“That was so, in the beginning. Our relationship changed. In the last era of the Morfaan our kinds worked together. The remaining few of my people dwelt in the Parrui, the sky city over Perus that you call the Godhome. We remained as advisors and teachers, no matter what grandiose claims Mathanad might make. Before the Draathis returned and destroyed everything, there was harmony, and you prospered under our guidance.”
“And now, they could come back? All of them?” said Garten.
She was occupied with her brother’s slack expression, and had seemingly lost interest in Garten.
“Tell me!” he demanded.
“The Draathis? All of them. Yes.”
“I was told I was to be killed for the privilege of receiving this information.”
“Impossible. I will protect you. I cannot do this alone. Josanad is gone. You are an asset that cannot be squandered. We must go back to the World of Will. If your people are to stand any chance, they must be united and prepared. The Council wished to wait out the return of the World of Form and see if the Draathis yet lived, but I believe they do. All that has happened in Perus this last week has been intended to drive you apart and make your defeat all the easier. The Draathis have their agents still on Earth. The mage Shrane is one. The Draathis will return.”
“And Josanad?”
Josan went to her brother, and eased him back into the coffin. Its glass lid slid down and clicked shut. He panicked and scratched at the glass, until the device robbed his breath and he fell into an unnatural sleep. “This machine will sustain him. Perhaps, if the Draathis can be overcome, and we might return, then we shall recover enough of our lost arts to save him. His soul is still within the bounds of his flesh, though it is weak. Maybe it can be healed and his mind made whole. But we must triumph first.”
“We can fight,” said Garten. “If we fought before at your side and aided you in driving these Draathis out, then we can do it again.”
Josan favoured him with a sad smile. “It is not so simple. Now come, we must be away.”
She led him up stairs to the second level, through a huge arch too big for the material confines of the Castle of Mists. From there she took him through a door back into the Corridor of the Gates.
“Come,” she said. “We shall return the way we came. Only the main gate, the one we drove our carriage down, is open ordinarily. I took a risk using the one beneath the city. I behaved rashly. We must go back through it in order to properly shut it. Then I will destroy it to prevent others following us.”
They went down the corridor. Josan slowed. Light blazed from a gate.
“No!” she said. “It is open! I am too late!”
The corridor shook. A massive hand of black, smoking iron groped around the door frame. It patted the wall, as if ensuring it was real, then seized it, and heaved. A head and shoulder emerged and withdrew. The gateway was too small to admit it, so it slammed its shoulder into the other side. The jointless stonework cracked, the fragments bulged. The gate’s light shone blindingly. It winked out, and the wall collapsed into rubble.
Placing its hand either side of the smoking hole, the Draathis pulled itself out into the Castle of Mists. It was huge, far taller than a man, bigger than a Torosan godling. Its body was cast with an impressionistic interpretation of muscles and armour. Its blockish head was crude by comparison, a simple rectangle, wider than it was tall, with brutal features for a face—a jutting brow over glowering red eyes, and a heavy, protruding lower jaw. The sound of heat-softened metal parting accompanied its movements. It pointed a finger at them.
With a spine-tingling roar, the Draathis charged.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
A Gate is Opened
TRASSAN’S CAPTORS HAD taken him back into the city. He came to to find himself up against a crate in the gate room, a fur spread under him by Persin’s men, a kindness that baffled him, for the members of Persin’s expedition were a hard-looking lot. Olberlander mercenaries for the most part, stiffened by Maceriyan veterans, none of whom looked to have a care for anyone but themselves. A half dozen had their guns trained on the Karsans, the rest went about the chamber ransacking the carefully packed artefacts not yet taken to the ship. His own men regarded him worriedly—Bannord, Ardovani and Antoninan among them. Vols was at one side, his hands splayed wide over the wound in his stomach. Ilona knelt at the other, gripping his bloody hand. His fingers were icicles in her warm grip, and he shivered from the very core. Cold sweat beaded his face, trickling onto lips that were whiter than his skin. One of Bannord’s marines, that idiot Darrasind, pressed on the wound hard to staunch the bleeding. Well meant, perhaps. It felt like the man were trying to insert his entire fist into his chest cavity.
“To think it has to come to this,” he said.
“Silence!” hissed Vols. His teeth were clenched and face knotted in effort. His magic was palpable. Trassan felt the struggle between the actuality of his wrecked body and the intention of Vols to make it whole. The mage’s mind pushed past blood, and bone and mind, deep in his soul and beyond the veils of the material world. He appreciated the effort, but it felt wrong. He was restless. His spirit was gripped by an urgent need to leave mortality’s cage, and kept rising up, only to be pushed back in by Vols’ will. The mage was as powerful as a locomotive. He fidgeted against it. Trassan was dying, and his soul was eager to seize its freedom.
“You are such a little man,” said Trassan woozily. “But you are mighty. You crush me, a steam press of a person! I’ll never doubt you again. And you, you Bannord? You owe him an apology.”
“You must not think on your condition!” hissed Vols. He grunted as his concentration slipped. The stain of dark blood under Darrasind’s hands widened. “You set your will against mine, it interferes with my magic.”
Trassan chuckled. Muscles he had never really noticed before scolded him with agony.
“I am sorry. It hurts quite a lot.”
“Why is he like this?” said Ilona.
Ardovani squeezed her shoulder. “Shock, blood loss. An inbred bloody mindedness.”
She smiled at the last, and patted his hand. Bannord looked sidelong at that.
“Do not joke! You are accepting your death with every smile. Do not give in! Deny death!” said Vols, surprising Trassan with his forcefulness. “Aid me Ardovani, please!”
The magister withdrew his hand from Ilona’s guiltily, and looked helplessly on. “I know no healing spells, and my will is not so strong as yours. I... I cannot help you, not in the way that you require.”
“Then distract Trassan! He is in danger of slipping free! I cannot heal him until his soul is seated again.”
Ardovani braved the glowers of Persin’s men and knelt by Trassan’s head next to Ilona.
“Goodfellow...” began Ardovani uncertainly.
“Trassan, please. We have shared too much.” Trassan sighed. His breath burned his lungs. When it issued from his mouth, it tasted of copper. “Such a marvellous machine the human body is, so much more refined than my own efforts of brass and iron. Only now I realise it. How I wish I knew more of its working. Tell me,” he clasped Ardovani’s forearm feebly. “Have I wasted my life? Should I have been a physic?” In his giddiness Trassan found the notion immensely funny, and tried not to laugh. More for appearance’s sake than the pain. Did no one else find death so amusing? Life was a big joke, at the end of it, death the punchline.
“Do not let him think on the condition of mortality!” said Vols. Sinews quivered on his neck and hands. “Keep him focused on the now, on the immediate, on the future!”
“Then speak to me of my killer,” said Trassan. He lifted his head weakly in the direction of Adamanka Shrane. She stood on the gate platform facing the sealed portal, studying it closely. “Who is this mage?”
Ardovani looked at Vols, but received no response. He leaned closer in to Trassan’s ear and whispered.
“She is an Iron Mage. An order long dead, or so it was thought. They were secretive, ne
ver numerous even in the days when mages numbered in the hundreds and the gods still ruled the heavens. Their magic is unlike any other. Legend has it that they take into themselves the essence of iron, dangerous, because iron is the death of magic and the antithesis of the working of will. They wield it in their hands—see, she has an iron staff—and that the excitation of the magic via the medium of the metal makes them deadly powerful, though the stories say it takes a terrible toll on their bodies and their souls. Others have tried this method. They tried it in my college. Beyond the mindless alchemical reaction of iron and magic, wilful magic through iron has never worked, and so the Iron Mages were thought to be a myth.”
“Evidently not,” said Trassan. “And I thought I was being original with my combination of iron and magic. I never will be now, original, not a mage.” He giggled.
“Do not speak of your deeds as done, goodfellow, please!” said Ardovani.
“Pfff,” said Trassan.
Persin noticed Trassan staring over at the gate, and chose to leave Shrane to her task. Perhaps he meant to gloat, but upon seeing Trassan lying upon the blood-soaked fur, the ice coloured crimson by his ebbing life, his face fell, and he tugged at his lip apologetically.
“I am sorry goodfellow,” he said in Karsarin. “It was never my intention to injure you.”
“Only humiliate me,” said Trassan. “And kill my employees by sabotage.”
“A few unimportant lives are lost in any great venture,” said Persin, “but to kill a man of your rank and talent? What do you take me for?”
“A Maceriyan cock,” said Trassan amiably.
Persin shook his head dolefully. “Such language,” he said. “A pity. I hoped you would be more refined. Have I not given you comfort with this fur? Do I not let your mage tend to you? I would have him save your life, if he can.”
“Did your man not shoot me, right in the liver? Did you not drag me all the way back here rather than treating my wound where I fell?” said Trassan, mocking Persin’s accent. “Why do you bother with your apologies? Envy of Vand motivates you. Envy is a cruel master. It takes away everything you already have while you are fixated on that which you do not. From plagiarist, to saboteur to murderer, you lose your honour when you could have remained a simple Maceriyan cock.”
Persin shrugged. “Business and war are the same. I had hoped you would understand.”
Trassan propped himself up a little further on his elbow, bringing forth a bark of disapproval from Vols. “I do understand. What do you expect? A noble handshake and a quip as I die? Fuck you, you Maceriyan windbag. You pompous, fat, envious prick. Fuck you to death.”
The effort of this invective was exhausting. Trassan sank back. His eyes were so heavy. “I should sleep,” he said.
“Do not!” Ilona urged. “Trassan, wake, please!”
“I am very tired.”
Persin was not done with him yet. He attempted to gloat now, but it was half-hearted, and he looked nervously back at Shrane. With some satisfaction, Trassan realised Persin was out of his depth and could not control his mage.
“You do not deserve to win. The baubles you have taken here are nothing! The greatest store of knowledge is locked behind that door, out of sight of this world. My mage will open it, and you will see the prize that I have rightfully won!”
Vols’ eyes opened wide. Ardovani stood. Persin’s men backed away and brought up their ironlocks, ready to fire.
“She must not open that gate!” said Vols. “She must not!”
Vols’ attention slipped from Trassan. The effect was immediate. Black dots swarmed his vision. Blood bubbled up in his throat. He coughed, the convulsions hammering spikes of pain into his chest. Blood splashed down his front as he gasped for air.
“Naturally, you would say that. And it is too late.” Persin smiled widely and gestured behind him.
“Stop her!” shouted Vols at Persin’s men. “There is something on the other side, something malevolent!” The mercenaries wavered, their guns dropped a fraction.
“He’s a mage,” one said doubtfully.
“He’s more than that,” said another. “He’s the God-Driver’s kin.”
Too many glances were cast in Shrane’s direction for Persin’s comfort.
“Another word, and you die,” said Persin, pointing to Vols. “Return your attention to your master and heal him.”
Vols, conflicted, looked to Trassan for direction.
“Stop her,” Trassan said. “Stop her. I’m done. I’ve made a terrible mess of it all. And to think I was worried about the bloody whistles.”
Shrane slammed down her staff, and the ice burned. The floor around the platform cracked. Jets of steam blasted upwards. A beam of ruby flame, twisting in on itself, lanced out from the crystal at the tip of her staff, slamming into the untarnished covering on the gate. The centre glowed.
“You really should make her stop,” said Vols.
“Too late,” said Persin with a smile.
The cap shattered, falling away in black pieces that went to dust.
Vols threw up his hand. An invisible shield arced over the Karsans, the handful of mercenaries standing guard and Persin, just as a deadly radiance blasted from the gate, incinerating men, crates, tarpaulins, ropes, artefacts—everything in the room that was not either Shrane or the gate. The jets of steam exploded into geysers that bored through the ceiling. Chunks of ice fell down around the edges of the hole, splashing to slush on Vols’ shield. The chamber convulsed, shrinking in on itself as the world underwent a fundamental shift. The corridor leading back to the city shattered with a great cracking roar, compressed in an instant as whatever magic that stretched out that part of reality beyond its natural dimensions spectacularly failed.
The light died back. The gate opened wide, the circle spreading out into a broad ellipse that touched the melting walls of the gate room. Streams of water pouring down from the city, were lit red by fire on the far side, for there was a plain of black rock, volcanoes fountaining lava into skies of smoke that glowed from within.
Upon the plain was an army. A million metal monsters ready to invade the Earth. Shimmering ripples skated over the surface of the image, lessening by the second.
“By the driven gods,” said Persin. “What have I done?”
Vols’ shield dropped. Ice creaked dangerously all around them. A huge crack ran up the wall where the corridor had been, choked with lumps of ice. On the other side came the rattling, tinkling rumble of structures collapsing. The City of Ice groaned. Its final minutes began.
Trassan laughed. Pain attempted to defeat his mirth, but he overcame it. “Persin, Persin, see what envy brings you?”
“The gate is stabilising, they will come through in seconds,” said Vols, staring at the rift. “I am sorry,” said Vols to Trassan, and leapt at Adamanka Shrane.
SHRANE MET VOLS in flight with a sound like two immense steel drums colliding. They stopped, instantly, halted by the collision of their wills. Hovering beneath the hole in the ceiling, a corona of lightning flashing around them, they commenced battle.
“The duel of mages!” said Ardovani. Trassan never ceased to be amazed by the magister’s ability to find wonder in the most dire situation. With Vols gone, he had but a few minutes left.
“Well Persin, now what?” croaked Trassan.
Persin and his few remaining men looked around uneasily. One ran for the crack in the wall.
“I...” said Persin.
“Do you want to live or die?”
“What do you think Kressind?”
“You!” said Trassan as loudly as he could manage to one of the mercenaries. “Give my men their weapons. If you want to live, we have to work together. We can take you on the Prince Alfra, although I will see your master in court for this.”
“My dogs, they are still outside,” said Antoninan. “We can get to the ship.”
“We could just take them,” said a mercenary to Persin. “The others guard the vessel.”
“If we kill them we must fight those metal giants on our own,” Persin looked back warily to where the creatures waited patiently for the gate to open, rank upon rank of them. Hunched, iron things with coals for eyes and fists the size of barrels. “The shimmer on the skin separating this Earth from that other is almost done. They will come through soon.” Persin looked to Ardovani for confirmation.
“The science of the Morfaan’s world gates is beyond me, but that would seem logical.”
“Vols may yet get the gate closed,” said Trassan. “But we cannot rely on it. Go!”
Reluctantly at first, then with great haste, Persin’s survivors handed over the Karsans’ weapons. Persin had twelve men remaining, Trassan sixteen. Most of the Karsan ironlocks had been stacked on the far side of the room. But seven held by the mercenaries had survived, as had Ardovani’s strange gun.
The chamber was a wreck. Everything modern made had been reduced to ash. Greasy smears on the discoloured, melting ice marked the deaths of Persin’s other men. Precious artefacts of Morfaan steel were twisted skeletons, no more use than the ancient wrecks Arkadian Vand had pulled from the soils of Ruthnia. Pools of water gathered on the deformed floor. Lumps of ice tumbled down from the crumbling ceiling, while the ground groaned painfully, tortured to breaking point.
Four men linked hands under Trassan to lift him. He grunted at the pain as they bore him up, gripping Ilona’s hand so hard she whimpered. He pulled her in close.
“Persin, he has my satchel. If nothing else survives from this trip, see that it gets to Katriona. Do you understand?”
“Yes cousin,” she said. “Trassan, I am sorry.”
He squeezed her hand a final time before letting go. “Not nearly so sorry as I.”
With a terrifying crackle and boom the two mages intensified their efforts to annihilate one another. Bursts of lightning and less natural energies slammed into gouts of unearthly flame as the joined parties ran for the crack in the wall and clambered its shifting, dripping barrier of ice. They spilled out on the far side. The two mercenaries guarding Antoninan’s sleds backed up, guns raised.
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