by Jen Williams
‘Got it.’ She took the pack from him and slung the strap over her shoulder. ‘No time for rousing speeches or last-minute declarations.’ She put her arms around Frith and kissed him; he barely had time to respond before she was stepping away again. ‘But I will be back for you, princeling. Don’t you bloody forget it.’
She and Sebastian headed back up the steps. Frith turned back to the device, trying not to wonder if he’d ever see either of them again.
‘Back to work,’ he said to Joah. ‘We need this done now.’
90
They pounded up the steps and out into the night air, Sebastian’s heart in his throat. They were met by the creature Wydrin called Feveroot, currently in the form of a small nondescript cat. The red markings on its back throbbed with light as it spoke.
‘Krete has its unwanted guests.’
‘Yeah,’ said Wydrin. ‘They’re difficult to miss.’
Sebastian stopped next to her and looked out across the city. For the moment, neither of them moved. The sight seemed to freeze his blood in his veins.
Finally, the gods had come to Krete.
It was still dark but the eastern horizon showed a bruising of pink, and in this hot, flat land the morning would soon be upon them. The strange silver light of dawn turned the red-brick buildings of Krete into dusty toys, the gods looming above them like a nightmare. The sirens on the walls were wailing, sending their piercing flashes of blue light up into an uncaring night, and Sebastian realised he could hear the people – he could hear the screaming, the panic as the city awoke. Well he could imagine their horror as they realised that the magical barriers they had relied upon for so long had failed them, and he felt a stab of guilt – they had invited the gods in, and the men and women dying now were their responsibility. Already there were bursts of flame and ice as the mages flew into action, throwing what forces they could against the invading presence. It was difficult to imagine that it had any hope of even holding them off, let alone driving them back.
There was Y’Gria, apparently fully recovered from the loss of her palace. She was a green storm hanging above the city, a confusion of boiling cloud and stretching, reaching tendrils. They slithered down to the buildings below and Sebastian clearly saw them scooping people up from the streets; the roots curling around men and women and lifting them up into the air, before flexing violently, breaking bones and tearing flesh. The bodies were discarded like errant blossoms. Deep in the heart of the roots and the swirling green cloud Sebastian could just about make out Y’Gria’s human form, or at least part of it. Her arms were spread wide, and there was an expression of fierce joy on her face.
Y’Gria attacked the west of the city, the beginnings of the dawn light casting her in a growing silver halo, while to the east, Res’na stalked. As literal as a god of order might be expected to be, he was in the form of a giant white wolf, so huge it simply stepped over the walls of Krete, great shaggy head hanging low. His eyes were violet and shone like lamps, and slivers of white light peeled away from his back and his flanks. As Sebastian watched, rooted to the spot, the great wolf bent his head and savaged something on the ground. There had been a volley of fireballs heading from that direction, but abruptly they stopped. Sebastian wondered how many mages had just died in that handful of seconds.
And to the north was what Sebastian took to be Res’ni, god of chaos. It took him a few moments to work out exactly what it was he was seeing. Like Res’na, it was almost wolf-shaped, and black rather than white – a four-legged giant stalking over the walls. But Res’ni was a creature composed of thousands of snapping jaws and hungry mouths. They covered the giant, from its long legs, across its shaggy flanks, and down its narrow back. The wolf-shaped head was barely that; it was a writhing, tortured thing of teeth and tongues and raw, red flesh. Sebastian found he had to look away. It was an insult to reality itself.
‘Well,’ said Wydrin, ‘this plan looks pretty fucking stupid now, doesn’t it?’
‘I don’t see Y’Ruen,’ he said, briefly scanning the horizon. There was no sign of the dragon. ‘And Oster doesn’t appear to be with them. Wydrin, let me come with you. Feveroot can make himself big enough to carry us both. It’s got to be better to have as many sword arms up there as possible.’
Wydrin was already shaking her head. ‘Don’t you see? Our best chance is if Feveroot stays as small as possible. Their weakness is that they are so huge. If they don’t notice me, I might actually get out of this alive.’ She turned and grinned up at him, and he noted the manic look in her eye. ‘Besides which, you need to tell Frith when to activate his trap. Watch for my signal.’
Sebastian felt a wave of despair flow through him. It was unbearable to stand here and watch the massacre. Something inside him, the silvery tide of his dragon blood, was uncurling. ‘Wydrin, I have to fight. I have to do something.’
‘You may well have to,’ she said. ‘Remember, watch for my signal, brother.’
She squeezed his arm and then turned to Feveroot. ‘Can you make yourself griffin-shaped, my friend?’
Feveroot the cat uncurled itself from the floor and stretched. ‘Of course, although surely any bird shape would do?’
‘Just for old times’ sake.’
There was a swirl of inky darkness and in seconds a black griffin stood before them, its wickedly curved beak slashed with red, its eyes glowing like coals. Wydrin climbed onto its back and seated herself, adjusting the leather pack so that it lay in her lap. When she was settled she reached for Sebastian, and he took her hand.
‘The Black Feather Three, remember?’ she said. ‘Don’t let him do anything stupid.’
With that she drew away and hunched over the demon’s back before it leapt up into the air, black wings unfurling silently. Sebastian watched her go with one hand curled around the pommel of his sword. Already the day was lighter than it had been.
‘I don’t know,’ he murmured. ‘We all seem so intent on doing stupid things, after all.’
Xinian threw herself around the corner of the building, stumbling as a shower of broken brick pattered against her cloak and scratched the back of her head. She glanced back to see the upper level of the building behind her dissolve into a cloud of red powder as the towering white wolf above them nudged it with one enormous paw. Next to her Selsye leaned against the wall, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her eyes wide.
‘This is our fault,’ she said. ‘We let them in.’
‘Come on.’ Xinian took her hand and half led, half dragged Selsye up the street. They came out into an intersection of several streets. There were a few mages gathered there of many different disciplines, their faces turned up to the suddenly dangerous skies with expressions of horror and panic. Some of them, she noticed approvingly, were readying spells, tying fresh lengths of silk to their arms. Others were simply looking around as if they didn’t know where to flee to. Res’na in his great wolf form loomed off to their right, growing ever closer, while it was possible to see the writhing storm that was Y’Gria blotting out half the sky to their left. She turned to Selsye, squeezing her hand.
‘Damage control,’ she said. ‘That’s all we can do at this point. Hold them off, keep them busy, and hope the plan works. It’s too late to regret our choices now, Selsye.’
Her lover looked uncertain for the barest moment, and then a determined expression settled over her face. She nodded. ‘Divide into two factions? One attack, one defence?’
‘Yes.’ Xinian felt a surge of relief. Without Selsye, this situation would be much too dark to face. ‘You take defence, my love.’
They ran into the crowd together, and Xinian started bellowing orders. She saw them all turn to her, eyes sharp with surprise or suspicion, but she saw something else too: relief that someone was taking charge.
‘Any military training at all, you’re with me. The rest of you to my partner here.’ Selsye was already forming her people into lines, taking charge with quiet confidence. ‘What are you waiting for? You all kn
ew this day would come. Now let’s show them what we can do!’
Faster than she would have hoped, they had two groups of well-ordered mages in rows, their arms bared to show the lines and lines of spell bindings. They all looked frightened, but they also looked ready to fight. There was a thunderous crash, and the square filled with a plume of orange dust as another nearby building was crushed under an errant paw. The twin violet lamps of Res’na’s eyes loomed above them, enormous jaws falling open to reveal teeth as tall as the men and women he sought to devour. Xinian was struck by the lack of malice in those eyes – to Res’na they were just a problem to be solved, their destruction the next logical step. It didn’t make him any less deadly than the rest of the gods.
There was a shimmer in the air around her mages, and Xinian almost felt rather than saw the tenuous barrier Selsye and her people had erected over them all.
‘First three rows, I want repeated walls of flame arching up into this bastard’s face. Last three, ice around his legs. We’ll see if we can immobilise him. Go!’
She raised her arms and added her own arc of fire to the conflagration. In moments the sky lit up with searing lines of orange flame, and Res’na took a startled step backwards as they hissed against his snout. Clusters of glittering ice sprouted into existence at the tops of the god’s legs, slowing him down, and Xinian felt a fierce moment of triumph as the god reared back, shaking his head like a dog with a porcupine quill in its nose. When he came crashing back down one giant paw landed on the roof of the building in front of them.
‘Look out!’
The top two floors of the building exploded, sending a shower of brick and splintered wood down on them. There was a shout from Selsye and the barrier over them thrummed with increased energy – the worst of the debris bounced clear, but a few men and women at the edge were caught by smaller pieces of rock. One woman climbed back to her feet, her face covered in a sheet of blood from a scalp wound, but the man next to her stayed sprawled on the cobbles, a shard of wood protruding from his chest. Above them, Res’na shifted in the wreckage, bringing his great head around to focus on them again.
‘More fire!’ Xinian bellowed, sending a fireball flying up even as she spoke. It hissed against the god’s white fur. ‘Keep him back and keep him distracted!’
A flurry of fire briefly blotted out her view of the god and she heard Selsye shouting more instructions to her mages. The sky was the luminous deep blue now of early dawn, and Xinian felt a wave of desperation. When would the trap be activated? Would they have to hold off the gods all day? She opened her mouth to issue more commands, when a wave of force crashed into her from her right side. Taken unawares, she dived to the ground, shouting with pain as her elbow struck the cobbles.
‘You should be in the dungeon at Lan-Hellis!’
Scarcely able to believe it, she looked up to see Reis marching towards her from one of the side streets. He had around twenty mages at his back, all wearing the colours of his service. Incredibly, he did not look at the gods destroying the city around him, but at her. His eyes were wild with hate.
‘Reis?’ Xinian climbed warily to her feet.
‘I have issued a warrant for your arrest!’ He marched up to her and glared around at the other mages in the square. ‘This woman is an outlaw! Why do none of you seek to detain her?’
‘We have been somewhat busy,’ said Xinian faintly. The man looked unwell; his eyes were bloodshot and were bulging out of his head, his robes were dirty, and there was a smudge of grime on his cheek. This was not the man she had known and served for so many years. ‘Reis, this is not the time—’
‘I will not speak to you, agent of the gods!’ With that he threw another wave of pure force at her, but she was faster, erecting her own field of force and throwing it back at him. He fell back, confused that she was even capable of such a thing, and she finally saw how much weaker he had become. Pressing her advantage, she lifted her hand and summoned a localised blizzard, welding his boots to the spot.
‘Enough, Reis.’ Behind and above them, the fight against Res’na went on. She could hear Selsye shouting orders to both groups now, taking over without question. She felt a surge of love for her, and savoured it. ‘There is no time for this.’ With Xinian standing over him, the man cowered as though he didn’t know where he was. ‘I officially relieve you of command.’
He lifted his hands ready to send another barrage of Edenier, his face twisting with hate. Xinian reached down with her hand, grabbed a fistful of his robe and brought her head down sharply to meet his nose. There was a satisfying crunch and Reis sagged in her grip. She dropped him to the cobbles and eyed his men, a smear of his blood across her forehead.
‘You lot. Get into formation, if you know what’s good for you.’
Soaring high above the city, Wydrin peered over Feveroot’s shoulder and felt her stomach turn over. The view was dizzying enough – the demon had taken her up high at her request, so that they might get an overview of the gods’ attack – but the scale of the destruction already being visited on Krete turned her blood cold. Y’Gria for her part appeared to be concentrating her efforts on murdering the people fleeing in the streets, her roots surging after the tiny figures like a long dry river rushing to fill its banks, while Res’na and Res’ni were delighting in a wider sense of destruction. Walls and buildings fell, so that Wydrin’s view was partially obscured by great clouds of red and grey dust.
‘Where first?’ Feveroot’s voice thrummed through the red slashes on his torso and wings.
Wydrin bit her lip. ‘There are so many attractive options, it’s hard to say. Here, look.’ She pointed down towards Res’na, where half-moons of bright orange flame were exploding into existence in front of his long snout. ‘The mages are keeping him nicely distracted for us. Let’s approach the bastard from behind, and hopefully he’ll never know we were there.’
Feveroot dived and Wydrin clung to his neck with one arm, while her other hand slid inside the leather satchel in her lap. A quick glance and she had her fingers around the target marked with Res’na’s name, while Feveroot brought them round in a wide circle, skirting the very edge of the city wall before curving in to approach Res’na’s back.
‘That’s it, that’s it,’ murmured Wydrin. ‘Nice and quiet. Bring me in as low as you can.’
Below them was now a landscape of strange white fur. Up close, it seemed to glow with its own inner light, and it looked oddly glassy, not soft at all. Up ahead, Res’na’s huge pointed ears were angled forward, the ruff around his neck standing up on end. The mages were still sending showers of fire up into the god’s face, and as they watched he shook his head in irritation.
‘Now,’ said Wydrin urgently. ‘While he’s thinking of something else.’
Feveroot in his griffin form dropped like a stone, bringing Res’na’s white fur abruptly closer. Sliding the target from the bag Wydrin leaned out and over, holding on to Feveroot with her legs. She stretched and slapped the skin down, her fingers brushing the white surface of the god – it wasn’t warm and furry at all, but cold and slick, like crystal – and saw the mages’ words on the target glow briefly with yellow light as they sank into the surface. She was still grinning at how easy it had been when Res’na’s great head whipped round to snap at them, like a dog stung by a bee.
Wydrin yelped as Feveroot flew up and away, twisting desperately out of the god’s reach as jaws as long as her mother’s ships crashed shut inches away from them. There was a blast of hot, fetid breath and a glance of eyes like violet moons, and then they were falling away. Luckily at that moment there was a blast of fresh flames from the mages and the god turned back, just as Feveroot swooped down, diving to street level to take them out of view.
‘Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?’ gasped Wydrin, slapping the demon companionably on the flank. She wondered if her stomach would ever come back down from its new location in her throat. ‘Who’s next?’
91
The device crackled
with energy, white and green lights peeling across its surface like beads of condensation on a kettle. Frith felt his hair trying to stand on end.
‘It’s finished,’ breathed Joah.
Frith sat back, watching as the trap he had built for the gods began to fill with its own energy, drawing off the pure Edeian placed inside it and the demon’s words etched on its warped surface. There was a great deal of power surging inside the thing, a result of the merging of so many forms of magic. He could feel it pressing against his mind, and like the Edenier trap, it was difficult to look at.
‘Yes,’ agreed Frith, eventually. He realised he felt relieved. The thing was done, and he would only have to touch it again to turn it on. And once the gods were in here, it would be lost for ever, along with them. He stood up and looked away from it, rubbing his eyes as if he’d been staring into the sun.
‘This is extraordinary.’ Joah still knelt in front of the device, his hands resting lightly on its surface. ‘Do you realise what we have made here? Such a combination of magics has barely even been imagined, let alone created. This will lead to other, extraordinary creations. We have the power now to remove Edenier and store it.’ Joah laughed, delighted. ‘We will be the greatest mages who ever lived.’
Frith closed his eyes for a moment. He had heard Joah say words like those before.
‘No,’ he said, and as he said it, a wave of relief crashed over him. He was, in the end, not like Joah. Ambition and the thirst for power did not obliterate everything else in his heart. He was still capable of that choice. ‘No, Joah. When I walk away from here, you will not see me again.’ He knew that wasn’t exactly true, but he dearly wished it was. He wondered if the Joah he would meet in the future would know him, but he thought not. Over a thousand years of death could cloud anyone’s mind, and Joah had never been especially clear on his past. ‘Everything I know will go with me, and this device,’ he gestured at the trap without looking at it, ‘will be closed off to you, too. I will not help you.’
