Rook clutched the compass with a rounded bottom and spun it in his hands. He stared at the crows on its face, large and small, examining each at a time as they turned about the sphere. With each rotation the free-floating central ring stayed locked in place. Its upside notch pointed stalwartly southeast. Through the Kalmas Mountains, down past Chionos, along the Hepaz River, toward where the winter sun hung low in the early morning sky. Never anywhere else.
The band pointed southeast—and down. Yet while it never rotated left or right, as he stared closely at its workings, he noticed the subtle shift as he moved it higher and lower. The angle of the ring was more pronounced when held high. Shallower when held low.
He stopped. The simple motion helped keep his hands warm, but it was driving him mad with anxiety. The destination heralded by that notch was too far off to focus on now. For now, the goal was Snaiga, and his thoughts needed to be of Aletheia—not Eris.
With the compass stilled his eyes were drawn back to its decorations. Past each crow. To the corner. To…
A single cat. Preying for lunch.
“Enough rest,” Pyraz said.
Rook sighed. He hadn’t wanted to stop. He never wanted to stop. But they found themselves in the frostbitten depths of winter, wrapped in heavy clothes, and the road south of Vandens was unplowed and exhausting to traverse. If the cold didn’t kill them the sweat surely would. Over the first ten miles he over-exerted himself so much that the inner layers of his attire were soaked; now as he rested he was forced to undress, and with a bare chest he faced the white forests, freezing with each gust of wind, yet drying.
When faced with such threats as demons and Seekers it didn’t seem fair to face down the mundane trial of nature at the same time. They hadn’t even yet made it to Chionos. There, Rook knew, it would be so much worse.
He closed his eyes and ignored the bone chill. Soon enough he was dry. He put his clothes back on, which Pyraz had kept hot atop a heated rock. Their tingling warmth against his skin was the only comfort he’d known in days.
Pyraz had rested, but he kept his armor on.
“You must be exhausted,” Rook said.
“No. The steel keeps me warm.”
They continued. Across rocky ground, over banks of snow so high their heads almost touched the canopy of leafless trees when standing upright. Soon enough darkness fell but the days were very short by then and night was no excuse to stop moving, nor was the frigid cold, for they had not the time to spare.
Pyraz kept the light of the sun in an open palm. Where the snow was too deep he melted it for easier passage, but the air was so cold that the moment his spell ended it was all frost again. Such a technique was necessary to find the buried road. Even then Rook struggled to recognized the landscape and lead the way toward the tunnel’s entrance, and he might have felt demoralized as he stumbled about the cold were his mind not so preoccupied and his heart so determined.
Then, at last, there it was. The great black arch which led into the bowels of stone and swallowed Pyraz’s light like an evil dragon, like a pit of tar—the only inch of this place that wasn’t white.
Rook swore that next winter he would take Eris and Aletheia and they would go somewhere warm. He was very tired of snow. He was very tired of searching for Eris in snow.
They stepped inside.
----------------------------------------
Rook recalled the freezing draft that came in from Chionos on that night they entered the tunnel three summers ago. This time he felt cold air, but whether or not it was any colder than the air from Rytus he couldn’t say. Cold was cold. He was numb to it all.
On he pressed through hunger and exhaustion. They would camp on the other side of the bridge. Yet here the wind didn’t howl, and when Pyraz noticed the toll their long march had taken on Rook he began conversation.
“Tell me of Antigone,” he said.
For a moment Rook wondered why the question was posed, for surely Pyraz knew nothing less than he himself did. But then he remembered. They had left their dog behind on that expedition. He stayed with Guinevere in Kaimas. Only Eris and Zydnus met the old woman with him. Them and Astera, but she…
Rook tried to press through the fog of fatigue. He tried to remember.
“She lives in a big dick near the town’s center,” he said. “It was my impression she rather thinks of herself as the chief; the villagers get their heat from her. There’s a wall but I don’t remember any guards. And…” It was so hard to concentrate. There was something more, but he couldn’t remember. What was it? “Oh, right. She has an automaton. A protector.”
“…how large?”
“Rook sized.”
“Bird or man?”
“Man.”
“Not ideal. Still, manageable.”
“That’s clever.” Pyraz didn’t respond, so Rook went on: “There were forcefields throughout the tower, too. But I haven’t any clue where she might have taken Aletheia. And…if she has any wit she’ll have expected us to come her way, maybe with more of those soldiers, those Custodians.”
On and on the tunnel went. Sundered, with cleft stones to climb over and large gaps in the road to skirt across. Rook was ready to collapse by the time they came to the chasm.
“So long as the Seeker isn’t present, I can handle them,” Pyraz finished. He stopped in his tracks.
The rope bridge still extended across the gap, anchored by its metal posts. The memory of that first brush against Eris played through his mind, when she had plucked him up with a spell of levitation and brought him across the way for safety’s sake—even as the bridge remained steady beneath his feet.
They both gazed down into the dark abyss. The atmosphere had been somber until they made it to the tunnel, but now Rook’s inhibitions were crumbled away from tiredness, and they made more casual conversation.
Pyraz considered the bridge for a long time. “I’m too heavy,” he said.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Rook said.
“No. I can’t cross.”
“Shall you climb into my backpack while I proceed, then?” Rook said.
“Don’t remind me,” Pyraz said. He spent a long time conquering an inhibition at the sight of the drop-off. Then he took a deep breath; he grabbed Rook by the wrist. His grip was colder than an icicle and stronger than a lion’s jaw. Rook saw his red eyes close through his mask, and…
A sigh.
“Blink,” he said.
Rook glanced around the vicinity. Nothing but the same crumbling tunnel. “What?”
“Blink, damn you.”
“Why?”
The grip tightened. So tired was Rook that still didn’t obey the command, too confused, but here he blinked in his own natural course, and when his eyes opened again he found himself standing on the other side of the chasm.
He stumbled forward, disorientated. Pyraz let him go.
“We make our camp here,” he said. “We’ve traveled far enough today.”
“Good idea,” Rook said. He clutched his head. “Blink?”
“The spell is Blink. Lukon used it to escape my grasp. It is instant teleportation, but it only functions when all who can see the shift in location have closed their eyes.”
“What if you close your eyes and I don’t?”
“Then for me I’ve Blinked across, while for you I haven’t.”
“…what happens then? What if I moved away from you—or if I stabbed you, or fell off the chasm, or was hit by White Fire?”
“Bad things.”
Rook could’ve figured that one out for himself. Over the course of three minutes he tried to determine whether or not this spell made any sense, but by now the whining in his mind was more akin to an elephant’s stampede. He placed his bedroll down and cloaked himself in furs and retreated atop it, and although his mind had roiled all day over thoughts of Aletheia and Eris in dreadful captivity, he needed only seconds to fall asleep.
----------------------------------------
He dreamed of that first kiss in this very place. There had been so much more than kissing since then, but it was the freezing night where their lips touched and he tasted her that she entered his bloodstream forever. The funniest thing was how tame the dream was. Zydnus snored some feet off. She giggled beneath him. Her hands tugging at his tunic. She was well pinned down and he felt that splendid curvature of her back, like the triumphal arch in Katharos, to this day the most stunning thing about her, and their mouths were together. It was so cold but her skin was warmer than any fire. And it lasted forever.
Just the kiss. The kiss, and the embrace.
When he awoke he was vigorous and rested and happy and it wasn’t until he grabbed at the stone to his side and his fingers found cold nothingness that he shot upright and realized it was nothing but a phantasm come down to torment him.
It was the tamest encounter with Eris he’d had in a dream since months before they ever shared so much as a civil conversation, much less a kiss. By the Archon she had a spell over him. While he shook away grogginess he caught a flash of remembrance, a vision of that final look she’d given him, that desperate cry for help, and he felt enough rage to raze a village. That the Seeker could take her from him—to hurt her like that—
Rook had a strong sense of right and wrong, but he was not vindictive. Even his uncle he could forgive. But the next time they met, he would kill the Seeker. That he swore.
And as he continued onward with Pyraz through the tunnel, he felt himself overcome with guilt for thinking so much on Eris, when Aletheia was just marooned. Taken. Subjected to tortures unknown. That poor girl who had been through so much. Rook loved her like a sister. She deserved so much better than him and Astera, who for the second time had failed to keep her safe.
He had promised. Promised never to leave her side. Promised to be with her forever, to protect her, and so long ago that she would never need return to Antigone and Snaiga. If only he had known.
But Aletheia was within grasp. He would keep his word. They only needed to reach Snaiga.
It was past noon by the time they reached the tundra-wastes of Chionos. A storm approached. There was nothing but white for miles in every direction.
“Damn it!” Rook said. “You should have waked me earlier, we’ve lost too much daylight.”
“How far is it to Snaiga?”
Rook tried to remember. “Not far, it took us less than a full day in summer.”
“You needed the rest. We reach the town under cover of night.”
“It’s impossible!” He pulled his cloak around himself tighter. When the wind picked up it was the coldest he had ever felt. The snow underfoot was solid as stone. His skin burned with frost. “When the storm comes in—”
“I will handle the storm,” Pyraz said, and he started onward.
Rook stared at him. Pyraz was a great magician, and a great man. As a member of the party he had been treated like a peer but truly he was so much more than Rook or Eris—older, wiser, more powerful. As a dog Rook had trusted him entirely. Now, in his true form, he still was confident in the ancient Hypaspist’s judgment—but to brave a Chionid blizzard, and then at night? It was insane.
Yet they needed to move quickly. And he was right, it was better to arrive at night, to sneak into Antigone’s tower and evade the tonwsfolk. And where was there to find cover here? There were hills and gullies and valleys and fjords and ravines and canyons and forests in Chionos like there were anywhere else, far more of them than there had any right to be, yet who could find one for cover when everything was blasted white like a blank canvas?
Even the few trees Rook saw—all evergreen—were camouflaged by so much snow. His vision was whited out.
There was nowhere to cower once night fell and the storm came in—if it waited for night at all, which seemed dubious at present. So he would have to have confidence in Pyraz.
----------------------------------------
The sky turned black well before sunset. The winds picked up. The air was so cold that each breath was like a dagger to the lungs. Snow snapped about them in billowing blasts. A vortex volleyed them like archers out of sight in the darkness nocking snowballs in place of arrows. Within minutes Rook was turned around, lost, and he left no tracks on the frozen-solid ground to know where he came from.
Pyraz handled the storm.
He grabbed Rook and pulled him close. He sent his conjured light into the air—
A cone of yellow descended down around them. A shield surrounding their sides. Rook gasped to feel a breath of hot air enter his lungs. A gust of wind howled past them, but the fur around his cloak caught none of the breeze. All his skin prickled with pins as the warmth of a sauna overcame him.
The snow underfoot started to melt. The storm was kept at bay. But…
Which way to Snaiga?
“It’s south,” Rook said.
“South…” Pyraz said. He looked in all directions, uncertain.
“Don’t you know a spell of navigation?”
“I was a soldier!”
“So was I, and I—” Rook stopped himself. An idea. He pulled out his compass that did not point north. He followed the notch until it was focused toward where it had been yesterday, the southeast, toward Erimos—toward Pyrthos, where Eris had been taken.
The southeast. Rook tilted himself.
“That’s south,” he said. He pointed and put the compass away.
He hadn’t told Pyraz about the compass yet, it hadn’t come up, but he didn’t need an explanation, because he went at once in the direction Rook indicated.
Pyraz slowed as they came nearer Snaiga. The storm was a blizzard of fantastic strength and warding it off took great power; his Essence was becoming exhausted. They crested the top of a hill and halfway up the Hypaspist stumbled, and it fell on Rook to haul him, plate armor and all, up to its ridge.
Then they were both exhausted. But there they saw it, the big dick of Antigone, the Tower of Snaiga—or whatever it was called, Rook didn’t know, but he saw it not half a mile away. At night its exterior was etched with throbbing veins of red mana and so too were all the streets of the town below, blocks crisscrossed with circuitry just like the floor beside the manaforge.
Rook’s eyes scanned the walls for any guards. There were no lights or fires, of course, and no one would be out in a storm like this, but hardly anything save the tower was visible through the snowfall, so he couldn’t be sure.
“Your spell!” Rook said. “End it, we might be seen.”
Pyraz did so and darkness fell over them, but Rook wondered if he might have anyway, for he moved sluggishly down the hill. The wind was so fierce that Rook was worried he might be blown away, and often he was nearly blown over, despite dozens of pounds of gear and armor and clothing, and as before he was sweaty, exhausted, out of breath, and panting by the time he reached the walls. How could it possibly be—sweating in a place like this, where he had never been colder?
They might have rested there to recuperate, but the wall offered no respite from the storm. So Pyraz boosted Rook up to the other side, then hauled himself after with a jump, toppling over the parapet, and they both landed in the streets of Snaiga beyond. And there…
The wind stopped. The howling banished. Snow continued to fall from the clouds above, but gently, like feathers off a frightened bird drifting through the still air.
It was no less cold, but here the cold was empty, like the dark void, the creeping embrace of death.
Mana circuitry lit the streets. A pipe to each house. It wasn’t late, but no one was outside.
Rook drew his sword. He must have looked some assassin, cloaked and every inch of his skin covered to keep out the cold. A deep, painful breath—
They both sprinted toward the tower.
----------------------------------------
An open archway. No barrier except a flickering pane of glass, like a sheen of violet liquid half an inch deep was suspended over the threshold.
“Can you dispel it?” Rook whispered.
Pyraz held his hand an inch before the forcefield. A moment, then… “No,” he said. “How did it fall before?”
“The automaton, he lowered it when we requested entrance—like a porter.”
“It must have the key.”
Rook was furious, to know that Aletheia was now so nearby and there was no way through. "There must be something you can do!"
“The circuits pump too much mana to tap. Their lines are on the inside and cannot be disrupted. Arcane Abrogation only works on weak magic. I cannot Blink us through a wall. I cannot use Mass Recall on a place I haven’t visited myself.”
Rook felt his sweaty skin frost over. "It can't be impenetrable."
“You would be much more useful if you knew magic,” Pyraz said.
“You’re right, I’ll look into it. Pyraz!:
He sighed a long gust of frost into the air. Another long moment. “I have an idea. But I’m already exhausted. Only you will be able to step through.”
Rook stared at him. He was no poltroon, but when it came time to face a Magister—that’s what Antigone was—he didn’t know what chance he stood alone. “There’s another field up the stairs.”
“You’ll adapt.”
Rook stared at Pyraz. Whether it was this Hypaspist, the elf Astera, or the sorceress Eris he always had some magician at his back. He never faced down any threat without them, not really, not one like a Magister. But there was no choice now. So he nodded, and he looked to the forcefield.
Pyraz stepped back. He took in the width of the forcefield, then its length, and then he traced it with a finger. A moment later another forcefield—a blue forcefield, not violet—appeared within the first. It began as a circle, a dot at the center of the doorway.
He growled like a wild hound. He leaned forward, making a gesture like he was pulling the field before them apart, and sure enough the blue dot expanded. It grew by the millisecond, pushing the violet aside, clearing forth a place large enough for a man to slip through—a porthole.
Now he screamed. The exertion was incredible. Rook rushed to the steps, but Pyraz’s forcefield was solid—he had no way through. Until…
The interior of the porthole retracted, leaving a captive window: a way through, surrounded by a blue ring, all within a sea of violet.
“Go!” Pyraz shouted.
Rook jumped through. The exact second his feet found the other side the blue field vanished.
The violet snapped whole again. There was a crack and a buzz and a noise like distant thunder; Rook smelled smoke in the air, and when he turned he realized the forcefield had closed on his cloak, severing it off his back and incinerating it entirely.
He reeled back toward the stairs.
Pyraz collapsed to his knees. He pulled off his helmet, panting, gasping for air, and slumped down into the snow.
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“I’ll wait for you,” he said.
Rook stared his way. “I’ll be back with Aletheia,” he said. “Don’t freeze.”
He looked up at the atrium, the atrium which extended all the way to the tower’s top floors, empty space hundreds of feet into the air. A spiral staircase led all the way up. It was dark here, illuminated only by mana circuitry, but very warm. Rook threw off the rags of his cloak and the furs around his neck, and he left his packs at the base of the stairs, too, for they would only slow him down, but he made sure to grab his compass and Aletheia’s locket—just in case.
He would be back with her. Now he prayed that she was really here.
----------------------------------------
Two steps up the stairs and a noise like a shivering alarm bell rang out through the atrium. Rook closed his eyes. He waited for a minute at least for it to stop, but it continued, on and on through his ears, shrieking like a dying thing to alert the whole town to his presence. Now he was thankful for the blizzard.
Who knew how many guards Antigone kept at hand. Who knew what she was doing now she was alerted. Rook didn’t care to find out. He decided up was his only choice. So he didn’t wait for them to come to him. He would go to them.
He stopped for breath at each landing, wary of exhaustion for any upcoming fight. His mind swam with the potentialities. Local militia, more Protectors, Cult Custodians—or was this all a set-up? Surely Antigone knew they would be coming for her, to retrieve Aletheia? Maybe she would be nowhere nearby and this was a trap?
Another flight. Another landing. Here was a library, with a manalight that Rook tapped on with his finger. There were bones hung from the ceiling and suspended by magic in the air of animals like those they saw in Telmos, of monsters and chimeras from all across the world. Rook stopped again to catch his breath. Then up again, up and up, so many steps, until…
He reached another forcefield, the room at the top of the atrium, the barrier to the upper levels of the tower.
On the other side there stood the golem, the automaton, the awkward, uneven valet of Antigone, which three years ago had let them into this place. It was a boxish, squat, bronze machine with a body that levitated against its own limbs. And like the protectors of the manaforge a blue managem glowed in its chest.
It stared at Rook, at least that’s what Rook felt it did, although it had no head or eyes. There was a gentle sway to its torso—a judgmental contemplation.
He stared back at it.
The managem lit up. A woman’s voice came through the neck of the golem, crackling and sizzling as if translated by a campfire.
Rook recognized it at once: Antigone.
“I must confess,” she said. “I am impressed by you, Rook. When Lukon told me you might come I never thought it would be at night, in the Chionid winter, during a blizzard which stretched even into the daytime.”
He didn’t know if he could be seen, but he gave the golem a fake smile. “Women often say I'm very impressive,” he said, but the words were sardonic.
Antigone laughed. “No doubt. Young Aletheia was quite taken by you, it seemed. I should have known better when I sent you after her. You have not molested her too often, I hope?”
The implication made him furious. “I’m afraid her departure was for hatred of you rather than love of me. Why don’t you speak to me in person?”
Her voice was dignified and Pyrthian, like the fake accent Eris affected to seem more magisterial. She paused before replying, “Your Hypaspist friend is not with you now. You shan’t be bypassing this Portcullis.”
“Then why not come closer?”
“You and your lot have proved wily indeed, Master Rook. I see no reason to push my luck. After all, as I believe I told you in our first meeting, I am no warrior, nor Seeker, or battlemage. I am an old enchantress. And I am cautious.”
“But not too cautious,” he said. “I thought you might have surrounded yourself in Seekers and Cult Custodians to lay a trap for me.”
“Do not flatter yourself, you are not important enough to be worthy that much special attention. You have caused me a great deal of trouble but you are still only small thorns in a sensitive place. The Gray Council and the Magisters do not fret and adjust their schedules over your comings and goings. Yet the truth is—I do have several Cult Custodians outside, which will be upon you presently, for they were alerted when you set off my alarms with your clumsy feet.”
“Isn’t the point of a guard to respond quickly to alarms? You keep them outside?”
“Until now I had never met one with the power to break through my Portcullis. This Pyraz is a man of great power. He could be much more than an adventurer. Regardless, you are now trapped. You will sit tightly within my atrium and wait for the Custodians to arrive. They will see you off.”
“Where’s Aletheia?”
“She is safe.”
“What are you doing to her?”
“Nothing so dreadful as a man might. The life you stole from her will be returned. You needn’t fear, I have no intention to make her a Servitor, as your friend Eris will become.”
Now Rook was inches away from the golem. Nothing separated them except this Portcullis, the violet forcefield. And could Pyraz take more Cult Custodians in his current state? But there was nothing to be done about it now. He needed some way through this forcefield. If only he…
He noticed his gauntlet. Eris’ Spellward. He wore it on his right hand. He remembered back to the cavern with the Manawyrm, where Astera had been locked beyond their melee by a forcefield and Eris had received the soulcharm from her by making a hole through it with her glove—
If it didn’t work he would regret it, but he needed to act now, before Antigone realized. So he handed off his sword to his left hand and punched through the Portcullis with his right.
The gauntlet penetrated the forcefield as if nothing were there. Effortlessly. He dared go no further than the glove extended, but that was far enough to do what he wanted: he grabbed the golem by the free-floating arm and tugged it through. The bronze limb brushed against the violet field, but just as it would have been obliterated, the forcefield dissipated.
The golem’s momentum carried it through to the other side. When it was past, the Portcullis reappeared.
“Fool!” came the voice of Antigone, but then Rook heard her no more. He was left to grapple with the box-shaped automaton in silence. It was strong and sturdy but no protector, and the moment he had it in a bind, he pulled himself close to it, and flung them both at the field.
He was astonished when he landed on the other side alive. He was still in one piece. The golem flailed its arms at him and in its usual hissing voice it said, “Desist! Desist!”
He drew his sword and thrust it through the managem heart. Its blue light went out. All its limbs ceased their levitation and fell limp to the ground.
Now he was in a very dark room. The room where he met Astera. Rook hadn’t known what it was at the time, but now he recognized it: a conduit room, gathering magic from the tower’s upper floors. A circle of mana circuitry at its center gave off red light. All around there were staircases that led up, six of them in total, but none were marked. He didn’t know where to go.
“Aletheia,” he said, looking each up and down. “Aletheia!”
There was a long pause. And then… “Rook!”
It was her voice. Very far off. She cried after him in return. He followed her voice up one set of stairs, then around another spiral that floated without any support, down a short corridor, and then…
A room of flickering green light. It was blinding, like he had found himself inside a rainbow while the sun flashed in his eyes. She called his name again, and now he saw her: they were in a room with no windows or bars, and in place of a cell there was another forcefield of green that extended from one wall to another, up seven feet and across ten, and beyond was a little girl with blonde hair.
“Aletheia!” Rook called. He rushed to her. She was standing near the green, her hands pressed against it, and Rook tried to embrace her—but only his right hand penetrated the field, only to the forearm.
Aletheia cried. She grabbed hold of his hand tightly. It had only been a few days but she seemed a different person.
“You came back for me,” she sobbed.
“Of course I came for you!” he said. “How do I let you out?”
“You can’t. It’s impossible.”
He clutched her wrist tightly. “I’ve gotten through two already. One with Pyraz, the other with the golem. Now where’s the key?”
“There is no key,” she was still crying, “Antigone sustains it, she wanted to make sure—like she used to, so I could never get away again—”
Rook jumped up to his feet. Antigone sustains it. He turned back toward the hall, toward the stairs, and rushed back down.
“No!” Aletheia called after him. “Don’t leave me! Please!”
But he had to. He couldn’t risk it. He had to find her before she got away. Kings, she could go anywhere, she could teleport away, and then he could never find her—
And yet, there she was. Standing right at the center of the conduit circle. Waiting for him. A staff in her hand.
Her eyes were golden.
“A second trick,” she said. “Where did you get that gauntlet?”
“I have no idea,” Rook replied honestly.
Antigone stared at him. There was fear in her look. “Aletheia was never meant to remember her second Manasearing,” she said. “Do you know that?”
Rook stepped toward her with his sword leveled. “I know you experimented on her.”
“The memory was to be extracted and distilled for research. She would have forgotten everything. But…she fled before the ritual was complete. You know her better than I do now, Rook Korakos. Would she be happier today with or without those evil recollections?”
“Let’s ask the one who inflicted them,” he said.
“Fair enough,” she said. “Yet mana is versatile. There are more memories which could be extracted. More bitter experiences taken away. You are the one who inflicted death on her; do you think she would be happier if she could forget her journey to the beyond? It is something no one alive is meant to know.”
He hesitated. “She hasn’t told you anything.”
“No, but I see her demeanor. She is much changed. She once had spunk. Now she is timid. Her voice quavers. Even the cage I have placed her in is unnecessary, for I wonder if she would bother to run from me now. Or perhaps that’s for the abandonment of her handsome protector. In any case, you will agree that she would be better off without these memories. Only then could she grow to become a sane woman”
He stepped closer again. “Why did you manasear her twice?”
She regarded him. “She displayed an adequate degree of intelligence for my apprentice, but her first procedure left her inept in the arcane arts. She was retarded in her studies. Normally such students do not survive, yet when they do, they are useless to anyone except the Cult of the Aether. I thought she deserved better. So you see it’s not so simple as the evil Magister Antigone torturing her apprentice. And it was a success; the procedure of administering gold manaserum is experimental, but it has turned Aletheia into a talented young sorceress.”
“An adequate degree of intelligence? All this for…an adequate degree? I don’t believe you.”
Antigone became very quiet. “What will you do? Will you murder me, Master Rook?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
From up the stairs there came frenzied shouts. “Rook! Help me! Let me go! Please! Don’t leave me!”
They both glanced that direction. Antigone leaned against her staff, and after a long silence she said, “She is my daughter. That is why I administered a second searing, to save her from a fate in the clutches of cloistered fanatics. I would have sooner seen her killed.”
This revelation appalled Rook. “If you want credit for subjecting your own daughter to this—” he gestured about the room, “hellish college, where four fifths the students die, you won’t earn it from me.”
“All the same,” Antigone folded her arms, “I hope you understand me better than you might have from her perspective. No one knows our true relation, though many suspect it. It is not…something normally done. Whatever happens between us tonight I would ask you do not tell her.”
“Let her go,” Rook said, “and I’ll keep that secret.”
“She will be happier if you let me do what I had always intended. And I will let you leave, and Lukon will never know you visited me.”
“You had a different plan when you thought yourself untouchable.”
“Plans change,” she said.
Rook was an empathetic man. Even now, outraged, he could see Antigone’s perspective. She was a woman lost in a perverse ecosystem of magicians who reached for their staff whenever a problem arose. Could she be blamed for the way she had acted? If Rook had been her, might he have done the same?
No. She was right: no girl deserved the memory of a second Manasearing, and of death and rebirth at age thirteen. But her justifiability ended there. Only a monster would subject any child to the Searing, much less her own daughter. Rook couldn’t imagine doing that in any life. To mutilate an innocent—his own flesh—there was no circumstance that justified it.
But that was just it. Antigone had never been a mother. Aletheia spoke about her only rarely, and when she did it was with loathing. But Rook—and Pyraz—and even now Eris, in some twisted way—these were the people she had grown to love. He would not let Antigone take that away from her. The way this woman would use magic to turn children into clay, to sculpt them into whatever she desired, made Rook sick. It infuriated him.
“You know this is what she would want,” Antigone continued. “She is tortured by her memories. Why not be rid of them?”
“Let her make the decision,” he said.
“She is a child,” Antigone said, “she is not fit to make such a decision.”
“Then you mean to say this is what she ‘should’ want,” Rook said. He extended his blade another inch her way. “She doesn’t want you, Antigone. She doesn’t want you tearing away at her memory or injecting Manastone into her bloodstream. Now let her go.”
“But she does want you? You who killed her? You who let her get captured? You have her deceived as much as you’ve deceived yourself, child.”
More shouting from Aletheia. Pleas for help. Sobbing cries.
Rook advanced. “Please, let her free. I will kill you for her. Don’t make me.”
Antigone smirked. “She is a charming one, isn’t she? She’s worked her magic on you.” The Magister retreated. She lowered her staff; from the top of its wooden haft there billowed a puff of freezing whiteness.
But the aging woman was slow. He saw it coming and he dropped to his knees and protected himself with the Spellward gauntlet. It dispelled most of magic and left him only tickled by a few flakes onto his jacket, which sizzled and crackled against the cloth.
He jumped forward. With his off-hand he grabbed the staff. She cloaked it in flames and he was burned, but he held strongly enough and tugged it free—she was very weak, and frail, and no practiced hand at fighting—and he threw it to the floor at the side of the room. She tried casting some other spell on him but he punched her in the gut and she buckled over.
He disengaged. Cursing at the burns, but drawing his sword to her neck.
“Let her go!” he shouted. Now he was angry. He wanted to do it.
She glanced up at him. And…she smiled. She might have cast another spell but instead she did nothing. She relaxed herself.
“Show me how much you love the girl,” she sneered. “Whose magic supports the people of Chionos? While the blizzard rages tonight, who keeps it at bay? Who funnels warmth into all the houses?” Her smile broadened. “Are you brave enough to cut short all those enchantments? Snaiga will freeze without its Magister. And you will be to blame.”
The blade lowered. Of course. Antigone sustained all the magic of Snaiga, not just the spells in her tower, its forcefields and cells, but the heating in the houses, the ward against the blizzard, the breaking up of the ice in the harbor…if she died now, Snaiga was doomed.
Yet if she lived, Aletheia as he knew her would die. The girl he loved was going to be taken away from him. Some other magician would be put in her place.
That was a horrific thought. Even now he could think of nothing worse than having his memory invaded and picked apart by some magician. The good and the bad made him who he was. Not even the darkest days of Keep Korakos, no matter how bitter and bloodstained, should be taken away from him.
“I’ll let you go,” Rook said. “I promise you. Just open her cell and let her free.” He was pleading with her.
“My terms are set,” Antigone said. “I have nothing else to say.”
“Come back!” it was Aletheia again, her voice hoarse, “don’t leave me with her! Rook!”
That was the encouragement he needed to press the point of his family’s sword into Antigone’s breast. “You’re bluffing. I know you are. Drop the shield, damn you!”
“Rook!” Aletheia sobbed.
“Can you live a life with the death of Snaiga on your conscience?” Antigone said. “Yet even if you can, you must surely know the Seekers will never stop looking for the one who assassinated a Magister. No one has tried in centuries. Lukon is the bare start of your troubles. The girl will never know a life of peace. Every second will be spent on the run, until she is captured again. And when she is captured, and she will be, she will not be spared, for I will not be there to pardon here. She will be taken like Eris and her soul will be removed. All of her emotions will be stripped away. Her ability to cast spells will be sundered. She will be left as a mindless Servitor, branded by the Seekers, a trophy in the hands of the Gray Council, little more than a living statue. And all for what? To spend time with her older brother? Is it possibly worth the price?”
Rook remembered all the things he had learned about the Magisters over the last three years. The horror of the Manasearing. The cruelty of their Seekers. Their torture and slaughter of children. The use of magic to control and oppress. The manipulation of memory, the perversion of a little girl’s life, and now this fate she threatened him with, the same fate that awaited Eris: for Aletheia to have her soul plucked out of her body as punishment, because even execution wasn’t cruel enough for these fiends.
He grabbed her shoulder and lifted her up. Aletheia called to him again, and in that moment he saw it clearly: the people of Snaiga could be damned. If they could only live with the help of a Magister, then they shouldn’t live here at all. For Rook knew nothing more than that the Magisters and their Gray Council deserved to die. It was them who brought demons down to the earth. It was them who sundered the world. It was them who used the horrors they created to justify their own existence.
They were evil.
He slid the blade into Antigone’s heart. The moment he felt her blood pooling around his hands rage boiled over in his chest and he wrenched harder, then hit her across the face. He saw the expression she had as she died and it was one of shock and confusion and horror. She reached out at him with her right hand and tried to burn him with a spell, but he intercepted with his Spellward gauntlet, pinned her by the wrist, and kneed her.
Then she was dead.
The nearby Portcullis forcefield went out. The mana circuitry along the floor still worked, but within moments he felt a chill in the air.
He sheathed his sword and sprinted up to Aletheia.
----------------------------------------
She sat with her head in her hands in her cell, even as there no longer was a cell. She was crying weakly now, and it wasn’t until he wrapped his arms around her that she responded to his presence.
“Did—” she stuttered, “did you—is she—”
“It’s okay,” he said. He unhooked her locket from the manaforge and handed it to her. She clutched it to her chest like it was the most valuable thing in the world.
The wind howled outside the tower’s walls. The blizzard was slipping through the town’s perimeter.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Can you go?”
She nodded. There were a few things in the cell, clothes to travel in, and she changed into them. They descended the staircase together, and he wanted to cover her eyes rather than see Antigone’s body. A butchered mother. He had seen his own mother butchered. This was nothing like that, but still, no one should have to endure—
But then she saw it. She froze near the conduit. Staring at the old woman’s body.
She slinked over to pick up the Magister’s staff.
Tip-toed to Antigone…
And hit her in the head. Again and again, so hard that Rook heard skull breaking. Blood flew everywhere, spattered across the room. He leaped forward and grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her. “Aletheia!” he said. “She’s dead! It’s all right! We have to go!”
“Let me go! I don’t care!” She was crying again.
“Pyraz is waiting for us! Come on!”
She struggled against him, but calmed after a moment. She choked back tears, and then…
“Wait,” she said, breathing quickly. She reached into Antigone’s robe and fished around in a pocket, until she found a black keystone. Then she motioned up one of the many staircases in this room. “She has things. Manastone and…stuff.”
“We’ll come back up for it with Pyraz, I left my packs at the bottom. Come.”
He pulled her downstairs by the wrist. She was awkward with the staff and hit everything in their way, but still clutched it close to her heart. Down was much easier than up, but the journey was still exhausting, until…
They found Pyraz on the steps. Except there wasn’t one Pyraz, there were three: three next to each other, all sitting, all resting with their helmets off, staring out into the raging blizzard beyond the dead Portcullis forcefield. Identical copies of the same man.
Three dead men in Cult Custodian armor were on the Atrium floor. All were naked. There was a large pile of ash on the ground where the Portcullis once stood. Rook spotted the freezing body of a fourth outside, this one still clothed.
“Pyraz!” Rook shouted.
The Pyraz in the middle looked over his shoulder. The other two did nothing. He had a black eye and a nasty cut across his forehead.
“Pyraz!” Aletheia shouted. She rushed down to hug him.
The two copies—Mirror Images—vanished as she came close. He embraced her.
“How many were there?” Pyraz said.
“Just the Magister,” Rook said. “And her golem.”
“How many were there here?” Aletheia said to Pyraz.
He hesitated for a long time. Wiping blood off his face. “Five. I couldn’t get through their armor, so I pushed them into the forcefield. It didn’t harm them, but…removed their clothing. That made them easier to kill once the shields dissipated."
"You fought five men at once?" Rook said.
"I kept them busy with Mirror Image."
“That would have come in handy at the Spire,” Rook said.
“And the manaforge,” Aletheia whimpered.
“…I forgot about it,” Pyraz said. “I still can’t keep my memory straight. When I go to cast Ray of Annihilation I just open and close my teeth like a hound.”
Neither Rook nor Aletheia wanted to reply to that. They said nothing, until Rook asked, “What about the other two?”
“One fled. The other left off his helmet in his rush to make it outside.” He looked to Rook. “Only fools leave off their helmets.”
Rook put a hand on Pyraz's shoulder. “They’re uncomfortable,” he said.
“The brain is the most important part of your body.”
“Find a girl like Eris and you won’t think so.” He joked, and joking always made the horror of a night like this easier, but he felt a wave of guilt to know what he had done today hardly bothered him. He gave that thought long consideration. He wanted to feel bad. He wanted to feel cruel. But he was only relieved to have Aletheia safe with him again.
He picked up his packs, which included Aletheia’s and Eris’.
“There are things at the top," he added more somberly. "We’re stuck here until the blizzard subsides. I doubt anyone else will be along tonight.”
Pyraz nodded and stood. He wobbled somewhat on his feet; Rook had to haul him all the way back up to the top.
----------------------------------------
Antigone had a great deal of refined Manastone within her private vault. Pyraz swore in a language Rook had never heard before to see it all.
“This,” he said, “is how a magician should cast spells.”
He took as much as he could carry. Aletheia took some for herself, too. There was also a transparent gem that filled with a red liquid as time passed, thus signifying the time of day, and a ring which showed black when overcast and blue when skies were clear. Aletheia had experience with both and explained this functionality. Beyond that there was treasure as in any good wizard’s tower, and Rook was smug to count out the number of six thousand drachmae. That was what Antigone promised them for retrieving Aletheia. They had done so. Now it was theirs.
There were also phylacteries. A dozen golden vials which shook as Aletheia drew near. Rook smashed each and every one of them, and all the others he found, too, blue and gold and green. Whatever magicians they led to, they were free now.
They spent the night in Antigone’s bedchamber, all in her master bed together beneath the covers for warmth. It was bitterly cold anyway. Rook hardly slept. All he could think on was the fate of Snaiga. How many people would die? How many years of civilization were doomed? And was it all because of him?
Even still he didn't regret his decision. His word to Aletheia was worth so much more than one tundra village. Yet he damned Antigone for forcing him all the same. It didn't have to be this way. And he didn't understand why she had come out to face him, why she hadn't fled. She could have hid in her vault. She could have gotten away. She didn't need to come out to speak with him. Why? That was what kept him awake for hours in the darkness. She knew he had the Spellward. Why confront him?
But he thought about what she said. She loved Aletheia, in a perverse, evil way. She had wanted what she thought was best for her daughter. And with her automaton destroyed, perhaps she felt the need to come defend herself. To justify her perspective. To explain her point of view. Perhaps she was too ridden by guilt to go on, because she knew what she had done was terrible. That was why he had let him kill her with hardly any fight.
Or maybe she simply misjudged Rook. Maybe she thought he would never do it. Or maybe she was just a fool. He would never know.
They woke before dawn, before the Everblizzard had lifted, to discuss their next course of action—for if they waited any longer the townspeople were sure to investigate.
“They’ve taken Eris to the dungeons of Pyrthos,” Rook said. “I’m sure of it. They want to extract her soul to make her a Servitor—it’s what they do to rogue magicians.”
Or so Antigone said.
Pyraz hung his head. “Snaiga is a backwater at the end of the world.”
“And?”
“Pyrthos is the seat of the Gray Council. It is home to more magicians than anywhere else in the world. It is where the Cult of the Aether rests. Even in my time it was the center of the arcane arts, behind Ewsos.”
“What’s your point, Pyraz?”
“…there isn’t a single forcefield to breach, a single Magister to slay, and then Eris is rescued. She’ll be locked in mana suppressant dungeons. She’ll be surrounded by armed guards. Thousands. And within the heart of a great city. The mission you propose is impossible.”
Rook gawked at what his companion was saying. He glanced at Aletheia, but she hung her head. “We don’t know she hasn’t been…the operation hasn’t been done already,” she said. “By the time we get there.”
“So you want to leave her?” Rook said.
“Leaving her is preferable to suicide,” Pyraz said. “We don’t even know for certain where she is.”
“I do,” Rook said. He pulled out his compass. “My artifact. From the manaforge. It isn’t a compass—this isn’t north. It’s her. I knew she said she wanted to leave me, and this…this is what the forge gave me in return.”
Pyraz frowned. “Even so. We’ll never breach the dungeons. And what is the purpose? She told us she did not want our assistance any longer. So leave her to her fate.”
“She dragged you across the world to turn you back into a man!”
“She would have been better not to.”
Rook stared at him. “You bastard! I can’t—fine. Stay here. Become lord of Chionos. But I won’t leave her behind. I don’t care if it kills me.” He looked to Aletheia, but her gaze was still averted.
“I don’t want to die again,” she whispered.
He let out a deep sigh.
“Then the two of you can stay behind. But I’m not leaving her.”
Aletheia grabbed his arm. “No!” she said. “We stay together. I go where you go.”
Pyraz groaned—he clearly liked Aletheia more than he liked Rook, which was just as well. “I have already solved too many of your problems for you, Crow,” he said.
"Then don't come."
"No. I will come. But this is the last expedition I follow you on. After this I return to Seneria. With or without you.”
“Fine,” Rook agreed. “Sounds splendid. Now let’s not waste any more time. There are peasants who will be demanding answers from their Magister and the clock is ticking in Pyrthos. How do you want to leave this place?”
Pyraz stayed silent. He gestured for the party to follow him back to the room with Manastone, then gathered a great deal of it and entered the conduit room.
“I’ve been to Pyrthos,” he said flatly. He began to array the blue crystals about the red circle.
“So?” Rook said.
“It isn’t…too far.”
“I don’t—oh.”
“Stand within the circle,” he commanded. “My last visitation was some thousand years ago. But the spell should still work. Close your eyes.”
Rook didn’t close his eyes at first. He watched as Pyraz traced enchanted lines across the air, conjuring forth a curtain of magic around them, shrouding them in a portal that would teleport them halfway across the continent. Mass Recall. The crystals atop the conduit circle drained. The red lines of mana circuitry dimmed. This took a great deal of magic. Rook was overjoyed that this ancient man was on his side, because he realized then that Pyraz must have been among the greatest magicians alive to do such a feat.
Then he remembered the lesson on Blink. He closed his eyes. He tried to stand upright. He kept his things tight around his shoulders. And…
A noise like the rolling of a wagon over an uneven road. Deafening. Everything off-balance. Light-headedness, and when Rook opened his eyes he saw nothing but white everywhere, all around him, and then…
He landed face-first in rocky desert sand.