At eight o’ clock there came the knocking at the front door I’d been waiting for; I was stuck in the bedroom, attempting without much success to persuade Jaid it was time to get under the covers.
“Come on, it’s us,” I heard Tanra’s voice from the other side echoing through the main room.
Xantaire let her and Bor in while I hurried up bed-time.
“Bed-time!” Jaid kept announcing in an insulted tone of voice. “It’s Yearseve – can’t we stay up just another hour?”
“Ah, but if you stay up too late Father Time won’t come, and then there’s nothing to open in the morning.” I attempted to grace her with a wise look. “Best to sleep early – look how dark it is out there already!”
“There’s not gonna be any presents anyway,” Jaroan complained, then he adopted an expression of shrewd superiority. “Father Time usually hides them under your bed, Kas, and this year –”
“No!” Jaid snapped. “Father Time is real. I know, I saw him once.” (Whatever night-time hallucination she’d once experienced I was unsure, but her continued belief in Arreath Ril’s Yearsend gift delivery system was a real heart-warmer.) Then, vehemently, she concluded: “I’m going to sleep. I want my presents.”
Thanks, Jaroan, I thought smugly.
My sister jumped into bed and, clearly without thinking things through, she rolled into the blankets until she was well-and-truly immobile.
“Riiight,” Jaroan said, then, with the heavy sigh of the world-weary, he sat on the bed beside her.
It wasn’t like I could tell him, was it? His presents were there under the bed, just covered with a touch of invisibility, courtesy of Zab.
“I shouldn’t be back too late,” I said instead as I put my things together. “Just a few drinks after, then the meeting, then I’ll be right back and in bed before Father Time arrives, I promise, Jaid.”
“Just cos your not patrolling, doesn’t mean you’ll be back early,” Jaroan grumbled. “I know what these things are like by now. Dreamlaughter will show up at last and, and just wreck everything –”
“Not if I’ve got anythin’ to say about it,” Bor said from the bedroom doorway.
I looked up, nodded to him.
“Spirit!” Jaid chirped, struggling out of the covers and sitting up. “Show me something.”
He stepped into the room, smiling, and gently brushed her forehead with his fingertip. She fell straight back onto the pillows as though she’d been rendered unconscious instantly.
Jaroan looked at him sceptically.
“She’s havin’ an awesome vision,” Bor answered the unspoken question. “She’s a fierce warrior-queen, in command of an army of animals, all of ’em drawn right out of her dreams.”
“Ooh!” My brother’s sudden change of heart had him leaning forwards eagerly. “Can you do me? Only, I’d be a warrior-king, and a, you know, regular army would do…”
“How’s about an army of fire-monsters?”
“Oooooh!”
The lightest touch of the enchanter’s finger was enough to put him out like a candle.
“Should I let them sleep?” Bor asked. “Like, right through?”
“Gods, man – I always thought enchantment seemed too good to be true, and now you’re telling me you can just put kids to sleep…”
“Eight hours? Ten? Twelve?”
“Parenting’s gonna be so easy for you, isn’t it?”
“Kas…”
I sighed. “If it wasn’t Yearsend tomorrow I’d have said at least thirty-six. Twelve’ll do… and I’m pretty sure Xantaire will be a fan forever if you pay her little boy a visit.”
He grinned, shrugged, and left the bedroom –
The moment he’d moved, Tanra was standing in the same spot.
“Come on, Kas,” she chided. “You’re getting as bad as your girlfriend. We’ll be late.”
I put my mask in my satchel. “Don’t be daft – we’ve got you. If anyone’s gonna get us to the shrine on time…”
Fifteen minutes later, we were standing in our champion outfits near the altar of Yune in Hightown. Em was at my side, my vampire’s essence once more feeding me enhanced sensory capabilities.
I wasn’t about to let anything happen tonight.
No one had publicised the event – indeed, it was supposed to be a private affair – but it wasn’t the kind of venue you could just book-out. The full moon falling on Yearseve was of course too good for the nuptial couple to pass up – and it had the added benefit of the cleansing at the Fountains of Merizet drawing away lots of potential passers-by. However, this was a posh area, and most of the people around here would have the money to afford proper healing. Therefore, a fair number of the passers-by had already stopped passing by, freezing in their tracks when they saw us, and it hadn’t taken long for the news to spread – a small crowd started to form, keeping a respectable distance from the proceedings. I had a number of things to say about Hightown folk, in general, but at least they knew how to behave themselves.
It wasn’t quite going to be the perfect winter wedding. The wind was biting and the snow wasn’t falling, but there was plenty of the white stuff on the ground and it didn’t appear to be going anywhere soon. It gave a satisfying crunch under my boots whenever I shifted my feet, looking around at what would’ve been grassy fields surrounding a lake – now a picturesque tundra ringing a dark mirror, the icy water’s black surface reflecting only the full moon.
The shrine of Yune in Hightown they’d selected for their ceremony was so dissimilar to the Sticktown shrine, it beggared belief that they were temples to the same goddess. Where I lived, ‘hope’ meant tens of thousands of gravestones, souls removed from this world to a, ‘hopefully’, better place. The altar itself was a simple block of marble and some flowers. Here, you could’ve been fooled into thinking it was a shrine to Wythyldwyn. Hope in this world was definitely the theme. The trees here hadn’t been abandoned to become gnarled and twisted, growing where and how they wanted; these ones were spaced in rows, each tree roughly equal in height and the span of its branches… Instead of moss streaming from trunks festooned with mushrooms, these were streaming with yellow ribbons, all marks of fungus and growth removed from their bark by druids.
The place was vast – two or three times the area of my shrine, I was sure, despite the fact the Sticktown shrine was the biggest patch of greenery in the whole north-end of my district. Here the cemetery-section was relatively tiny, but it was no more an afterthought than the decorations on the trees: instead of gravestones, tall structures were the order of the day – mausoleums and tombs and crypts, many of them looking so ancient they might’ve predated Sticktown even as a concept.
The altar before which we stood was a full rendering of the goddess. Her youthful face upraised, narrow lips parted in a slight smile, crowned with a five-rayed halo and robed in cloud – Yune was carved from what appeared to be a single pearl, standing a full twelve feet in height, garlanded in goldsprawn and rosemary. The statue’s value was literally inestimable. At its feet a number of vivid roses fountained forth from the soil; I couldn’t see or hear a single insect on their many-hued petals, and their lustrous scents were overpowering, dusty doors opening on hidden memories.
We four were the only official guests, the only people they’d really got to know since arriving back in Mund. The two ministers of the goddess stood off to one side as they conversed in low voices, a man and woman both advanced in years and clad respectively in robes of pale blue and pink.
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Then they returned, groom and best man striding down on the airs from the night sky where they’d spent the last ten minutes – Em had superseded Ibbalat’s flight-spell with her own magic to ensure there were no accidents. If they were coming back down, that could only mean the ladies were about to arrive.
Phanar had eschewed traditional wedding garb, unless it was customary in his homeland to dress in full battle-harness and weapons at the altar. Ibbalat wore a fancy new mage’s hat and a blue-and-gold mage-robe in the finest cut I’d ever seen, all angles and swirls – and I knew some of the richest mages in Mund – hells, I knew the First Lady of Mund…
We turned to watch the arrival of the bride and her bridesmaid.
Kanthyre wore a gown white like the snow, bound tightly into its corset-like structure but not so much that she threatened to spill out the top. The lacy sleeves of the dress spilled down to the cleric’s feet, the cuff-hems just brushing the frosted surface of the ground, sparkling as they did so. Her face was hidden by the veil hanging from her tiara, the circlet’s sapphires gleaming fiercely on her brow, but they did little to mask or distract from her winsome smile.
My eyes widened when I saw the mace at her side, carefully covered and strapped-down.
Behind her, carrying the long train, Anathta was wrapped in a form-fitting dress made up of several diaphanous layers, Phanar’s cloak across her shoulders. Each piece of sheer material was a different colour, yet somehow the narrow gown wasn’t garish or muddy – it was like a slender mosaic of glass.
“See, that’s how you do it,” I murmured to Tanra.
To describe the elbow I received to the ribs as ‘swift’ wouldn’t be doing it justice.
Her and Spirit are a bloody good match, I thought, rubbing my side and wincing.
As the bride approached, suddenly music filled the air, a slow, melodious tune that seemed to ripple up from the very ground, as though the snow were singing, chanting a solemn, wordless hymn to the goddess. I looked at Bor, but his demeanour was one of curiosity… so this was the work of Yune herself? I remembered going to a wedding in my youth, with my parents – but I couldn’t recall automated music. There’d been a few guys with small harps, if memory served. Sounds out of the earth? I thought I would’ve remembered if that’d happened.
At the same time, me and Em made our gestures. The wizard brought the snow drifting down again in a gentle flurry; for my part, I put shields around the whole area, centring them on the space before the altar so that Phanar and Kani would stand within the very heart of protection. I’d read enough books to know the villains always struck just before two people got married – I didn’t think the adventurers had made any enemies yet, but it never hurt to be on the safe side. No one but me could see the blue shapes through which the snow was now billowing.
Despite his choice of armour for his wedding suit, Phanar performed the formal tradition of Realm marriage – once Kani reached his side he kept his eyes from her and slowly circled her, facing outwards, before turning to regard her, circling her a second time. As he drew to a stop he took her by the hand, then guided her, turning on his heel and keeping hold of her fingers as she circled him a single time. At last, niceties obeyed, they came to stand together before the altar.
The ministers moved to stand under the arms of Yune’s statue – the priest under her right arm, the priestess under her left. They went barefooted, and the roses about the statue moved aside, parting so that they could step unharmed into the thorny space.
The music faded away.
“From the darkness of yesteryear’s gloom steps a shadow brightening,” said the male minister. “From the rushes a wind shall be born.” He produced a good-humoured, boyish smile despite plainly being sixty-something years old. “We welcome Phanar and Kanthyre into the bosom of hope. May it be yours, everlasting, beyond this world.”
“From the heart comes the fire enlightening,” said the woman, her voice incredibly warm, gentle. “From the Shadow new selves be torn! We welcome Phanar and Kanthyre as they join their souls, bound by sacred oath. May their love be everlasting, the hallowed, unblemished pearl.”
They started going back and forth, priest then priestess.
“Yune, Lady of Peace, Destiny’s Door, we supplicate thee! Fill them with thy peace; lead them from anger and violence and into thine arms, where all might rest, and find understanding beyond enmity.”
“Entreat thy kin to watch over these, your faithful followers: bring them the blessing of thy father Locus, that they might learn from their mistakes, and thy daughter Belestae, that ill-fate might never befall them!”
“Under Brondor’s hand, fill their treasuries, bring them wealth overflowing,” the priest smiled at Kani; “under Wythyldwyn’s wing, heal their hurts, bring them life abounding.”
“O Joran, shield them as they walk in Kaile’s light! O Glaif, bind the vows they make in the freedom of Nentheleme’s sight!” The priestess slowly cast out an arm to the snow drifting, silvery in the moonlit as it coursed through the black night sky. “Tauremai, Queen of Winter, bear witness to this union made in the bosom of your time. Uphold it, for all winters to come, until Mortiforn takes them to his own. In the name of Urdaith, let it be so!”
I shivered, not at the cold. It was just… the inevitability of it all. Even at a wedding, the spectre of death raised its head. It was omnipresent. It weighed equally on us all, in the end.
Everyone goes through it. My parents went through it. I’ll go through it, and the twins will too… one day…
“Please, look into one another’s eyes,” the male minister instructed them.
The bride and groom turned to face each other. Ana helped Kani get her veil drawn over her head, trailing it back across her hair.
“Phanar of N’Lem,” he went on, “do you bind yourself to this woman, Kanthyre Vael, with willing mind and soul?”
“I do,” the warrior spoke huskily, breath steaming on the air.
“Until the earth sinks into the sea? Until the sea boils in the fire? Until the fire becomes smoke and the smoke passes away over the mountains of time, where only nothingness can follow?”
“I do.”
The female minister broke in: “Then the nothingness shall never come; for love brings hope and hope brings love, and new life shall be born out of every void, as Yune teaches. Kanthyre Vael, I ask you now the same. Do you bind yourself to this man, Phanar of N’Lem, with willing mind and soul?”
“I do.”
“Until the –“
I whirled, pointing, and Tanra flickered and vanished.
There was an impact on my shield – and what I saw amazed me.
Timesnatcher and Killstop, both of them now on the edge of the invisible barriers, knives in their hands – and Duskdown blurring up to me, a pink-purple shape streaking across the snow.
“Feychilde!” he growled as he slowed. “I need you.”
It took me a moment to process what was happening – the small crowd of onlookers vanished like a flock of pigeons struck by a hawk, screaming –
The very instant Stormsword raised her hands for the lightning, she shot off into the air, thrown beyond the shield’s borders with the others.
The ill-will… They wish harm… on my ally?
Spiritwhisper held himself very still – he’d clearly figured out what was happening, and didn’t want to get unceremoniously tossed beyond the dome like Em.
“Drop the shield!” Timesnatcher roared.
“Feychilde?” Ibbalat cried.
It made no sense, but the sunset-clad arch-diviner was still walking towards me.
“Stay calm, everyone,” I called over my shoulder. “Finish the ceremony!”
He is not interrupting this.
I heard the ministers behind me hurriedly finishing up, their voices tense with fear and perhaps a trace of disgust at what was going on, here on their hallowed ground. Meanwhile, I stepped out to meet the killer, staring at him – the stubble on his chin, the pressed-together lips beneath the mask of metal discs and crescents.
Another diviner. More trouble.
No. No more.
I hid the gestures in my sleeve as I spoke.
“What is it, Duskdown?” I grated.
“He’s doing it, right now,” he replied. “He verified Redgate’s death, and he found the demon – he’s planned this out – I can’t stop him alone –“
“Who’s doing what?”
“Your friend,” he sneered, “die –“
Timesnatcher’s strike went just over his head – the murderer ducked into a fighting-stance as the champion sped at him.
I couldn’t even follow their melee.
Killstop joined in, and the three of them went sprinting back and forth across the snow with such ferocity that they melted it, blades meeting in great crashes of light and sound –
Then they were tearing up the grass and sod beneath, as they criss-crossed their patch of ground, over and over, leaping and spinning at one another. Within two seconds they were little more than multi-coloured smears in a cloud of steam, even to me – I stood dumbfounded, staring at metallic rainbows that went buzzing and ringing across the air, sparks cascading from every contact like screeches from a vast violin. Each twist of motion they performed left behind a thousand imprints in the air, tiny time-frozen lightning-bolts stuttering through the fog, rippling in their wake.
“What can I do?” Em asked, descending back to my side.
I shook my head. “I don’t think we can do anything, here. Even you can’t hit Duskdown, not in that.”
“I could blow the fog away –“
“This is takin’ a reaaally long time,” Spirit interjected, sounding worried. “These things are usually over in seconds.”
“True,” I said. “But none of them wish me ill-will – I could throw them all somewhere, now, I guess? If it even works that way… And none of my demons can move anything like that fast, or –“
“Reaaally long, now!” Spirit blurted. “Call Doomspeaker! We might be able to bring in reinforce…”
Bor’s voice died away.
The colours, the sounds faded.
Behind us, I heard Ibbalat and Anathta clapping belatedly as the groom kissed the bride, while in front of us, I saw the body of the arch-diviner being dragged into the open.
The hilts of two knives had been left protruding from the robe, their blades buried in the chest cavity. The magic in them ran up and down the handles, moving into and out of the dying man, green tinctures of light pulsing through his innards.
I could see his face – his mask was missing. Duskdown was a human in his mid-to-late- thirties, heavy-browed but handsome, a somewhat receded hairline with short blond hair falling down his neck.
But half his head resembled one of Phanar’s peaches, his eye socket smashed, the skin already puffed up in a great reddish welt.
Killstop let go of his foot, and it fell limply to the ground.
Timesnatcher spoke in a low, thick voice, the words wrung from him.
“O Yune. Yune…” The champion went to his knees beside Duskdown’s comatose body, looking up at the pearl-carved statue of the goddess, eyes glimmering with tears. “Yune, Mother of the Mercies – I thank you. I thank you…
“You…
“You listened…”