They reached a large crossroads, and Killop saw the vast shells of the imperial palace and the cathedral, both derelict ruins that covered acres of space within the walls. Immense heaps of rubble lay piled by their gutted and flame-scorched carcasses.
‘That’s what your sister did,’ Daphne said, seeing where he was looking, ‘the last time she was here.’
‘This doesn’t feel right,’ Chane said. ‘No soldiers, no church wardens. I thought there’d be someone in authority to check us coming in.’
‘They must all be in the Kellach quarter,’ Daphne said.
‘That’s what worries me,’ Chane said. ‘Why would every soldier be sent there, unless they knew Keira was in the city? I can’t think of any other reason why the Emperor would abandon the rest of it.’
They took the left-hand street at the crossroads, and headed through a large open marketplace, its stalls empty and deserted. Behind it loomed a high wall, its stonework rough and irregular compared to the smooth ashlar blocks of masonry that comprised the other great walls of the city.
‘That’s the old Emergency Wall,’ Daphne said as they strode towards it, ‘built when Agang brought his army to the city two years ago. It separates the Kellach quarter from the New Town.’
They paused as a gatehouse came into view. Dozens of soldiers were clustered at the great double doors that led through to the Kellach quarter. A barricade had been constructed, and Killop could hear the sounds of violence coming from the other side. His hand went to the hilt of his sword, and he had to force himself not to charge the gates.
There were no civilians within a hundred yards of the wall, and several of the soldiers were staring in their direction. Daphne turned, and began to walk towards the other side of the market.
‘We’re not getting through that way,’ she said, as Killop raised an eyebrow, ‘but there are other ways in.’
Killop gazed up. The sun was breaking over the eastern horizon, and daylight was revealing more of the damage. Smoke filled the sky above, and with no wind, the great towers of soot and ash were combining into a dark cloud over the city. In the streets, the fires were growing, burning unchecked and spreading from house to house.
Daphne coughed, and tied a strip of cloth over her face as the smoke thickened.
‘This way,’ she said, and set off down the road, Killop and Chane a step behind her. Daphne raced away from the Emergency Wall and towards an enormous fortress ahead, which seemed to Killop to be the only undamaged building left in the city. Its high walls stood firm and solid amid the destruction, and a great banner was flying from its tallest tower, displaying the imperial star. As they got closer he realised that every opening on the walls of the fortress had been blocked up, except for the upper storey, where light was coming out of a series of narrow windows.
‘Where are we going?’ he said.
‘On the other side of the Great Fortress, there’s a gate leading to the Old Town,’ Daphne said. ‘We can try to access the Kellach quarter from there.’
‘Is that where he lives?’ Killop said, glancing up at the fortress. ‘In there?’
She nodded.
They passed the fortress and reached a wide street, filled with civilians making their way towards the gates to get out of the city. All of them were Holdings, and many looked dazed and frightened, clutching onto bundles of possessions as they trudged along the road.
Daphne ploughed into them, pushing her way against the flow of people. They turned a corner and Killop saw the gates ahead, leading into the city’s Old Town. It was blocked with civilians trying to flee. A great mass of Holdings were pushing and cramming through the opening in the wall, all attempting to get into the New Town.
‘Fuck,’ said Chane, pausing to catch her breath. ‘How are we getting through there?’
Daphne, Killop and Chane shoved their way to the side of the road to get out of the press of folk heading in the opposite direction, and reached the eaves of a line of shops, all boarded up.
‘What’ll we do?’ said Chane.
‘I’m thinking,’ Daphne said.
Killop gazed around, wishing he knew the layout of the city. He had once seen a map of it on the Holdfast estate, but had paid it no attention at the time. He swore. So close to his daughter, yet it felt like she was a hundred miles away.
‘Are your powers back?’ he said to Daphne.
‘I’ll check,’ she said. Her eyes went hazy, then she nodded. ‘Kick in the door for me.’
Chane and Daphne stood clear, and Killop battered it down. They entered, and Daphne found a chair, and wiped the dust from it.
‘Cover me while I take a look,’ she said, sitting.
Chane took up position by the door, and Killop crouched next to Daphne, her eyes clouding over again. Killop took a long, slow breath, his heart pounding. He glanced down at his fingers, feeling his own power back. Keira’s must have returned by now as well, he thought, if she was still alive.
Daphne let out a cry of pain and terror and flew back off the chair, landing on her back on the stone floor. Killop raced to her side.
She opened her eyes, groaning.
‘What happened?’ he said. ‘Are you alright?’
‘The Creator,’ she gasped. ‘He sees us. He knows where we are.’ She sat up. ‘He’s coming.’
‘Karalyn?’ Killop said. ‘Did you see her?’
Daphne shook her head, and scrambled to her feet. ‘No. Or Keira. I was searching the Kellach quarter when the Creator entered my mind.’ She stared at him. ‘He’s more powerful than I believed possible. He could have killed me in an instant.’ She shuddered. ‘I’ve never felt so weak, so vulnerable.’
‘We need to get out of here,’ cried Chane. ‘We have to hide.’
‘It’s no use,’ Daphne said. ‘I can still feel traces of his power in my head. He’ll see me wherever I go.’
Killop took her hand.
‘Then we fight,’ he said. ‘We go down fighting the bastard if we have to.’
‘He wants me alive,’ she said, her eyes more full of despair than he had ever seen before. ‘He told me what he wants to do, what his plan for me is…’
‘Fuck his plan,’ Killop said.
‘I don’t want him to take me alive, Killop,’ she whispered.
He gazed into her green eyes. ‘It won’t come to that.’
‘Come on, guys,’ Chane cried. ‘We can talk about this shit later. We need to go.’
Killop pulled Daphne along by her hand to the door. She seemed to be in a daze, as if the Creator had dulled her mind, or filled it with hopelessness. Outside, the street was as packed as before, with hundreds of Holdings civilians moving out from the gates to the Old Town on their left.
‘Let’s mix in with them,’ Chane said. ‘He’ll never see us among this lot.’
‘You don’t understand…’ said Daphne, as Killop led her along. They moved into the crowd, allowing it to shepherd them away from the gates. On either side of the road the collapsed streets loomed in the morning sunshine, and smoke lay in thick pockets. A fire was raging unchecked a street away to their left, tearing through the stone tenement blocks.
He heard a scream in the distance behind him, and turned. He squinted through the smoke at the Old Town wall, and saw an enormous figure standing upon the battlements. His right hand was raised, and the screams intensified. The crowd panicked as the cries grew louder and nearer, and groups tried to shove their way forwards. Killop pulled Daphne close as the masses of civilians tried to run. Chane was separated from them in the crush of folk, and Killop lost sight of her in the panic. The screaming grew closer, and he saw the reason. Like a ripple on a pool of water, a wave of power was spreading over the crowd, and wherever it reached people were falling, clutching their chests in agony, and lying still on the road in heaps.
Killop put his arms round Daphne and braced himself as the wave reached where they stood, but it passed them, felling every civilian on either side, and continuing up the street. Ki
llop stared at the hundreds of bodies carpeting the road, his legs frozen to the spot. He and Daphne were they only two standing. His eyes scanned for any sign of Chane, but there was nothing but piles and heaps of corpses.
The Creator approached, striding through the carnage, a good head taller than any Kellach Brigdomin.
Killop drew his sword. Next to him, Daphne did the same, her eyes defiant.
The Creator laughed.
‘Daphne Holdfast. I should have known that a cliff’s edge wouldn’t stop you. And Killop of Kell, partner of Daphne and brother of Keira, you’re also a mage? A mere sparker, but still, I’ll take what I can get.’
He halted ten yards from them, his black armour burnt and smoking. Patches of blood covered his shoulder guard, and there was a hole punctured through the right eye socket of his mask.
‘What are you waiting for?’ said Daphne, her sword held high. ‘Come and get us.’
‘You won’t be dying today, Daphne,’ the Creator said. ‘Tomorrow perhaps, but not today.’
Daphne glanced at Killop
‘I meant what I said before,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t let him take me.’
Killop stared at her, unable to put what he was feeling into words. He nodded, then turned to face the Creator, his knuckles white on the hilt of his sword.
The Creator raised his arms. His fingers splayed out, and he grunted in effort.
Around them, the heaps of bodies began to move. An arm juddered, a leg, then gasps of breath as the dead took in their first air for several minutes. Killop and Daphne stared as scores of corpses heaved themselves to their feet. Their eyes were empty, their mouths open, their arms hanging loose by their sides.
The Creator waved his hand, and the dead turned to face him.
‘Take them,’ he said. ‘Alive.’
Without a sound, the raised dead lunged at Killop and Daphne, reaching with their arms to grab them.
Killop slashed out with his sword, severing hands and cleaving a man in two, as behind him Daphne did the same. The dead were slow, but had no fear, and advanced from every direction. Killop’s sword arm swung again and again, spraying blood across the ground and slicing the undead into pieces, but still they came. Unarmed, they clutched at his clothes and hair, some crawled and took hold of his legs. He kicked out, and struggled, picking one up by the throat and hurling him through the air.
At his back he could hear Daphne start to toil, and he remembered her words.
He turned, pushing away more arms as they reached for him, and saw Daphne two yards to his right, surrounded by raised Holdings peasants, drowning in their midst. At the edge of the mob he saw Chane. Her eyes were dead, and she was advancing like the others, scrambling over the bodies of those that Daphne had sent to their deaths for a second time. Daphne saw her too, and turned to face Killop. He caught her eye, and they stared for a moment at each other. Killop tried to lift his sword arm, but a dozen hands were pulling it down. He raged and writhed as more piled on top of him. His head hit the ground as he toppled over under the weight, and his eyes closed.
Killop felt a spark blast through his mind and he cried out in pain, awakening. He opened his eyes. He was hanging by his arms from chains attached to a hook in the ceiling, his feet inches off the ground. The room was small, and there were old stains of dried blood on the walls and floor. A window was lying open to his left and he glanced out. He was somewhere high up, overlooking the burning and ruined city. The upper floor of the fortress, it had to be. From the light outside it was still daytime, but there was too much smoke hovering above the city to be more exact.
He had failed Daphne, and allowed her to be captured alive, but at that moment he was glad. If she was alive then there was still hope. He remembered the way the Creator had been able to raise the dead, and hold them to his will, and any hope he had faded. The Emperor, or Creator, whoever the being was, it now had more power than every mage in the world combined. If he wasn’t a god before, he was one now.
He cursed Kylon’s name, and hoped his sister had killed him.
His chains rattled as he tried to relieve the pressure on his arms. His shoulders were in agony, and his wrists were on fire where the iron bands dug into his skin. He tried to raise himself, straining with the muscles in his arms, pulling his body up, and he lifted his head as far as his bending elbows, but it was too much, and he fell back, jolting his shoulders and back.
He heard a low laugh.
‘You are most amusing to watch,’ the Creator said from the shadows of the room. ‘Other races would weep or despair, but my mighty mountain warriors keep going, no matter how awful the odds. I made you well.’
Killop said nothing.
‘I can see the spark power burning within you,’ the Creator went on, ‘just as I can now see every mage in the world, wherever they may be. All except one.’
He emerged from the shadows, clad in a fresh set of shining black armour, the jet enamel tracery gleaming in the light from the window. He still wore the same mask as before, and Killop could see his bloodshot right eye through the ragged hole.
‘As you are her brother,’ he said. ‘I thought it prudent to read your mind, to see if you knew her whereabouts, but that only raised more questions than it answered. Questions that I need you to be awake for. Answer me, and your death will be quick. Obstruct me, and you will suffer.’
He came closer, to within a few feet.
‘Do you understand?’
Killop lifted his head, and spat at him.
The Creator laughed.
‘Someone has tampered with your mind,’ he said, ‘and made certain memories impossible for me to read. I see them in there, but when I try to grasp them, they slip from my reach like fish in a river, glinting just beyond my touch.’
Killop tried to blank his thoughts, but they flashed to his daughter, and how she had repaired his mind long before.
The Creator gazed at Killop and smiled. ‘You know of what I speak. Good. Yet even now, while your foolish mind is remembering it, I cannot read you. So, you must tell me. Who did this? And don’t say Daphne. I have already read her mind, and know she is incapable of such a subtle use of power.’
Killop laughed.
The Creator narrowed his eyes and lifted his fingers.
Excruciating pains ripped through Killop’s body and he convulsed, shaking like a ragdoll from the chains, his head lolling as every nerve within him burned.
The Creator lowered his fingers and the pain ceased.
‘Now answer me, or I will do that again. And again.’
Killop opened his mouth, blood and saliva rolling down his chin.
‘You lost Keira,’ he gasped. ‘That’s funny.’
He screamed as the pains shredded him again, and he longed to lose consciousness.
There’s no escape, the Creator said in his mind. I can keep you awake through the worst pain imaginable. Tell me who meddled with your brain, and it will end.
The agony eased, and Killop swung from the chains, his head bowed.
‘Well?’ said the Creator.
Killop said nothing.
‘I see that you think I need to keep you alive,’ the Creator said. ‘That is the hope sustaining you. You think I need you for the ritual.’ He smirked. ‘You’re wrong. I don’t need you or your sister. A young fire mage happens to be approaching the city at this very moment, along with the other mages I require. After scouring the earth for them, now I find I need only sit here, and they all come to me.’
The Creator stared at Killop. ‘Now that’s funny.’
He laughed. ‘And now you despair. I feel it. Good. Know that there is no hope. One more ritual, that’s all it will take. My mind encompasses all things, and so now I see how close I am to my goal, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me. All you can do is lessen your suffering.’
He raised his hand.
‘So,’ he said, ‘are you ready to answer my question?’
Killop spat out a mouthful of bloo
d. ‘I can take whatever you throw at me. You can burn me, flay me, shred my mind, but I’ll never help you. Deep down you know it’s true. After all, you made me, didn’t you?’
The Creator narrowed his eyes, and the pain began again.
Chapter 35
Down to Earth
Outside Plateau City, Imperial Plateau – 19th Day, Second Third Winter 507
‘Dolphins,’ said Laodoc, gazing out of one of the carriage’s round windows at the waters of the Inner Sea as they sped past. ‘How wonderful.’
‘Why?’ said Shella, squinting through the glass. ‘Are they tasty?’
‘They are beautiful creatures,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine eating one.’
‘I can,’ she said. ‘They’re huge. Could feed a family for a week. Maybe we could stop and try one.’
‘No,’ said Agang from the other side of the carriage. ‘We’ll be in Plateau City by this evening. We don’t have time to stop.’
‘I thought you were sleeping,’ she said, ‘or maybe I just hoped you were.’
Laodoc frowned. The bickering between the pair had increased since they had begun travelling within the close confines of the carriage. Although they stopped and camped each day at sunset, they spent most of their waking hours within the narrow wooden tube, hurtling over land and water. For the first couple of days, Laodoc had nearly exhausted himself by taking the controls, but the Kellach women were quick learners, and soon Bridget, Dyam and Lola were taking turns to pilot the vessel. They had also navigated, using the sun, and the position of the seven stars to plot their way north-west, towards the imperial capital.
Laodoc smiled. It was strange, but he felt free, as if no matter what awaited them in the city everything would be alright. They would either defeat the Emperor or die in the attempt, and he was at peace with whatever fate ordained.
‘Maybe we should stop,’ Shella said, ‘then we’d be fresh in the morning when we arrived.’
Agang sighed. ‘What? You mean we’ve raced all this way, just to ease up at the last stretch? Every day matters, Shella. You know that.’
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