Enoa settled into her seat behind Jaleel, as he guided the Aesir through the outer wall of Knightschurch. They followed the message carriers into a kaleidoscope of light.
The power from the Eye of Balor pulsed like a racing heart, as if it fought the bands of flashing gold aurora that glowed down from the untouched sky. Even the aurora seemed more active, sending light twisting all around, dwarfing the island and the fighting at sea.
“Enoa, are you ready?” Jaleel asked. “Are you okay to do a fog out here? We might not need it until after we finish the test.”
“Ready.” Enoa drew on the heavy moisture of the ocean air. Even after her long hours of fighting, the air answered her call. She prepared transmutation – Shaping without a trace of Thought Fatigue.
Jaleel opened the radio. “Hermods, are you two ready? The first run is a test between their ships to try out the ‘Condensator’. Then we’ll do the attack run just like we talked about.”
“Copy.” The Hermod pilots answered in unison.
“You’ve chosen the name ‘Condensator’?” Dr. Stan asked. The completed device was mounted above her sensor terminal, screwed into the console and wired into the ship’s main inputs. Six spindly gray pipes stretched up toward the cabin’s ceiling, and they rattled as the ship flew with low inertial dampening.
The thing’s squeaking made Enoa nervous. A machine that was just built – a machine that didn’t even have a proper name – was now their main hope.
“I’m still workshopping the name.” Jaleel sent them curving way from the island. “I don’t want to get too attached to one until we know it worked.”
The black sand beach was still clear. It appeared as untouched as when they’d arrived. All signs of the battle against the Liberty Corps landing force were gone, and no more forces had tried to land. Everything but the ships that fed the Eye of Balor’s living glow had pulled back beyond the pulsing energy field.
Max turned his head to watch the island shrink. It held his attention until it faded to a white speck in the distance.
“Kol is a strong young man,” Dr. Stan said. “I did not know him before all that happened to you both, but I think this is a step he needed to take.”
“You’re right, Sophia,” Max said. His attention returned to the firing controls. “It’s difficult not to see him as the child he used to be. I was almost in Junior High when he was born, and I’ve always cared for him. He is so new to his Shaping. And so am I – so new to my role in this battle, I should say. The shield he can create... and this spear that our fearless acting captain wants me to throw into the enemy flagship – we're both so unprepared.”
“Fearless!” Jaleel laughed. “I like it!” Enoa caught the nervous edge to his voice, and she sensed it. She sensed how Jaleel moved, how he fidgeted in a very uncharacteristic way. She could almost see his presence in her mind, like his total focus on the Aesir’s controls was Shaping of a different kind, his own personal connection to the universe.
Jaleel aimed the Aesir toward a gap between two of the Balor field’s generating destroyers. There was a wide expanse of ocean between those ships, and no Saw-wings or other enemies filled that gap.
The two message carriers did not follow them. They flew wide over the open ocean, acting as diversion.
“I wonder if the Liberty Corps will know it when we punch a hole in their wall.” Enoa found the place where the ocean met the pulsing red light. She felt where the natural world burned against the unnatural weapon that the Liberty Corps had cast across the sea.
Enoa could no longer ignore the truth of it. The Eye of Balor was alive.
She didn’t understand how it lived, energy and crystal, seven pieces but one life. Even her growing senses could not answer those mysteries. Her Shaping was tied to her world, to what she knew.
She remembered what Helmont had said in his records about the cosmic theory of the Eye. It was not of the Earth. It was something else, something that only fit the world through the will of the Liberty Corps. Only two truths, two basic answers remained clear from the flashing red.
It lived. And it was hungry.
Where the Eye’s light met the sea and fizzled against the still water, Enoa felt tendrils of the light reach out like grasping tentacles, stretching down into the ocean. She felt one tentacle strike out, crackling down into the full-dark sea and burn around the body of a fish. Light and life pulsed along the tentacle, all the way back from the depths, a pattern of flickering glee as the Eye fed on the trapped fish.
When the tentacle drew back, what remained of the animal felt like stone in the water, not just dead but hardened like obsidian. It sank away.
Enoa found a new flickering pulse begin in the Eye’s light, when its feeding tentacle returned from the deep. The light flashed, and there was something sickening to it, energy feeding, destroying life – not to maintain the cycles of the world, but to absorb, to rob that energy from the world.
Enoa’s look at the living light ended when the device began to hum above Dr. Stan’s monitor. It started as a small whir, but grew until Jaleel had to shout to be heard above the new weapon.
“Aiming’s not very easy!” he called. “Do you think you can send the condensation and make it hit one targeted spot?”
“Two meter test!” Dr. Stan shouted. “Commencing now!” She executed a complicated command on her keyboard. The device’s spindly arms actually began to shake, and the whirring extended until it bounced all through the cabin. Enoa felt it beneath her feet, and Wesley yelled in answer.
“Should’ve grabbed my ear plugs!” Jaleel flew the Aesir closer to the Eye’s wall, coasting over the ocean.
There – Enoa saw a space of living light that didn’t gleam red or pulse with gluttonous hunger. It glowed golden instead, reflecting aurora like the sea beyond the Eye’s power. It wasn’t a large space, but the ship swung toward it.
Enoa sensed that space, where countless drops of condensation gathered across the tangible power. She felt how the Eye roiled against it, popping droplet after droplet of water, but more formed to replace them. The new condensation weapon attacked from the ocean. Even the Eye could not burn all that water away, and now the ocean could burn back.
“Charge Test!” Jaleel shouted.
Dr. Stan hit another command and the droplets popped like fireworks or like Enoa’s own Bullet Rain. They exploded outward, leaving a perfect window to the outside world. Out there, the ocean was moving again, waves rising under all the colors of the sky.
Enoa sensed the Eye growing shut before the energy could fully heal. She felt the Eye gathering another tentacle, coiling it back like a fist before a punch.
“Eye attacking!” She yelled, an instant before an alarm started from the ceiling. “Pull back!”
Jaleel pulled on the wheel and sent them shooting up and away from the still ocean.
The tentacle shot out from the Eye below them. The living energy threw its punch. Dr. Stan yelled something that Enoa didn’t even try to hear. She felt the fist rise behind them, follow them into the sky.
How long could the ship’s shields hold up against something like that? Jaleel forced another burst of speed, sending them back toward the island and the message carriers that still cruised through the air near the beach.
The tentacle whipped tight, sticking out hundreds of meters into the empty air. Then it receded and pulled back into the living wall. When it did, the Eye was strong and solid once again. The gap to the moving ocean was gone. They were trapped.
Dr. Stan struck another key and the ‘Condensator’ stopped its whirring. It left them in relative quiet, with just the sounds of the idling Aesir.
“Holy shit,” Jaleel gasped. “It tried to get us! It’s a... an actual monster, like a real cosmic, Lovecraft monster trying to eat everything!” He sagged back in the pilot’s seat, his attention toward the distant shapes of the Liberty Corps vessels. “Holy shit.”
Enoa followed the Eye’s power again, but it had returned to its searching of the sea, fishing in the water rather than the sky.
“It is a horrid thing,” Dr. Stan said. “But we can’t miss this important opportunity. Cathy’s schematics are good. Even this rough prototype can fight the Eye. This will disrupt the projector on their flagship, and a well-placed blow may knock it out.”
Jaleel looked back to her and nodded.
“However,” she continued, “even if we’re out of firing range of those Liberty Corps destroyers, they will be suspicious, if they don’t already know what we’ve managed to do.”
“You’re right,” Jaleel said and took another deep breath. “Is everybody ready?”
When no one answered, Enoa leaned ahead and held his shoulder. “Ready,” she said.
Jaleel hit the switch at the radio’s receiver. “Alright, it’s time to do this thing for real.”
* * *
Kol crossed to the opposite side of the sanctuary as the swords of fire cast their light over everything. He could feel Sir Geber close. The knight was still sending out his influence, trying to pursue Harper and her uncle as they fled.
The far side of the sanctuary was lined with small alcoves, shrines to more relics or places for prayer. Kol reached the first. He swung around the side, borrowed sword ready, projection glowing at his left arm. He shifted the shield to block the alcove entrance behind him, guarding him from any attack from Geber or other survivors.
The alcove was empty except for an ornate set of paintings, all hinged together. He saw more scenes like those from the windows, more knights with their green swords, but he didn’t linger for more than a moment. He saw no corner in the ice-walled alcove where anyone could hide, and he turned back to the sanctuary.
“Do you know how many people currently live who might own Thousand Destiny.” Helmont’s voice projected through the room. He was back on his feet, delivering a series of quick stabs toward Orson. “There are five of the thousand, just in the Liberty Corps. I knew there were some, and I investigated since our last meeting. Think of the better paths that might have been taken. Think of the paths this world might yet follow.”
With Helmont’s greater reach, he stabbed at Orson’s face, at his feet, at his hands. Shoulder and wrist, the baron’s movements practically blurred, but Orson was apparently untouched. The blue blade moved between the rapier strikes, and the weapons sent sparks when they clashed.
“Y’know,” Orson answered. “You and the little pricks you’ve got following you around really trashed this place. I’m not the most religious guy, but I'm not cool with wrecking somebody’s church. How about we take this outside?”
Kol pulled himself from the display and continued on to the next alcove. This space was thicker, walls heavy enough that the conversation and clashing fire were muffled inside. He could no longer clearly hear their words.
The alcove was lined with shelving, shaped right into the ice. Each shelf held relics, crosses and cups and small metal pieces. The rear of the space was taken up by an ornate pair of black-metal scales. The two sides were balanced with each holding a small ring.
Kol turned back to the sanctuary, but the wall of the alcove caved in on him before he could leave.
The wall exploded at him in chucks and powder. One piece the size of his head slid across the floor and bowled his legs from under him.
Kol landed on his side, and he kept the presence of mind to expand his shield. He wrapped it around himself, formed a dome to protect himself from all sides. Was this Geber’s work?
The alcove looked like the inside of a snow globe. The collapsed wall disintegrated and sent crystalline remains scattering along the walls, shelves, and ceiling.
Kol kept the shield domed over him, and he tried to rise, tried to slide the unfamiliar borrowed boots under him.
Then he felt it.
The weight of Sir Geber’s mind landed on him, crushed his will like a hydraulic press. Kol stumbled. All his pain and weariness returned, as if the mental strain he’d taken from the long battle had left real wounds in him. He felt pinpricks, where Tolem’s iron shards had stabbed his will. He felt heat on his back where the Iron Shaper had tried to shoot him. He felt pain everywhere.
Kol tried to stand. His shield had thrown off Geber before, thrown the knight away, both body and mind. But this was different, this was a greater exhaustion than Kol had known. And this was Geber afraid and Geber who was fresh to the fight, whose only role in the battle had been attacking Sir Merrill with little resistance.
Geber, the last knight standing, watched Kol through a gap in the broken wall between alcoves. His antennae pointed at Kol. Geber held a wicked spiked Morning Star mace in his right hand. The knight swung this weapon and shattered another segment of the wall. More white billowed out and the path between them cleared of ice.
Kol tried to find his anger for what had happened to Max and to himself, to wield the guilt he’d carried all the days of his adulthood, burn it as fuel, the painful, poisonous fuel that had kept him alive for so long. But the Shaping muscle of his mind was tired.
It wasn’t Max’s voice that Kol heard then. It wasn’t his own. He remembered Orson’s words from the day before. ‘We’re all made of meat,’ Orson had said with his usual irreverence. ‘Kill the meat. Kill the man. Then it doesn’t matter what powers he’s got.’
Kol did not have to beat Geber’s Shaping, only his body. Kill the man, end the Shaping. What an odd thing, to stand by the words of Orson Gregory, the man he’d hunted for a thousand miles. The words were flippant and brutal, but who was better than Orson Gregory at killing knights?
Kol changed his shield so his borrowed sword reached around the field.
“You should have died weeks ago,” Sir Geber said. “You’re only alive because other people made mistakes. That includes me. I’ll finally get to fix that.” He took his Morning Star in both hands. “Kneel and prepare yourself, Kolben Maros. Your death will be swift if you submit.”
Sir Geber’s voice was better fuel than anything Kol could find inside himself. Geber's voice was all the pain of the Pinnacle, the certainty of his own death, of Max’s death, of permanent failure.
Kol could not throw aside the weight of Geber’s will, but he found the strength to fight.
Kol advanced toward the broken wall. Sir Geber stepped through first. The knight swung his mace at surprising speed, an iron weapon directed by body and mind.
Kol angled his shield, and he ran for the opening. The hydraulic weight across his mind did not hold his shielded physical body.
The mace struck Kol’s shield. The spikes seemed to reach all through him, like they impaled him and his spirit, but Kol threw the mace backward. Geber had taught him to ignore that kind of pain, and he stepped around the swinging mace and stabbed at the knight’s neck with the borrowed sword.
The mace struck the sword’s blade and almost knocked it from Kol’s hand. Geber was far faster than he’d imagined. His movements were practiced, and the mace was an extension of his Shaping. He attacked with the spinning spikes, blades that could hit anywhere, body and mind.
Kol reeled back. He was out of practice with blades. It’d been many months since he’d trained seriously. He’d been a different man when he’d last studied the sword.
Kol changed his shield, drove it almost into Geber’s chest, but he did not make more than one projection. He could not carry multiple. He did not have the strength left.
He stabbed the sword at Geber’s face. The knight retreated now, back through the broken wall. Kol followed him. He held the shield at Geber’s chest, blocking the knight from wielding his mace two-handed.
Kol stabbed again. There was no need for finesse or glorious bladework if the point found the knight’s flesh.
The mace struck Kol’s sword. Kol hadn’t seen the knight switch hands, hadn’t seen how the knight had maneuvered around his shield. He’d seen nothing, but the sudden blur of spikes, motion aided by Shaping.
The mace tangled its blades around the sword’s cross guard. The spikes did not puncture Kol’s prosthetic, but they dragged the sword from Kol’s fingers. It fell to the floor and bounced away into the far alcove, too far to reach.
Geber struck Kol’s shield with a full strike from the mace, using both hands and all his strength. The weight fell fully on Kol, and the blow from both Shaping and physical iron forced him back against the shattered wall. All Geber’s will was on the shield as blow after blow fell across it, trying to break through.
If his shield fell, how long could the Dommik armor protect him? Not long – and then it would be his body and self that would die. Then his torment and Max’s would go without justice, without vengeance. Then no one would learn what had become of Duncan.
Duncan! The motion of the knight’s weapon drew Kol’s eye to Geber’s hands. Something was buried half-beneath the knight’s left gauntlet. Something was working its way free as the knight fought and swung his weapon.
Kol recognized the battered old watch face, the Racz family heirloom! Geber had worn the stolen watch to the battle, as he’d worn it each day at the Pinnacle. He wore as a trophy what might be the last reminder of his friend.
Through weariness, Kol remembered everything. He thought of Max and Duncan and himself, the three of them in the days after Thunderworks – how Duncan had stayed with them both as they tried to recover, how Duncan had followed him into the Liberty Corps and followed him out again.
Duncan who might have died for him – Kol felt that new guilt, but it wasn’t blinding. This was responsibility, powerful purpose, the purpose of a man who had found his own path, who had wrongs to right.
And Duncan needed justice, justice he likely would not receive without Kol.
When the mace struck again, Kol reached through his shield and met the spiked ball with his closed prosthetic fist.
The spikes bounced away. The Czar had fitted Kol with the best prosthetic money could buy. Geber stumbled backward.
“A great deal of the strength I have, I learned in the Liberty Corps.” Kol stood from the broken wall. “We should have rebuilt this world, protected this world, not conquered it by force, against the will of other people. We should have helped remake our homeland, not spent years obsessed with the old country’s hidden weapons. I will use the weapons you gave me to fight you, to really protect the homes of others. I’ve begun that work today, and I will survive you, Geber. I have a lot of work yet to do.”
“The Czar is wise,” Geber said. “He saw some purpose in you, boy, but perhaps all your purpose will be dissecting your shield. Perhaps you are the exception. Perhaps your unique Shaping can be learned from your corpse. It will be easy to preserve what’s left of you. There’s plenty of ice.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Where’s Duncan?” Kol asked. “Where did you take my friend? I need to know before you and all the knights are dead.”
Geber struck again, mace against shield, but the shield held. It had to hold. Kol had nothing left but the fist they’d given him and the power their torture had born in him.
Kol threw Geber back. Then he charged at the knight with his shield strong and with his prosthetic hand balled into a fist.
* * *
Orson blocked another jab at his face. The swords met so close to his flesh that he felt a wash of heat across his skin. His eyes were naked to the light of the blades. They watered, but his attention never wavered from the baron or the motion of the rapier.
They fought between the rows of pews. Helmont didn’t retake flight. He shared the space of the center aisle, booted feet planted. They attacked with just the blades, with no Ignitions and no Tactum from the baron – and no other weapons or tricks from Orson.
“After the Enigma Guard betrayal at Norlenheim,” Helmont said, “after I was forced to pull back or waste yet more lives - I spent days in study of this world’s founding legends.”
“I might actually be in trouble if you spent that time studying your toothpick of a sword instead.” Orson forced his sword near the tip of the rapier. They did not touch, but both blades sparked. Their heat shields rubbed together.
“It was our mission to understand,” Helmont continued. His voice was neutral, calm, more like polite conversation over lunch or tea than the middle of a pitched battle. “Just as the Covenant Houses promised before us, the IHSA was devoted to understanding the powers of this world, powers the slow plodding progress of the conventional sciences could not hope to contain, before their danger could overwhelm us all.”
“Save the...” Orson stopped short. The rapier flashed. It burned through the air toward him, aimed by the baron’s wrist and elbow. Flash! It burned at the center of his coat’s zipper, at his belly. Flash! It burned at his face. Flash! It burned at his sword’s hilt, at his hands.
Orson retreated. He backed away from the strikes. He still had feet yet to go before he would meet the pews. Orson had his own map in his mind. His life depended on the layout of the room he pictured.
With no HUD to warn him, Orson had only the training of observation and memory that those five years at the Evergreen Forest had given him. His survival rested on the hope that he’d kept all his skills sharp, from the days when Ophion would train him to stand against the enigmatic powers of the world, from the days when he’d found so many adventures with the original Aesir crew.
“I’ve discovered certain commonalities in the idea of these weapons that we wield,” Helmont announced. He broke away from his flurry of attacks. He took his own pause, rapier raised in a simple guard. “The sword of fire! The flaming sword! Cultures all across this Earth have told stories of such weapons. When the Norsemen imagined their doomsday, the Ragnarok – they said that Midgard, their name for this world, would burn at the hands of a giant with a flaming sword.”
Helmont stepped closer again, his sword raised, held overhand with point down. Orson didn’t retreat. He stood his ground and the baron halted.
“We find another such sword in the hand of Acala,” Helmont said, “a Wisdom King in Buddhism with stories found in Kathmandu and along Mekong River and in temples across Japan. We also find such weapons of fire and light in the fists of heroes across Ireland and Great Britain. We find them in the hands of angels and in the power that was said to burn at lost Eden’s gate.”
Helmont launched himself from the floor, a single leap with his right foot that sent him soaring at Orson. The rapier’s fire grew, stretched toward Orson’s eyes, but the blue sword was held ready. Just a swing of the blade forced the rapier’s tip to explode away from Orson.
The baron transitioned his flight into a somersault that carried him toward the altar. Helmont landed and spun his helmeted head and his sword back at Orson.
“But all of them,” the baron said. “All of those legends share one basic principle. These are the weapons of gods and their servants. They’re meant for demigods, for kings, for higher powers. Even in the ludicrous pulp stories of our own modern era, trash tales made to sell our human heritage to fools too dim-witted to study their past and real legends – even those stories show such weapons held by mystic knights and legendary powers. Every tradition knows that these weapons are only for the worthy. They are only for the powerful.
“I should now be fighting Sir Merrill for his key. He is the last of the old knights. He is the worthy one, except for his cowardice. But no. No! He refused his destiny, and instead I'm faced with you, stuck with you.”
Helmont’s voice dripped with contempt. He spoke through gritted teeth. He almost shouted his words, his usual control strained. “Now I must cross blades with a mundane trickster, but that too shows how much must be corrected in this world. There never was an heir worthy of facing me. I am the blade master of the new world, the culmination of the Liberty Corps and the IHSA, all the way back to the bold work of the CIA’s project MK-SHAPER. Perhaps stamping out the unworthy is an appropriate destiny. Nothing, not even reclaiming the Dreamside Road, will give me as much pleasure as removing Thousand Destiny from your unworthy corpse.”
“Once I beat you,” Orson laughed. “Maybe I’ll have a trash tale written about it. That sounds fun. Make some money off of fighting you.” Now he advanced. He’d seen Helmont’s ready stances before. The baron favored only a handful, all single-handed grip, all with body turned sideways behind the blade. Orson had seen all those stances the day before on Sirona’s borrowed scroll.
Helmont attacked faster. He still raised the rapier overhand, but now he stabbed from above, at the top of Orson’s head and shoulders instead of at his face. Helmont didn’t fly, but his feet left the floor with impossible leaps, aided by his Tactum or another extrasensory power. This was another strength of the Twelfth House’s Griffin Form, imitating the winged royal lion attacking its prey from the sky.
The attacks were lightning strikes, barely within reach of Orson’s own sword. He caught the rapier only by the very edge of his blade, struck it aside before the rapier’s heat could test the thin armor packed inside his hood.
With the rapier’s length, Helmont’s body was too far away for a counterattack. Orson dropped to the floor and slid aside – like a baserunner sliding to home plate – and stopped beside the nearest pew. Helmont stopped his leaping strikes when he found he’d lost his target.
Orson adjusted his blade disruptor. He slid his thumb to the switch but did not press it into the fire of the blade. He waited. He watched the baron until the man’s booted feet left the floor again, sword aimed downward. This attack was faster still, aimed to reach him while he was trapped, caught at the pew with nowhere easy to run.
Orson rose and braced his side against the back of the pew beside him. He hit the disruptor. The blade doubled. When he attacked, he didn’t aim at the baron’s body. He swung his blade with all his strength, with force no one would need to cut with the great heat of the sword.
Orson slammed the flat of his blade against the rapier’s fire with the baron still airborne. The swords met vertically, along their full length.
The swords’ blades exploded apart as Helmont dropped from the air toward Orson. The powers within the blades repelled one another. Orson’s right arm was thrown wide, but he tightened his grip on the hilt and pressed his side against the pew. When Helmont’s feet found the floor just beside Orson, his sword arm was still thrown wide. He was unprepared to attack.
But Orson was ready with his long-practiced left hook. The crimson metal on the knuckles of Orson’s glove connected with the slit vizor of the baron’s helmet. The vizor crunched as his fist broke through.
Helmont’s feet left the floor before Orson’s fist could reach his face. The baron flew backward from the punch and almost pulled Orson along with him, tugging at the fist still half-buried in the reinforced vizor.
The baron’s helmet split in two like a cracked egg. Both sides of the white faceplate fell away from Helmont’s head and clattered to the floor. His eyes widened, before he found his composure and his lip curled in a sneer.
“You’re right about one thing.” Orson met his eyes and grinned. “These swords are for the powerful.”
Helmont left the floor again, but this was no leap. He flew, floated, and the violet aura filled the air around him. “Very well,” Helmont said. “If you bring your stolen weapons into this battle. I will wield the full extent of what I have learned. You are utterly unworthy to hold Thousand Destiny. Allow me to demonstrate the full power that the worthy can earn from the mythic past. Let me—”
Orson hit the disruptor again. The blue fire grew through the air between them. The baron soared aside, his taunt abandoned. Helmont sent an arc of violet fire as he dove away, but the purple did not meet the blue.
Orson retracted the sword and slid back into the aisle. He balanced on his left knee, so the Ignition attack passed over his head. Orson hit the disruptor to reextend the fire, and he ran, even as the violet flame flashed and exploded into a far wall.
Orson slammed his blade against Helmont’s shielding Ignition aura. Blade and aura exploded apart and sent the baron tumbling back to the floor. The purple aura shrank to a flickering haze between the baron and Orson.
“Did you know that the harder these swords smack into each other, the harder their fires are forced apart?” Orson asked. “Proper Twelve House training probably doesn’t teach you that. You were never a dumb kid swinging your sword around like a Baseball bat. So unlike you, I got to incorporate that greatest of American forms – Baseball – into my fighting style before I studied all that proper swordsman subtlety. I wasn’t too bad a ballplayer, either, before your friends in the Hierarchia got ahold of me. Anyway, it’s pretty funny what you find out when you’re learning for yourself.” He tore his eyes from Helmont to regard the blue fire of his sword.
“You would compare—” Helmont began.
“I’m not too worried about the whole Thousand Destiny thing,” Orson interrupted, “because that’s not really what the sword’s called anymore.”
“Who do—” Helmont said.
“NO!” Orson shouted. “You already did your fire sword speech, so here’s mine!” He spun the blade over his wrist. “I don’t advertise it too much, but I love the fact that pricks like you hate me having this sword. I've loved it from the beginning. I know, I know, I'm not an enigma or a wizard or a Shaper or whatever the hell. I know I'm not worth much as far as the Hierarchia’s concerned. You made that real clear from the beginning. I’d have no destiny in the world you want. I had to steal one, just like I stole the Opal out from under your noses.
“The Thousand Destinies don’t matter anymore because that future didn’t happen. It’s bullshit from the ground up, thanks to me. I’m in the story and I wasn’t supposed to be. I stole that destiny. It's mine now, and I earn the ability to keep it every single day. I fight to make it mine every single day, even if I can’t do the full lightshow.”
Helmont sent another arc of purple fire from the blade. Orson extended his sword and let blue and purple flames meet in a flash that outshone the aurora from above.
“What would your fancy baron papa say, Grover, knowing you attacked a man while he’s giving his traditional sword speech.” Orson clicked his tongue at Helmont. Then he held the sword out, so the flat of the blade faced the baron. “You’re not fighting the Thousand Destinies. You’re fighting mine. Take a look at my sword. I call it Stolen Destiny.”
He returned to his own ready position. “Now, let me demonstrate what I’ve learned in my stories.”
* * *
Kol could not match Sir Geber’s physical speed. The Morning Star mace was a blur, attacking from either side, from above, or stabbing from the front. Kol’s charge halted just beyond the broken wall.
Kol raised his shield to block the whirling mace. When the Morning Star’s barbs struck the projection, Kol shoved back. He pushed his projection into the Morning Star, pushed to disrupt Geber’s balance and stop the knight’s practiced motions with the spiked weapon.
But Sir Geber didn’t pause. He countered Kol’s resistance with clear experience. Geber had wielded that mace long before the months Kol had wielded his Shaping, maybe longer than Kol was alive.
And this was a desperate battle to the death against a hated foe, the fight against the bitterest of losses.
Even for Kol, this wasn’t fully a battle of righteousness or justice. This wasn’t Kol Maros standing against his former brothers, against his former cause. This wasn’t right against wrong or good against evil. There would be time enough for that if Kol lived to see the brief night end.
This was survival and revenge, torturer against tortured, winner take all. May the best Shaper win.
Kol could not follow Sir Geber with his arm, so he followed him with his spirit. When Geber swung the Morning Star, it met Kol’s shield.
When Kol was not fast enough to move his shield to block the mace, he made a new one. He didn’t have the strength to make more than one projection, more than one at a time, so as the mace moved through the air, single shield after single shield appeared to catch it.
Kol knew that if his judgment was off, that if his eyes followed Geber wrong, if his sense of the man – more intuition even than Shaping – failed him, he would likely die.
But this was all he had. This was his best and last chance. If Kol was fighting as a wayfarer against the knight, he had to fight clever, not just fight with brute strength.
He formed his shield, and he blocked Geber at every motion of the mace. Every time it moved it met a new shield, and then that shield was gone and another took its place at the next swing of the Morning Star. Kol only ever made one projection at a time, but he made sure all of them counted.
Kol advanced, blocking the knight at every strike, hemming him in, leaving him no room for attack.
Kol had almost forgotten the weight of Geber’s mind. The spikes of Geber’s Shaping had almost faded. The knight was occupied by physical battle, his body, his living self. Even with Kol’s lone shield fading and reappearing, he stood strong against all of Geber’s Shaping.
Kol knew he could not stand forever, that the battle of body, mind, and spirit must reach its end. So Kol formed his last shield of the fight, maybe the last of his life. He grew it wide like the walls he’d made to throw Liberty Corps troopers on the beach and throw Geber himself at the Pinnacle.
It hurt him to make that shield. It made all the pains of battle return. His body burned from the effort, but he did not need the shield for long.
He threw the projection at Geber and bowled the knight off his feet. Then the flailing mace didn’t matter. The knight fell against the far wall.
Kol ran at him, a last time, one way or the other. He let his shield die completely, and for an instant, he felt Geber rallying his Shaping might, like the unseen hydraulic press might fall again.
This time, Kol was too fast. He caught the wrist that held the mace, gripped it with his flesh and blood hand. He reached for Geber’s helmet with his prosthetic.
All of Geber’s Shaping strength faded, when Kol’s robotic fingers forced their way above the IHSA pauldron. Kol reached between breastplate and helmet and took Geber by the throat. The fist that the Liberty Corps had given him closed around the neck of Helmont’s last battling knight.
Sir Geber dropped the mace. The knight lost his Shaping control. He no longer owned his body or anyone else’s. He no longer ruled the mind. He no longer commanded iron.
Kol guided his robotic thumb. He searched until he felt the bulge of Sir Geber’s Adam’s apple.
“Where’s Duncan?” Kol asked Sir Geber for the final time. “Your death will be swift if you tell me what happened to my friend.”
* * *
Enoa recognized the LCS Balor with the naked eye. The aircraft carrier stood out even on the grand scale of the ocean. It could be no other ship.
Enoa shut her eyes, and focused on her clearer view of the scene spread across the water. Sometime in her travels, Anemos had surpassed her physical senses. She saw better through her mind.
The Aesir flew over the open ocean, island message carriers to either side. The ‘Condensator’ began its whir, but it was soft enough to speak and be heard near the device.
“Even without their fighters,” Jaleel said. “We’ve gotta assume at least some of their flagship’s artillery can still defend it. They have a couple rail guns on that ship.”
“Copy,” one of the carrier pilots answered over the radio.
“I can help in a minute,” Enoa said. “Do we want to hide us in the fog, or try to blind their flagship?”
“We really need to figure out that much,” Dr. Stan added.
“Focus on the flagship,” Jaleel said. “I think? We can’t take too much time to coordinate seeing through the fog with our islander friends, and the Liberty Corps flagship’s really big. Are you sure—”
“I’m fine,” she said. It was true. The battle on the beach and the fight against the submarines hadn’t drained her mind’s strength. If anything, she felt more awake, more aware, like she’d had a good warmup before the real workout started. “I can do whatever we need.”
Enoa heard keys from the sensor station. “I have pinpointed the exact location on the LCS Balor’s hull where the light from the Eye is being projected,” Dr. Stan said. “Max, you should be seeing it, as well.”
“Target marked,” Max said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she answered. “When we get into range, I will start the condensation at the projection point.”
“Great,” Jaleel said. “When we knock out the Eye’s light at the projector, it should be open long enough for the missile.”
“Fog now?” Enoa asked.
“One second.” Jaleel reached for the radio. “Alright Hermods, we’re going in on my mark. Remember to skim the ocean as long as you can. Most of their heavy armament is on the deck, so we need to stay below that. When it comes time for us to hit them, we don’t know what kind of reaction it might get from that Eye, so get clear as soon as our attack run is over.”
“It’s your plan, Aesir,” a carrier pilot answered with clear skepticism. “We got the enemy ship data you sent. We’re set.”
“Awesome!” Jaleel said. “Enoa?”
“Ready,” she answered. She sensed a handful of powerful minds aboard the Liberty Corps flagship, the same circle of powers that reached into the sea and held it. When she drew on the water for power, they would know. But either sense her or see the Aesir, there would be no full surprise attack.
“Now!” Jaleel shot the Aesir toward the flagship, carriers flying support. All three ships dove toward the water. They flew close enough to the ocean that rising waves could have struck against them if there was no power holding the water unmoving.
Enoa seized the air around the enemy flagship and the water beneath it. The Liberty Corps Shapers sensed her, but their attention was broad. She gripped the water around the flagship faster than the enemy could rally against her. She held the still ocean on the island side of the Eye’s power and the moving sea beyond the Eye’s light. It was strange, but she took no more than a moment to think about the unnatural power.
The flagship was over a thousand feet long, and Enoa cast her shroud across the entire ship. She’d practiced the Midnight Sight since her early adventures and only gained strength in the technique. The heavy fog spread as if carried by a hurricane’s gale, swallowing the massive ship, vanishing it.
Enoa worked her shroud like a sculptor with clay, wrapped it tight. She felt the place where the Eye burned free of the deck. Could she do a condensation attack like the ‘Condensator’? Could she send her own Shaping against the weapon of the Liberty Corps?”
Only the pulsing red of the Eye broke through her grip on the flagship. A gap, feet across, interrupted the smooth deck of the massive vessel. The Eye’s light poured up from the opening. It burned through the fog to join the rest of the power over Knightschurch and its sea.
“Ship’s computer recognizes field projector as target!” Ruby announced from the ceiling.
“Thank you,” Dr. Stan said. “Device active!” The ‘Condensator’ above her console intensified its whirring.
Enoa silenced the noise in her mind. She had no role to play in using the device, and no need to focus on the others. She didn’t need to sense Max’s hands gripping the firing controls, feel the tremors racing up his arms, or know the sweat running down his forehead. She did not need to sense Dr. Stan’s clenched jaw, the only sign she showed of the fear that they all felt.
Enoa did not need to follow Jaleel’s nervous energy. All their safety relied on his flying. Their lives depended on him, but her safety had been intertwined with his since the day they’d met. That was their relationship. They were safe together or endangered together, and he had given her no reason to doubt.
She felt the will of the Liberty Corps Shapers gripping at her control, but they struck at her with one hand tied behind their backs. They tried to hold the sea and fight her at once.
It was a fight the Liberty Corps could not win. She held against them and her control of the shroud did not falter.
Enoa sensed the ‘Condensator’ strike at the power from the Eye of Balor. Condensation formed on the light that poured out from the ship.
The condensation and living light exploded. Enoa felt the warmth billow out through her shroud, but the Eye’s light didn’t stop. It was a torrent of the power, flowing like a river. When more condensation formed and exploded, formed and exploded, formed and exploded – Enoa didn’t know whether it was the device or the Eye that caused the blasts – but they did nothing to stop the flow of energy.
The device could not stop the weapon from the Dreamside Road. It was like trying to dam a river by standing in the current. It was impossible.
The ‘Condensator’ screamed. It was a different sound this time. Enoa was dimly aware of that noise, just as she was dimly aware of the smell of smoke. They were only hundreds of feet from the flagship and with no way to attack the huge boat.
“Not working!” Jaleel screamed. He yelled other, inaudible things too. Enoa sensed him interacting with the radio, but the screeching from the dying ‘Condensator’ drowned out everything else.
Only a new bass rumble could be heard, distinguished from the failing weapon. It was a noise almost lower than hearing, almost the Shaping-based sounds Kol described sensing. But Enoa felt the rumble. It vibrated through the air. She felt it in her face and ears and in the back of her throat.
Enoa recognized the sound. It was from the Eye! But no time to speak – the whole wall of living red surged across the ship’s deck toward them.
The ‘Condensator’ failed with a last whine and a puff of dark smoke, but that made all the other screaming audible. Enoa was pulled from her focus on the ocean and her unseen struggle against the Liberty Corps Shapers.
“I can’t see!” Max said. “Monitor down!”
“I’m trying to restore—” Dr. Stan began.
“Get out of here!” Jaleel shouted. “Hermods, go! Go! Go!” He took the Aesir through a sickening corkscrew. All yelled. Enoa couldn’t help but join them. It was like all her other senses had come back stronger, and she suddenly felt herself fully trapped inside the tiny metal ship.
The Eye of Balor’s light rushed over the sides of the Liberty Corps flagship and burned across the sea at them. The entire wall of light moved, but writhing tentacles reached ahead of the power, swinging through the air for them and the carriers, swatting at them all like they were roving gnats.
A tentacle slammed into one of the message carriers from behind. Enoa felt it, sensed the power connect with the little ship.
A strangled, desperate voice cried from the radio and then was lost to static. There was no other sound, not even an explosion, just nothing more, as the Eye washed over the wreckage.
“Power expenditure too great,” Ruby said. “Speed may be insufficient to avoid the unknown hostile projectile. Speed may be insufficient to—”
“You aren’t helping!” Dr. Stan yelled. “Switch off!” Max said nothing. His hands shook against his controls. He did nothing, but what could be done?
Enoa couldn’t tear her mind away from the oncoming, living wave. The Aesir skimmed the true sea, sliding across the water as the energy tentacles burned toward them. She couldn’t sense the other island carrier. Had they also been destroyed? Had they escaped?
The Eye’s power had left the enemy flagship far behind. It moved across the water faster than any real current. The Aesir sped up and Enoa felt the inertia. She was pressed back to her seat. She felt the weight of their acceleration against her face, like they were in some mad, deadly carnival ride.
“Only the water slows this thing down,” Jaleel said. “We’re going under!”
Jaleel shoved the wheel forward, and the ship forced itself beneath the still water.
The Aesir hesitated for a half-heartbeat, long enough for the cabin lights to turn blue. Then they pushed deeper into the water.
The Eye of Balor followed them. One, then two, then three glowing red arms reached down into the ocean. Enoa remembered the fish she’d felt die, and compared to the Eye’s light, their ship was just as small. How long could they hold against it? How long could the shield hold under the water? Enoa didn’t know any of these things, and it was too late to learn.
The ocean burned against the Eye’s power, but the arms just reached deeper and deeper as they plunged beneath the ocean. The Aesir was supposed to be some kind of spaceship – Orson had said that. Did that mean it could take the pressure of the deep ocean?
Jaleel sent them straight down. Above them, the only light was red. The illumination flickered, like a nauseating strobe light. It was desperate to take them. It knew them. It knew how they’d hurt it.
But the arms thinned as they descended, from fists, to wriggling tentacles, to smoking wisps – then nothing.
By the time the Eye’s light finally gave up the chase, only darkness surrounded them.