The Sealed Citadel

by Edward W. Robertson

  Rowe laughed. "You didn't, you fool."

  "My memory of breaking them says otherwise, but if you…" He trailed off, then sighed. "I had nothing to do with it, did I, Merriwen? You just dropped them."

  "I didn't know who you were, but I liked your spirit. You didn't seem like one of the Lannovians, either. I hoped you were with the Order, or someone unrelated to either side."

  "That's it? After sixty years of the Order trying to get inside, you brought down the wards because I was the right kind of mad?"

  "Well yes. The city was about to fall anyway. I thought I'd let you have the first crack at the Citadel. One way or another, the invaders were getting inside. Better to destroy the wards than let their source fall into the Lannovians' hands."

  "What do you mean, their source? Weren't you making the wards?"

  Merriwen guffawed, swatting at his knee. "No sorcerer has that kind of power. I was merely helping them along. That was the true source of them."

  He brought up a bit of ether to the side of his work desk, revealing a broad platter filled with bones. Some were broken, but many were stuck together as if glued at random, a spinal cord woven around tibias and fibulas, ribs joined with jawbones, fingers and toes and teeth sprouting from the longer branches of bone like twigs and buds of a macabre tree.

  Rowe slowly lifted his eyes from the mess to Merriwen. "The Order's right about one thing. There is something cursed about you sorcerers."

  "Oh, these aren't human," Merriwen said peevishly. "It's arguable whether they even came from something alive."

  "By the gods." Cally intuited it at once. "This is from the White Tree?"

  "Barden itself."

  A shiver ran through Cally's body. Not of fear, though the White Tree was made entirely of bone, and stood as high as a cathedral spire. But of awe. "This powered the wards? How does it work?"

  "It no longer does. And I wouldn't tell you anyway. Something like this should never be used again. Its ability is one of the larger reasons the Lannovians are so eager to claim the Citadel."

  "To control the wards? To do what, take control of the wights? Why would they do that when Lady Minabar already knows how to make them for herself?"

  "Claiming the Citadel isn't about the wights. It's about seizing the wards themselves. As long as there are people who know how to use nether and ether, even the stoutest wall isn't worth much. But the wards provide a wall that even the mightiest sorcerer can't break through."

  "But why couldn't the Order keep them and use them to keep themselves safe from invasion? Such a thing seems perfect for them."

  Merriwen seemed to grow as weary as his long years. "The gods have built a balance within the world. There are the shadows, but there is also the light. You have a sword, but your enemy has a shield. There is Taim, but across from him stands Arawn. You see? Balance, and from this balance no one priest or king can conquer too much at once or seek to take all the world for himself. But the wights? The wards? These things tip the balance, and everything falls and breaks. Just as Arawn's Mill once did."

  Merriwen gazed at the ground, brow furrowed like a spring field. "This might not make sense to you; you're young, and you are wrapped up in the culture of the Order, which is an odd culture indeed. But I have seen much, and what I have seen tells me this must be done."

  "I think I understand," Cally said. "You said the wards are only part of the reason the Lannovians want the Citadel. Why else are they coming for it?"

  "Many reasons. The physical strength of it. The prestige of it, and of Narashtovik, which would grant their sect a more important power than the Citadel's mere stone and walls. There is also a sense within them that Narashtovik belongs to them—that they deserve it. I can't explain to you why they think this. Once, it even made sense. But it was never thought that it would turn out like this."

  Merriwen scowled, the expression flashing over his face as swiftly as a bolt of nether. Then he lightened, a little amused, yet also deeply somber. "Speaking of the Lannovians' desire to take the Citadel, if you don't go and do something about it, their desire will shortly become reality. I am sure you have more questions, but none of them will matter if we lose our city. It is time for you to go forth and deliver it."

  "If we drive the Lannovians out, I can come back here? Speak to you more?"

  "I can't bring back the wards now, so I don't see how I would stop you." Merriwen smiled, eyes crinkling, then once more his expression gravened. "If you don't come back, I need someone to know this. When I founded the Order—understand this is not what I hoped would befall our people."

  Cally didn't quite understand what he meant, but the old holy man would say nothing more, and sent them on their way. The chapel door had been sealed against the wights long ago and Cally and Rowe descended back through the tunnel into the prison cell beneath it.

  "Are you in as much disbelief as I am?" Cally said.

  Rowe strode toward the cell door, both swords hanging from his left hip. "That you actually managed to get what you came here to get? Absolutely."

  "That that was Merriwen! He's alive. He's been alive for all of this time! Think about the stories he can tell!"

  "Guessing most of them start and end with sitting in a dark room for years at a time. Be shocked later. We're in the middle of a war. One that we're about to lose."

  "Right. Yes. The invasion." Cally pressed his palm to his forehead, rubbing in a circle. "What do we do?"

  "Above my pay grade. Sorcerer's decision."

  "I suppose it would behoove us to figure out what's going on out there. Either way, we need to find the Order. There are dozens of wights out there and I won't have nearly enough nether to deal with them all. I'll have to teach the others how to help me."

  Which reminded him that he had no actual experience in what he was endeavoring to do. This, in turn, caused him to detour into the cell to examine the corpse of the sickly wight. He saw no sign of the nethereal braid in what was left of its body. He hoped that was simply because it had dissolved rather than that he was too incompetent to see it.

  As they climbed the stairs to the courtyard, he sent his moth scout soaring high above the city. Fires dotted the darkness, most still limited to individual buildings, but one neighborhood inside the Pridegate had gone up in flames and would soon take others with it.

  "The Lannovians are just past the Ingate," Cally said. "But they aren't coming this way yet. Looks like they're going to Tollivar Square."

  "Good bet that's where the Order is. Or what's left of it."

  They climbed up into the night. After the dankness of the basements, it smelled clear and cold and good. Tollivar Square was over a mile away and Cally broke into a jog, heading for the still-open Citadel gates.

  With an unclean hiss, a wight frog-hopped from behind a wild hedge of roses. It reared back its thick right arm and whipped its claws at Rowe.

  Cally bit his lip, going for the nether. Rowe was faster. He swept his sword loose, the blade spitting black and silver sparks at the wight. It arrested its strike, taking a long step back to dodge the sword. It bent its knees, ready.

  "Afraid?" Rowe wagged his weapon at the creature. "You should be. I'm the one in control of the damn thing, and it scares me too."

  He lunged forward. The wight swung its arm at his weapon like a club, meaning to intercept it, maybe to bash it from Rowe's hands. But Rowe's lunge was a feint of some kind—Cally knew far too little of swordplay to even follow it, let alone name it—and Rowe slipped past the enemy's guard. He seemed to stumble forward. With a flash of black light, the sword pierced the wight's gut.

  It would have easily rammed out the back of a human. Yet whatever potent magics were driving it, it sank only a finger deep inside the wight.

  The creature unleashed an airy scream. It ripped at Rowe's face. Rowe ducked his chin and turned his body, taking the blow along his left shoulder and arm. Blood spattered the cobbles. As Rowe fell back, Cally sent his mind through the ichor-drenched wound and int
o the wight.

  The very feel of the thing made him want to vomit. The nether was wrong, warped, so deeply corrupted it might make a Master of the Order go insane on the spot.

  It was, however, still navigable. Suppressing a gag, Cally drove toward the horror's center, hunting for the complex braid of shadows Merriwen had shown him just minutes before. He came to the wight's solar plexus, just in front of the spine, where the braid was supposed to be.

  Cally didn't see a thing.

  Well, Merriwen had warned him it wasn't that simple, and the old Master was right, which was comforting, as it made him more likely to be more right about everything else as well. Dimly aware that the wight was rushing at Rowe, who fell back in a defensive posture, Cally dimmed his inner eye, trying to "feel" instead. It worked, sort of, except it really didn't, because as much as Cally groped around, all he could feel was (mostly) normal nether.

  "Cally," Rowe said.

  "I can't find it. I don't know what to do!"

  "How about your fucking job?"

  Rowe dropped back, but this was another feint. This time his followup stabbed the wight right in its throat. The demon spat bruise-colored fluid, but Cally wasn't even sure they needed to breathe, and it pressed forward toward Rowe. Cally groped for his life. Still nothing. And the wound to the wight's gut was starting to close.

  Cally closed his eyes again, and his inner eye as well. Rowe's feet shuffled; he grunted in pain. Deep inside the wight, Cally could only feel standard structures of nether. Working blind, he didn't even know if he was going in the right direction.

  He froze. When it was too dark to see, you felt your way forward by necessity. But there was another way to deal with darkness, wasn't there?

  Remaining still, he let the ether fill him. And brought it inside the wight. Feeling the wound about to close behind him and force him back out, he cast the light across its inner shadows, making them stand out as sharply as black glass.

  There. Right in front of, yet somehow seemingly behind, the wight's spine. Cally reached for the braid. As he took it in his hand and pulled it taut, it writhed feebly, like a worm caught out in the sun. He sliced the ether through it, cleaving it in half.

  The wight made two sounds at once: a retch, and an airy scream. One of its knees buckled. Purplish fluid poured from its slack mouth. Nether boiled out of its skin and vanished into the air. Its eyes collapsed on themselves and dropped from its skull; at the same time, its body burst open, dropping hunks of warped organs across the stone ground. What was left of its body dropped dead, curling in on itself like a scorched wasp.

  Rowe gave him a look of disgust. "Sorcerers."

  "That wasn't me. It just sort of casually…exploded." He tipped his head back, giving Rowe a second look. "You're bleeding all over."

  He reached for the nether. Rowe made a cutting gesture. "I'm fine. Can still walk."

  "I don't need you to walk. I need you to fight. And stab wights. And keep me alive. Now shut up or I'll bind you in place and then heal you."

  Rowe snorted. Cally sent the shadows over him, mending the deep slashes the wight had gouged through his left arm and shoulder. The Order was right about one thing: it felt virtuous to heal.

  But it had felt pretty gods damn good to kill the wight, too.

  Finished, he jogged toward the gates, checking in on his moth. The skirmish with the wight had only taken a minute, but in that brief time, the members of the Order had turned around. They were being chased.

  "There are wights after them," Cally said. They passed under the gates. He could feel the Citadel behind him, gigantic, imposing. "The demons are coming at the priests two at a time. After taking a few attacks, they're dropping back to let others take their place. Like they're strengthening themselves against the nether."

  "Could be," Rowe said. "Or it could be they're herding their prey."

  "Herding them? Where?" But Cally could already see the answer. "Back to the House of Twelve. But there are wights there, too. They'll be driven right into an ambush!"

  "Then it's time to start running."

  Cally broke into the fastest pace he could maintain. His boots echoed through the night, but it wasn't enough to drown out the screams that were ringing out from north, south, east, and west, provoked by both lone wights spreading terror where they could, and bands of Lannovian soldiers patrolling the streets, stamping out resistance before it could grow organized. Cally had never studied war before, let alone been in one, but it was obvious they were losing. And if the wights wiped out the Order at the temple? All hope would die with them.

  He wished he could use the nether to slow his heart and help him run faster, but he didn't dare waste it. He could only watch from above as the Order and their escort of soldiers jogged through the streets, nether and steel flashing as they fought a constant rearguard against their pursuit.

  When he and Rowe were halfway to the House of Twelve, a wight pranced from around the corner of a building, locking its bright eyes on them. This time, they brought it down as if they'd practiced it a dozen times: Cally locking its feet to the ground; Rowe dancing in, stabbing it with his crackling blade, darting back; Cally shining the ether inside it and severing the foul braid that made it what it was.

  The two of them weren't two minutes out from the temple when the Order arrived outside it. They rushed past the gates, closing them behind them, taking to the walls and blowing trumpets to rally aid.

  In response to their call, the doors of the temple opened. And the wights ran out to meet them.

  22

  One of the gate doors was open wide. The other was ripped halfway from its hinges. Cally and Rowe ran into the temple grounds. Screams and yells rose from the main building, muffled by its thick walls.

  In the courtyard, signs of death were splashed about in various states of organic disrepair that Cally's eyes wouldn't wholly let him see. He could see the nether within it, though. The way it pooled and sat in lumps. The air stank of organs, digestive and rank.

  He ran for the temple doors. These were cast open, too. The Order's priests and adepts had locked the charging wights to the ground, then scampered inside the temple and barred the doors. But not everyone had gotten inside in time—and the wights had already shrugged off their bonds and battered their way inside.

  As they reached the bottom of the steps, Rowe grabbed his arm. "You are the only one who knows how to fight them. Do not put yourself in position to be killed. Understand me?"

  Cally met his gaze. "We've had a rough duty thrust upon us, haven't we? If the priests die here, the city dies with them. We don't have a choice."

  Rowe gritted his teeth, then nodded. They ran up the steps together. As they reached the doors, Rowe unsheathed his glowing blade. Cally's hands were already hidden within swirling spheres of nether.

  Inside: chaos. Priests and soldiers covered behind stone columns and broken furniture. Wights darting in and out, suffering their wounds, but growing bolder by the moment. Just two of them lay dead, killed by whatever methods the Order had uncovered against the ones locked in the Citadel—or maybe just by the sheer number of defenders harrying them—but a score of soldiers had already fallen, along with a scattering of priests and monks, lying in their blood-heavy robes.

  Just ahead of Cally, a wight kneeled on top of a priest, its thick right hand digging under and up through the man's ribs. The priest's eyes rolled. He shot nether from his hands, but it was shapeless, frazzling harmlessly into the air.

  Rowe lifted his blade and jammed it point-down into the wight's back. It arched and bucked, fighting to free itself, but Cally was already delving into the wound, plunging straight for its secret braid. He tore it loose and then apart. The wight disintegrated, pouring viscera and ichor over the dying monk.

  "People!" Cally yelled. "The demons carry a braid of nether in their gut. Find it and rip it out!"

  A couple of people glanced his way, but he saw no adjustment in tactics. "You have to wound them first—the deeper
the better—then enter it and search the nether within them. If you can't see the braid, use the ether to light the way!"

  He was shouting loud enough to cut through the clamor of swords, yelling, and snapping wood. Yet no one moved to employ his directions, or even to ask him for guidance.

  Before he could say more, a woman screamed. Cally knew the voice: Volarra, the aide who had brought him the Cycle during his first Mind's Fast, what felt like a lifetime ago. He snapped his head about. There she was, to his right, scooting backwards across the floor on her butt. A wight stood over her, slamming its club-like arm down into the chair she was holding above herself. The chair busted apart, burying her in splinters.

  Fast as he could, Cally ran toward her. Behind him, Rowe swore and followed. Cally pointed to the wight's back. Rowe's long strides overtook him. The soldier cocked his elbow and punched his sword forward.

  It sank several inches into the wight's back. The demon stumbled forward, stepping on Volarra as it twisted about to swipe at Rowe. Rowe ducked its claws and rolled back. Cally plowed forward, slipping his mind into the wound. This time, he barely needed the ether's help to find the braid.

  He cut the cord. Smoky clouds of nether jetted from the wight's ears and mouth. Its right arm gave loose with a soggy rip, slapping on top of Volarra, whose mouth was wide open, but who seemed too horrified, or more likely disgusted, to make a sound. Its ribs cracked apart, spilling its organs across the ground as if it was giving birth to them.

  Volarra kicked away from the dying abomination, glancing at Rowe, then at Cally. Her eyes popped wide. "Cally?"

  He extended his hand and helped her to her feet. "I know that I'm supposed to be in jail. I would have been happy to finish my sentence, but for some reason my jailers decided to go and get invaded."

  She made a circular motion at the remains of the wight. "How did you do that?"

  "The story is literally unbelievable to you. So just accept that I can, and help me do more of it."