even for a few seconds, Tanra could catch up.

Zel gasped: “Don’t -“

It was too late. The opportunity arose as the vampire swung us around a corner, and I did it.

As his change of direction arrested our motion briefly, I reached for the otherworld with numb fingers, let the vampire pull us through the bubbling greenness into the vibrant colours of Etherium’s treeline.

Together, the five of us fell through sweet-scented air, descending now. My attacker couldn’t fly here, or at least nowhere near as effortlessly.

The vampire snarled. The gremlin screamed. The winged ones, fairy and sylph, I couldn’t see or hear.

Yet again, I felt the ground rushing up at me, the inevitable collision – it didn’t even matter, it would just be one more iota of agony, one more weight hanging on the frayed rope that was my consciousness –

And yet again, the sylph saved my life.

Avaelar caught me by a hand and as he plummeted the vampire’s weight snapped some of my ribs clean out of my chest.

The now lavender-hued hand of the vampire-lord blurred as it tried to snatch again at me, but even an instant of no contact with the arch-sorcerer whose powers brought him through was enough to send him back.

The vampire disappeared in a fizz of jade energy before he struck the grassy earth.

Then Avaelar was setting me and Zabalam down – he was breathing over me, breath like honey – I was faintly aware that loud sounds were coming from my mouth, garbled words –

A fairy I barely recognised was flapping her wings furiously, hovering over me: her usually-blonde hair was grey, matted; her pink flesh was now pale and sweat-drenched; the blue dress was faded, almost matching her hair in hue…

“Stop!” she was screaming. “Avaelar, stop! Serenel! You can’t help this. Kas – Kas, you’ve got to open it again. Take us back!”

“Zel?” I tried to ask, feeling the pain and confusion melding into one, receding and then crashing back again in waves that came ten times a second…

“Open the jadeway!” She was panting, tearing at her faded dress. “I have to join with you, it’s the only way!”

Fingers of cold lead refused to respond. The bright night sky of the otherworld began to dim in my vision.

The strange old fairy’s words continued, insistent even as they faded in and out – or I faded in and out: “Kastyr Mor… -ink of Jaid, Jar…!”

Jade jar. It was the strangest coincidence. I suddenly had the image of green glass in my mind.

Jaid and Jaroan.

I reached for the green glass, shattered it, the shards falling all about me.

The portal opened, and we plunged through, back into the darkness of Oldtown. I lay writhing on cold cobblestones.

Zel must’ve joined with me immediately, as she now controlled my lips: “Zam, hime us! Ammie, come!”

‘Hime.’ She was asking Zab to hide us, but was being forced to utilise a mouth missing several teeth.

Everything hurt, but in a matter of seconds I was starting to relax as the honey-scent began to overcome my nostrils, the sylph’s life-giving vapours replacing the stinky city air I’d been choking down with each heaving breath.

But the tranquillity was short-lived – with some alarm I saw myself, staggering to my feet, five yards away –

Then there was another me, staggering to my feet, just past the first me, running in a different direction –

“It’s Zabalam,” Zel reassured me. “Avaelar’s keeping you maintained. I’m working on these bites. Try not to struggle.”

Suddenly a tangle of after-images flickered about me – I remembered we’d come back not only to Oldtown, but back into the flurry of combat.

She was there. The one with the frowning face. I couldn’t see her, but I could see the colourful blur on the air, sense her, moving about me in an unfixed pattern.

Sense something outside. Something trying to get past her. Another blur, pale, exuding a nethernal aura.

Killstop…?

“She hasn’t been bitten yet,” Zel supplied. “The distractions didn’t work, though. He knows where we are.”

“Killstop!” I tried calling her name but, however Spiritwhisper’s link between our minds worked, mine was no longer included; I could tell from the lack of ‘echo’.

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