“My lord, I have a fixed signature for the departing aircraft,” Sensor Lead announced to the bridge of the Balor. “Should I share data for pursuit?”
“No.” Baron Helmont followed the shrinking plane with half a thought, but the rest of his mind and power focused ahead, to the speck of gleaming white that grew and grew in the distance. “Log their last-known trajectory, but I don’t want to waste the resources on a pursuit. We don’t yet know why they’re departing.”
But Helmont could sense the vague shapes of lives aboard the craft. It was packed full with life, human and otherwise, filled to the brim. Fleeing. Evacuating.
Most of the knights and their students were gathered on the bridge. All the leading Shapers were there, among the bridge crew. All waited for Helmont’s next order.
“It would seem that they know we’re here.” Helmont sensed ahead to the island Knightschurch. He felt no lives, unmapped or otherwise. But there was a waking power, like a single, slumbering beast of the deep, half-submerged and watchful.
“There’s some sorcery protecting them,” Helmont added. “They have some manner of camouflage and defense, power from the current residents or something older.”
He motioned to the Communications Lead. “Coordinate with Drone Command. Dispatch a Distcast Probe. I want to speak to them.”
* * *
“I’m getting some weird readings.” Orson looked over the displays. He selected sensor feeds and lined the windshield with enlarged readouts. “I’m getting huge spikes in electromagnetic radiation. And I see no ocean currents. Maybe whatever protections this place has are messing with our sensors. Ruby, are you getting any errors?”
“I do not see anything,” she answered. “Would you like me to run a diagnostic?”
“Please do that.” Orson watched the evacuation out the windshield. They were parked along the ground that rose to meet the stone rampart, at the edge of the ice. The rampart had a gap on that side, to make room for the end of a long runway.
The runway’s far side was lined with gathering planes and waiting evacuees. Islanders, some leading straggling animals, were still boarding the second plane.
“No,” Kol said. “That’s no error.” Orson turned back in time to see Kol fall into the seat behind him. Max gripped the side of Dr. Stan’s chair at the sensor station, and she placed her hand over his.
“He’s here, Orson,” Kol said. “Helmont and his forces are here already.”
“They’re not gonna have time to get all their people out.” Orson looked to the long runway. The ramp of the second plane had only just risen into place. “Maybe we’ll be—”
The dashboard comm interrupted him – Enoa.
Orson answered the message. “I’m thinking I know what you’re going to say.”
“Probably,” Enoa said.
“Helmont,” they said together.
“Listen, you get back here.” Orson watched the second plane taxi toward the runway. “This just got a lot more complicated. Unless you actually plan on joining the Hermit Knight Studio, you’re better off with us.”
“Enoa!” Jaleel called. “You’re definitely safer here! Anywhere with the knight’s gonna be a big target if Helmont gets in.”
“Yeah, and we aren’t already,” Orson said.
There was other indistinct speech behind Enoa. The voices spoke fast and fearfully.
“Hi, Jaleel,” Enoa said. “Sir Merrill’s taking his students into the cathedral. The island is doing something. I think... I think that maybe I’ll stay for a little bit longer, okay? If things get really crazy, I can still let you know. I’m glad that the comm is working.”
The second plane sped along the runway. The engines were louder that close. The ground shook as the ice wall unzipped, just above the Aesir.
When the wall opened, Orson’s readings changed. Suddenly, he saw distinct signatures for nine large seafaring vessels, with smaller shapes between them. And he saw that the earlier signature was correct – the ocean around the island did not move.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Jaleel groaned. “I always thought it’d be really fun to get to say that.”
“There is a distortion detected,” Ruby said. “There is an expanding field of water that is not responding to outward force intervention.”
“What does that mean?” Kol asked.
“The water’s not moving,” Orson answered. “ ‘Idle as a painted ship, upon a painted ocean.’ Except these ships really are moving.”
“Poetry, Captain?” Max asked. He held one hand to the side of his head.
“My first adventure was with an English Professor,” Orson said. “Don’t faint.”
“The Ancient Mariner is the ultimate ship’s captain poem.” Jaleel managed a laugh.
Then the second plane took off. It roared over the last stretch of runway and out into the open and was gone.
But before the open wall zipped shut. A red shape floated into the gap. And a blue, blurry ghost projected down from it. A fifty-foot hologram glowed out of the probe, just inside the island’s protections.
The shape resolved into the image of an older man, standing straight-backed in armor and a cape, with a slit-visored helmet under his arm and a sheathed rapier in an ornate scabbard at his hip.
“People of Knightschurch. I am Baron R.K. Helmont, Lord in the Liberty Corps, heir to the International Hierarchia Statute Association. It is my pleasure to finally join you in your remote sanctuary.”
“He’s really proud of that damn armor,” Orson said. “But I can see the place where my blaster shot melted one of his eagles.” He pointed to the shoulder pauldron, where the energy and heat had smeared the metal like melted wax. “Maybe he was too busy showing off his wardrobe to remember I did that.”
“I just hope he can’t see us,” Dr. Stan said.
“It is my duty to inform you that your exile is at an end,” Helmont continued. “Consider yourselves mapped. Your traitors and thieves will be held for their crimes. All persons who fled from the IHSA or possess property or secrets the Liberty Corps rightly inherited will be captured and seized.”
“Well.” Orson failed to keep the sudden grin from his face. He imagined he looked feral, but couldn’t resist. “I’m thinking he’s gonna find out we’re here pretty soon anyway.”
“I am fully prepared to break your antique stronghold,” Helmont said. “To battle the might of the fourth house and to overcome it. If you do not comply, I will break this place. I will end its history. But this is not my preference.
“I am extending you one chance to join with the Liberty Corps in peace. Send Sir Merrill or any surviving heir to meet with me. Bring the Key of Ascendant Fire and declare your full and unconditional surrender.
“Any resistance, any trick or opposition will mean—”
There was a flash of neon purple light, forked like lightning. Helmont’s hologram vanished, and the red probe smoked and fell out of sight. The opening mostly zipped shut.
“Get ready for a fight.” Orson stood. “Jaleel, don’t show where we are unless you have to. Kol or Max, you get to do the honors and take our roof gun.” He grabbed his sword and strapped it to his back.
“What are you doing?” Jaleel switched seats.
“Orson, you are the most experienced with your ship,” Max said. “Is it really time for you to leave?”
Orson shot a last look out the windshield. The ramps were down on the third and fourth planes. Small, distant figures hurried aboard.
“They’re still making a break for it,” Orson answered. “I think that laser lightning bolt thing was from the island. And if we’re fighting our way out of here, I’m having my full crew with me.” He clipped his own comm to his bandana. “If Enoa is still part of our crew.”
“She is,” Jaleel said weakly.
“Enoa.” Orson spoke into the comm. “I’m coming to meet you. We’ll see if we can talk to Sir Merrill too while I’m over there.”
Orson jumped from the Aesir just as an explosion rattled the ice from the outside. There was a glow of red at the gap in the ice. Then even that last gap sealed shut, opaque and totally closed.
Another explosion answered the first, a deep thrum that he felt through his feet.
Orson waited for only a moment. Then he started down the hill, headed toward the towering church.
* * *
Helmont watched the smoking remains of the red Distcast probe fall away from the ice. It crashed onto the sand and sent gritty clouds flying in all directions. But this was not enough for the power that held the island. Waves washed in, swallowing the beach, rising all the way to the point where ice met soil.
When the water receded, it took the probe along, still smoking. The Distcast vanished beneath the waves, leaving nothing but a crater behind.
“Do we have a feed on the second departing aircraft?” Helmont asked. “What reports have we received from our Dactyls?”
“All pursuing drones disabled, sir,” Drone Lead said. He raised the goggles on his guidance headset and swiveled them up onto his forehead. “Sudden electric discharge, as with the Distcast.”
“What data did we receive from the rocket we sent at the egress point?” Helmont asked.
“Rocket detonated before impact,” Ballistics Lead said. “Island intervention. No damage to ice formation.”
“And what of the feeds from the Distcast?” Helmont asked. “What data have we received from inside the defensive wall?”
“None, sir,” Drone Lead said. “No footage recovered during message transmission. Replay received shows only static. We’re hoping to clean up the data and search for--”
“No.” Helmont walked through the group of command stations, toward the wide window and the monolith on the horizon. He felt eyes and attention follow him. Their minds and hearts were books opened to his perception. He saw them in his mind, and they knew no fear of the island – only fear of him. “I want full observation. We will probe their defenses. Launch the Merrow and have the Muruch standing by. I want all amphibious landers launched before landfall. I want all crews in crash couches, full defense.
“Leave our Saw-wings in local protection. Send twenty additional Dactyls into a perimeter. Probe their defenses. Find any existing--”
The ocean ahead suddenly steamed. The water bubbled and frothed. Helmont looked to the place and felt the influence of Jarod and his students, now encircling the island.
But a new will had joined them amid the water, like a fist had closed in the center of the battle group. And the fist sank lower, extending its power down through the ocean to the darkened depths.
“Full reverse,” Helmont said. “Move away from the new enigma. Pinpoint exact coordinates and send that position to Sir Jarod. I want his focus and his full report on that location.”
The command team had no opportunity to respond to the order. A solid pillar of ice erupted from the ocean. Then another rose from the still water, breaking the surface near another of the Balor Battle Group’s ships.
Another rose, and another, until a ring formed between the ships and the final approach to Knightschurch.
A voice boomed from the ice. It echoed out from between the pillars as if they were each the mouth of long canyons that stretched far away.
“A power lives here older than your Hierarchia,” the voice said. “It is older than you, older than all who live a mortal span. It will outlive us too. If you come closer, you will break against the Fist of the Fourth House just as wind breaks upon the mountainside. Do not threaten this place or the people in its care. Leave in peace and live in peace.”
“Project my voice,” Helmont said. “Link all hailing systems, route from my comm. And alert me when I am prepared. I will issue a response. Let’s see if they can listen, as well.”
Communications Lead raced his hands across his controls. Helmont watched him work.
“My lord,” Communications Lead said. “You may broadcast your response.”
Helmont adjusted his comm and placed his helmet on his head.
“Do I have the pleasure of addressing Sir Merrill Lucas?” Helmont heard his own voice project from multiple directions, loud enough to be heard in the Balor’s command island, loud enough to make his own echos.
No reply came back from the depths or the ice.
“The holdings of the Twelve House Covenant were yielded to the International Hierarchia Statute Association during our Founding Charter. All these holdings became the Hierarchia’s property. All the Hierarchia’s holdings have now passed to the Liberty Corps. Any resistance to this claim will be met with violent reprisal. I have already extended one offer to those alive in Knightschurch. I have been ignored and attacked. And members of your society of thieves continue to leave this place, in defiance of my edict.”
Helmont gave another pause for a response. None came.
“No further warnings will be provided. We will accept your immediate surrender or we will commence full hostilities.”
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“It was a mistake to come here.” The voice from the ice spoke again. No other answer came, and then the ice pillars slid beneath the still water. The change in the surface tension sent waves rippling out again and water splashed onto the deck of the Balor and the other ships.
Helmont shut off his comm. “Proceed with my earlier orders. Divide landing force, then advance toward egress beach. Use drones to probe defensive perimeter.”
“Should I gather a Shaper landing force?” Sir Vergil asked behind him. “I have three swords in mind, my lord.”
“No.” Helmont returned to his student, so they stood side by side and he spoke in a low voice. “We are learning their powers now, as it is our duty to master all the powers of this world. But there will be missteps and heroic loss. Save your students.”
“As you wish,” Sir Vergil said.
“Don’t worry.” Helmont again faced the growing slab of ice. “Their secrets won’t elude us. We’ll all be standing on the other side of that ice before the day is out.”
* * *
Enoa felt no chill as she sat on the bench formed from ice. The surface was only cool, like metal on a breezy autumn day. She sat beside Harper. Four other benches stood along the narrow anteroom, all filled with students. All waited in meditative silence.
The cathedral’s interior walls were all opaque, rippling white. Enoa had seen no building material but the strange ice in the entryway or on the climb up the curving stair into the upper rooms where they waited. Enoa wanted to ask questions about the Shaping, the history of the strange place, the danger from the Liberty Corps.
Enoa kept these questions to herself. She didn’t break the silence until she heard hurried feet on the stairs and glanced to the end of the passage.
Orson arrived through the door, sword at his back. Two more figures in the brown Arcanum homespun followed after him. They carried ornate poleaxes. Some of the other students stood from the benches, as if to block Orson’s path.
“Enoa,” Orson said. “This is happening faster than I thought. We have to--”
“This is a sacred place!” Harper stood. “You were given free reign to travel in your foreign vessel, permission given to no one else. Even Master Grant used no outside transport, but you bend rule after rule. You make a poor impression for the school of your teacher, Ophion.”
“I was never in any magic school,” Orson said. “As far as I know, Ophion never had a school. He trained me in swordsmanship, trickiness, general lore and,” he shuddered, “rhetoric and logic. So this isn’t a magic school spat.”
“You call it magic,” Harper answered. “Like any other mundane who’s only known contempt from sensitives trained to experience the world.”
“Actually,” Orson said. “I call it magic because I can usually fight it, and fighting the impossible is a bigger deal than whatever you said, ‘sensitives’.” He stepped around her. “I want to give our report to your teacher. Then, Enoa, if you want to leave with us, we’re getting ready to go.”
“Why would you let him inside here?” Harper maneuvered through her fellow students and arrived beside one of the guards with the axes.
“He has Thousand Destiny,” the man answered. “And he’s our guest. And because--”
“Yeah, having this is like the world’s most dangerous business card,” Orson said. “So what has to happen before I can have a last word with your teacher? I didn’t get to share any specifics about the forces attacking you. My crew and friends spent all day yesterday getting that information together.”
“We told you.” Harper spun back toward Orson, one hand on the guard’s shoulder. “We are not fighting. Our home is defending us.”
“I can’t tell the island?” Orson asked. “It seems pretty responsive to new information. It knew to blow up one of their flying hologram projectors, and those sure weren’t around when this place was built.”
“I sensed their ships arriving,” Enoa said. “The same way I sensed the Liberty Corps before.”
“You’re getting good at that,” Orson said.
A block of the solid wall slid aside, ice folding into ice. Sir Merrill stood on the other side.
“I will speak with you, Captain,” he said. “Please. Come inside. All of you may come inside.” He stepped away.
Enoa walked through the opening. For the first time since she’d entered the building, she saw materials other than the unmelting ice. Bookshelves lined both the main level and all sides of a balcony that ran along an open landing above them. Blue-wood tables stood throughout, holding instruments out of a vintage laboratory, glass chemistry-like supplies and metal devices standing thin legs.
Enoa got out of the way as Orson and all the students followed her. Sir Merrill guided them not to any of the equipment or texts, but to a dais in the center of the room. It rose to chest height and glowed from the top, where the ice was concave like a bowl or basin.
The bottom of the basin showed a clear view of the ocean, outside the protective ice wall. It was not a picture, more like an active video feed from the roof of the outer rampart. Shapes moved on the water, modern Naval destroyers and objects scattered throughout the sky – the Balor Battle Group.
Enoa tried to take in the enormity of the attack force, looking to the far sides of the formation, where the view met the curving edges of the basin. But the video there was warped, rippling with distortions like a reflection in a pond disturbed by breeze.
When Enoa really focused, she saw Shapers among the ships like searchlights burning out from the craft. There were so many, powers all clustered together, Helmont’s greatest force mustered for the attack.
“So many!” Enoa said. “There must be a hundred Shapers!”
“You see the Baron’s own Arcanum, as I do.” Sir Merrill glanced her way. “You’ve learned quickly if you are only months into your journey.”
“I was trained earlier than I knew,” Enoa admitted. “My aunt taught me since childhood to reach a place of mental focus where I got strong enough to learn her Shaping. But she never told me that’s what she was doing. I only just found out about that days ago.”
“Is this just a display?” Orson pointed to the dais. “Or can you interact with it, like some kind of command station?”
“I rarely act,” Sir Merrill said. “But I could. This is the center, the nexus harnessed by Sir Garrat the Redeemed, the heart of his sanctuary. He was the founder of this community. This is our own eye, to defend our home. This,” he gestured with his arms, taking in all around them, “is the Cathedral of Sir Garrat the Redeemed.”
“Uh, great.” Orson walked closer. Two of the students looked ready to step between him and the dais. “Your eye here, if it’s making the decisions, can we give it some new information? Is it programming? Maybe we could feed it some of the data my crew collected.”
“I’m unfamiliar with programming as you might know it,” Sir Merrill said. “And I will have to carefully consider the implications of instructing it. Allowing it to defend us is one thing, teaching it to fight is another.”
“You might not have long to consider.” Orson pointed to a spot in the basin, where one of the larger ships broke off from the group. Small shapes surrounded it. All sped toward the island. The large ship had spikes jutting out from the sides of its hull and two tall command towers on its deck.
A bolt of the purple lightning forked down from the sky toward the deck. It struck a shield around the vessel. Light danced and sparked and divided. The electricity bounced along the energy field until it sizzled away to nothing in the water.
Then a new pillar rose from the water, erupted out, as if to impale the speeding destroyer from below.
But the ship reeled back. Canons fired solid missiles and focused energy at the pillar. It exploded in glistening shards that sank again into the water.
“Maybe let me see what my crew has to say?” Orson asked. He pulled his bandana and goggles onto his face. “Hey gang, I’m over at the church with Enoa and Sir Merrill.” He turned to Enoa, his mask’s eyes glowing blue. “Jaleel says hi.”
“Hi, Jaleel.” Enoa smiled despite everything.
“Yeah, she says hi too,” Orson said. “Listen, I’m looking at – I don’t know what to call it – it's sort of a control area that shows how the island is defending itself. If our host is okay with it, I want to feed it some of the information Dr. Stan and Max were pulling together.” He listened.
“Sir,” one of the students began. “Is it outside our beliefs to allow this man to use our home as a weapon.”
“I am thinking about that, Nathan,” Sir Merrill said. “Consider our guards. They wield weapons from our armory. They are not Arcanists and do not use the great mysteries for violent purpose, only their bodies and thoughtful minds. Captain Gregory would be doing the same if I allow him to address our defenses.”
The student, Nathan, nodded.
“Do you think the next plane can leave soon?” Another of the students asked. She was tall and wore the same cloth as the other students, but there was a roundness to her cheeks and she had the bearing of a young teen.
“Your parents are on Evac Three?” Sir Merrill asked. The teen nodded. “They’ll leave as soon as it’s safe. If you would like to go with them, it may not be too late. I do not ask any of you to be here longer than you choose.”
“No, Master,” She shook her head. “I’ll stay.”
“I think I can help,” Orson said. “I’ve got information about that approaching boat. That’s a lander. The whole destroyer can pull itself out of the water, walk around on your beach, and use its prow as a battering ram. Hundreds of troops and tanks could be on that thing.”
“Hundreds of lives,” Sir Merrill said, his eyes half-closed. “It is difficult to distinguish so many, so close.”
Orson pointed into the basin, away from the oncoming main ship and toward the center of the battle group’s formation. “And I think I can find their flagship, the Balor. With my crew’s help, we can tell your defenses where their Baron will be.”
“Does anyone have a moral problem with accepting Captain Orson Gregory’s help?” Sir Merrill said. “He is a pupil of an old colleague of mine. We disagreed on many things, but Ophion was a learned man, and I believe Captain Gregory shares his righteous sensibility.”
Enoa watched Harper shift from one foot to the other. She still stood beside the guard that had followed after Orson.
None of the students argued.
“Very well.” Sir Merrill nodded to Orson. “We accept your help.” He set his hand on the lip of the basin, above the moving images. “Please place your hand beside mine.”
Orson lowered his hand just above the basin. “Here?”
“That’s fine,” Sir Merrill said.
Orson touched the ice. “Woah!” He recoiled.
“You’ll get used to that,” Sir Merrill said.
“Sure.” Orson hesitated, but placed his hand again. “Do I just tell you now? Do I have to do anything, or can I say what I know and repeat what they tell me through my comm?”
“Tell me,” Sir Merrill said. “I will make certain that you are heard.”
“Alright,” Orson said. “Thanks. Then let’s start with that lander destroyer coming our way.”
* * *
“Disperse smaller craft,” Helmont said. “Send them wide of the Merrow. They are pausing their attack, but there will be another offensive.”
Helmont sensed how his order spread through his battle group, from the bridge leads to support staff to techs and pilots and navigators. It was like an orbital view of oncoming night, human civilization’s lights waking together, circling the globe. So too did Helmont’s word move through his forces.
Then Helmont sensed the focus on his orders turn to shock aboard the Merrow. Something happened. Something stole the Merrow crew’s focus. Helmont felt their shock curdle into fear.
Then the Merrow erupted into the sky as if a fist caught it from below. The ocean rose beneath it in a column, a geyser the size of the ship.
And it shot into the sky, a starship breaking for orbit. The Merrow was halfway to the clouds before the geyser died. Then the Merrow fell.
It plummeted.
There were shouts around Helmont. Even Sir Vergil joined the yells behind him, but Helmont only watched the lives aboard the falling ship. He felt bodies tossed from the vessil or thrown around inside it. Some lives winked out, erased from his map.
Most of the rest disappeared when the ship hit the water and shattered like a dropped china cup. It broke into pieces on the water.
“There are survivors.” Helmont felt them. “Send only small craft. All other vessels fall back.”
“My Lord.” Sir Geber advanced from the circle of knights. Helmont felt his reticence. “Sir, I believe they’ve imitated your--”
“The Plummet is my own technique,” Helmont said. “I could not miss it.”
But it was true. Was this coincidence? Helmont was not the first to deal death through a great rise and terminal fall.
Or did these islanders know him? Were they more aware of the wider world than was known?
Then Helmont felt the will reach from the island and draw in the water. He saw it with his mind before there was anything to notice with his eyes.
“All craft fall back to three-kilometer distance!” Helmont shouted. “All craft reverse course.”
"Tsunami?” Sir Tolem asked.
“Similar.” Helmont donned his helmet again. But where water rears back to sea before a tsunami, this power of water gathered near the island’s shore. “Full reverse, until all ships can turn back toward final staging point. All knights to the deck.”
“A new attack?” Sir Mordecai loosened the straps on his modified armor.
“Strength of will, not strength of arms,” Helmont said. “Yes, there will be a new attack. All power to speed! An overwhelming wave could still sink us, even shielded.”
Helmont led the way aboard the lift. Sirs Geber, Vergil, Tolem, Mordecai, Ramon, and Zarag gathered behind him, their minds alive with power. Their whole collection of students and the other gathered Shapers crammed behind them outside the closing lift door.
Helmont did not take the time to speak to them or raise morale. He mentally followed the receding water as it pooled back toward Knightschurch. By the time the lift door cycled open, the will on the water pulled to the shore as tight as an arrow fit to the string.
The power released. The ocean roared back toward the battle group.
No, not at the battle group – the power was headed only for the Balor. For him. This was an attack aimed at Helmont himself.
“Clear the deck!” Helmont shouted. A single squad of Rifle Troopers ran across the deck and two Saw-wings waited, wires trailing, preparing for launch. “Incoming attack!”
The Rifle Troopers hurried for the lift. The techs frantically began to unhook cables from the fighters’ undersides. Beneath them, the ship’s great nuclear drive increased power, and though he could not see it, the island began to shrink into the distance.
Not fast enough. The wave that aimed for Helmont grew and towered and he knew it would be large enough to engulf even his great destroyer if it could reach him.
“Tolem, Mordecai, raise the ship,” Helmont said. “Geber, hail Jarod. Pierce their repose. Get their attention. They must turn us around. Help guide us. And oppose the oncoming wave. All others bolster us.”
Then he could see the wave as it grew, like the horizon itself was shrinking and distorting. It looked like an oncoming mirage.
“Can’t we surmount the wave like other tsunamis at sea?” Zarag shouted.
“No,” Helmont said. “This is not a tsunami. Fight this. Raise us.” And he felt the minds of his knights on the ship and sea. The ship rose and the water formed their own wave beneath them as they turned around and sped away from the island.
They were still not fast enough. The oncoming wave grew and it seemed to move faster still, as if Helmont had his own gravitation that pulled the water toward him.
“So this is the power of the Fourth House.” Helmont walked to the ship’s stern. Then he drew his rapier and cast its violet glow along the oncoming wave.
Helmont relished the warmth that leaked through the weapon’s heat shield. He allowed his focus to narrow. He closed his mind to his knights at work and the scurrying of the other forces. This was now the conflict he had awaited – Helmont against the Fourth House. Was this struggle against Sir Merrill, the last true knight of that old way?
Helmont hoped so. He raised the rapier in salute as the wave grew to a hundred feet. Many of the smaller amphibious craft were caught up in the wake, thrown aside or smashed to pieces, but he had no time or focus for those unfortunate losses.
Helmont focused everything on the conflict of eras, his refined Shaping against ancient sorcery, as the water reared up to engulf him. He reached to the power of his sword, his long-mapped companion. He knew the old ways too, built his knowledge upon them. He knew the way to kindle the air and raise his own wall of defense, one that burned with royal purple fire that grew to meet any assault.
Helmont raised his Ignition of Defense, but before it met the water he felt the full presence of the wave, as though the will behind it had come alive. He sensed not one mind, not Sir Merrill meeting him in battle. He felt many, like a hive, echoes or ghosts, remnants of old interlocking power, built brick-by-brick into a single immortal will that could still defend its house.
Liberty Corps might against the dead kingdom. Helmont braced himself and anticipated the blast of water and flame.
But then a new arc of lightning, purple like his blade, forked down from the sky and exploded just above him. Flame, lightning, and water met in an explosion that bowled Helmont onto his back and sent him sliding along the deck.
Water engulfed him. It crept even inside his helmet and he heard it sizzle as it burned to vapor where it found the heat of his sword. There came screams and a screech of metal that Helmont felt in his bones.
He forced his legs beneath him. They shook and protested until he remembered himself. He remembered his map of body and blood and fed his body strength he never could have known as a young man. So he stood with ease and looked back on his flagship.
The two Saw-wings were gone. There were many figures lying there on the deck. Some did not move. Some no longer had a clear place on his map. But he found his knights, as he knew them best. They all stood firm.
Helmont looked back toward Knightschurch. No more attack came from the island. Helmont sensed no new power, no more will. He sheathed his sword and walked to his knights.
“All praise to Sir Jarod and his pupils,” Helmont said. “We could have suffered significant casualties if they hadn’t maintained the water level beneath us. At worst, we all could have joined the eight hundred dead, between the Merrow and her support craft.”
“My lord,” Sir Geber said. “We count nine local casualties. Both techs perished. Both Saw-wing fighters lost. Seven Shapers fell with them. We don’t yet have a count of the small water craft that we lost in the attack.”
“Thank you, Sir Geber,” Helmont answered. “Of one thing we can be entirely certain – we truly face the great first power of our tradition. We stand against an equal that will raise us to supremacy in their defeat.”
“My lord,” Sir Vergil said. “Command staff request an update. We have been scattered over several kilometers. Would you like us to reform our positions.”
“Not yet,” Helmont said. “There is an ancient, living will that fuels their defense. I believe it is a weapon beyond any one living person. However, we have our own such weapon to match it.”
Helmont searched his maps again, as he walked back to the lift. He found the slumbering mystery, hidden in the bowels of his own ship, his own piece of the Dreamside Road.
“We will coordinate a new formation,” Helmont said. “Then we will open the Eye.”