by Will Wight
Why hadn’t they?
“Here’s another question,” Lucan said, still tight with contained anger. “If they knew about this device, why didn’t they tell us?”
Shera considered that perhaps the High Council didn’t know about the Optasia, but she laughed it away almost immediately. Of course they knew. The Consultants knew everything.
Lucan pulled off a glove, running his hand along the wall. “These catacombs are more than fifteen hundred years old. Walls don’t hold much Intent; they’re not actually used for anything, so they only get invested when they’re built or when something very significant happens.”
He tapped his finger on the stone as though to punctuate a point. “But there’s a lot that can happen in fifteen hundred years. And it’s a big island. I might be able to dig something up.”
Shera hesitated a moment. This was the sort of time when you were supposed to touch someone, she thought. Reassurance by proximity, or something like that.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Be careful,” she said.
He glanced over at his shoulder, and for some reason, he looked more amused than anything.
Yala stuck her head into the hallway, face tight. “Lucan, you’re needed. Zhen has nothing to destroy the Heart.”
Lucan tugged his glove back on and gestured to Shera. “She does.”
Yala looked at her. “Does she?”
In turn, she looked at Lucan. “Do I?”
“Of course you do.” He pointed at her waist, where the handle of her shear stuck out. “You have the blade that killed the Emperor.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kerian had thought they were ready. The Navigator ships had been visible on the horizon, approaching slowly, and they had a number of Architects dedicated to calculating their most likely approach. The Gray Island was strewn with traps, and they had every battle-capable Consultant ready for war. The Miners had sealed the vaults, and awaited retreat in the hold of Bastion's Shadow. Every Gardener they could contact had been withdrawn to defend the island, and Shera had been aimed and released like an arrow. Everything that could be done had been done.
Then a giant bird winged its way from one of the Navigator ships, its feathers glistening like diamonds in the sunlight, and Kerian's heart had seized up. She shouted for fighters to protect her and the contents of her satchel, and considered fading away into the woods. If she'd thought it would do any good, she would have done it. When two figures dropped from the back of the Windwatcher, one in a black coat and one in black-and-red armor, she wasted no time.
The glass box came out, and she placed her hand on the top.
Once again, she felt that sensation of being a Reader—her mind expanded, swirling on the mists like a leaf in the wind, and a not-quite-audible voice asked her for instructions.
Cover the island, she commanded, and Bastion's Veil collapsed inward. It was like watching from the inside while an enormous slate-gray building fell in on itself, and even though she knew what was happening, she still had a moment of panic while her body tried to convince her mind that she was about to be crushed by a thousand tons of stone.
The mist fell, and the two Guild Heads dropped down into it. They fell close enough to Kerian that she could hear their landing, one a deafening explosion as though a meteor had crashed to earth, and the other a light tap.
“Oh dear,” one said, the voice of a little girl. “It certainly is hard to see.”
“Eyes up, mouth shut,” another voice said, older.
“No, no, Jarelys. It's times like this when you have to state the obvious. It's like saying, 'Take a lantern, it's dark out there' when everyone already knows the sun is down. I'm quite sure now is one of those times.”
The older woman hissed something, and the girl sighed.
Two Guild Heads: Bliss of the Blackwatch and Jarelys Teach of the Imperial Guard. Kerian sunk down into a crouch, ignoring the agonizing pain in her gimped knee, and took a shear into each hand. She left the box lying on the ground, creeping around to hide in the mist until she could barely see the Vessel. She was a Gardener still, even if she wasn't as young as she wished and she only had one good leg to work with. Even General Teach could die, if she had her throat slashed from behind.
Or so Kerian hoped.
She was risking Bastion’s Vessel by using the glass box as bait, but it was the only thing she had. Her other option was to run, which would only end in her own inevitable and pointless death.
Around her, hazy outlines marked trees, bushes, and Consultants prepared to defend her. Together, they waited for the Guild Heads to move forward.
A silhouette loomed over her in the mist, and a figure in a coat brushed through the mist and into view. Could it be Bliss? The form pushed past Kerian, oblivious, and she actually took a step forward to drive her shear into the newcomer’s back before she saw him clearly.
Jorin Maze-walker walked over to the box, coat jangling and hat on his head. The smoke from his pipe blended with the cloud all around him, and he was still wearing those ridiculous black-tinted glasses.
Kerian hurriedly scrambled back into hiding, though it made her feel slightly better as she saw several other shadows returning to their positions. At least she wasn't the only Consultant who'd jumped at the false bait.
One of the nearby shadows held a sword, and wasn't quite as stealthy as the others, so she crept over toward it. If it was an enemy, she could kill him before he saw her, and if it wasn’t...well, Consultants rarely carried swords. And she could think of a few uses for a Luminian knight in the near future.
She crept closer to the new figure. As she did, Jorin began to speak.
“Let's not hide ourselves,” the Regent called out. “Tyrfang should have recognized me as soon as your feet touched the island, and I'll jump like a golden frog before I miss a sword I forged myself.”
It had nothing to do with her, but Kerian still kept an ear out. A battle between Regent and Guild Heads might provide her with an excellent distraction, if Teach fell for his provocation.
After seconds of silence, General Teach strode into view. She wore a helmet this time, and she carried her sheathed sword cradled in one arm. Much like Jorin carried his own, Kerian noticed. His was wrapped in bandages, but he had it tucked under his arm like a knight with a lance.
And speaking of knights...
She crept a little closer to the silhouette with the sword, until the mist parted and revealed him: a man in silver armor, his helmeted face in shadows. Knight-Adjunct Darius Allbright. She'd met the man only briefly, but she knew him by reputation.
“Listen to me,” she said, as softly as she could. His sword twitched toward her, but he neither attacked her nor made a sound, which counted in his favor. “Eventually, they’ll move for the box.”
She gestured to the glass box lying on the ground, and Darius nodded slightly. “I hope Regent Jorin can distract them, but while he does, I’ll be heading for the box myself. I’d appreciate your help.”
“I won't be able to do much,” Darius said, just above a whisper.
“I don't need you to distract them for long.” I don't need you to live for long was what she meant, but it sounded better this way.
Jorin and Teach had exchanged some words that Kerian missed, but the Regent was speaking. “...and that's the truth that's fit to print. How about your friend, though? I can still sense the Spear of Tharlos, even through this mist.”
“She's here,” Teach said. “I apologize, but Bliss won't show herself just because you order it. Consider her our emergency measures to ensure—”
“Hello, sir,” Bliss said.
Teach's helmeted head turned, very slowly, to face her fellow Guild Head.
The Head of the Blackwatch was a young woman, though Kerian found she had trouble assigning an exact age to her. At first glance, she would have said eighteen or nineteen, though a second later she revised that to twenty-two or twenty-three. Then Bliss began rocking back and forth between the so
les of her feet and her toes, and Kerian wondered if she might actually be no older than twelve. The Watchman wore a black coat that covered her from neck to ankles, with silver buttons running in a row down the center, and her hair was as pale as Ayana's.
Jorin took his pipe out of his mouth and shook it in Bliss’s direction. “Slay my soul, they're getting better and better at making your kind. Makes me regret all the years I missed. How long did it take them to grow you, little daughter?”
Bliss sniffed. “That's rude. I was born, not grown, thank you. In a manner of speaking. And I am the culmination of a hundred years of research and development.”
“More than that, I would think,” Jorin said, scrutinizing her. “It was the alchemists, wasn't it? This new boy, Bareius?”
“I no longer recognize Nathanael Bareius as my father,” Bliss said, and her voice had grown cold. “Please do not mention him again.”
Teach was moving to flank Jorin, one hand on the hilt of her sword and the other on its sheath. She was ready to draw. “Regent Jorin, I implore you to stand aside. We're attempting to stop a civil war before it starts.”
“You're five years too late for that, if I haven't missed my dice. But it doesn't have to devolve into open bloodshed. Let the four of us guide you forward. We know a bit about how the world can be without the Empire.”
“The three of you,” Teach corrected.
Bliss narrowed her eyes at his words. “I may not have seen the Elder War, but I know what I know. And we will last longer with someone on the throne. The Great Elders want to destroy the Empire, so I will keep it going.”
Jorin chewed on his pipe, eyes following Teach. Though he didn’t look at Bliss, he responded to the girl’s words. “Will you, now? And if the Elders were all so set against us, how did we last as long as we did?”
The girl in the black coat frowned, considering, and Teach took that moment to draw her sword.
The legendary weapon Tyrfang had a black blade, with an irregular current of red light running down the center like a glowing channel of blood. Its aura chilled Kerian’s blood, giving her a shiver of fear as though she stared at her own noose. Her breaths came short and quickly. Her chest squeezed tighter and tighter, a sharp pain grew at the back of her neck, and she couldn’t seem to peel her eyes from the red-veined black steel.
Jorin pulled his own sword free to meet the blow, bandages falling away in an instant, and everything got so much worse.
This blade wasn't black, it was rotten. Rust of corrosion darkened one edge, the green of infected flesh the other. Channels of darkness and purple miasma crawled over its surface like maggots on a corpse. Teach struck, so did Jorin, and when the two swords met, a wave of darkness blasted out like smoke.
Grass shriveled and blackened at Kerian’s feet, and a nearby tree cracked as it snapped in half under its own weight. Black figures fell to the ground around her as Consultants died.
Weakness gripped Kerian’s muscles and she dropped her shears, vision fuzzing around the edges, but something stopped the black wave before it swallowed her.
She used all her strength to look up, and saw an armored figure rising with its back to her, holding a shining sword in front of him. The dark wave split around him like a river around a stone.
But the flow didn't stop. Darkness and death crashed out again and again, stealing life, felling more trees from a distance, each clash of blades grating on her ears like the death-wail of a specter.
The light of Darius' sword flickered, and he dropped to one knee. Just when the darkness closed in around Kerian again, stretching out a hand to claw at her throat, the sounds of battle abruptly faded, the pressure lifting. It was as though the fight had been carried somewhere else.
The expanse of gray cloud grew quiet, and within only a few seconds, they were alone.
No sound invaded the mist except Kerian and Darius both gasping for breath. The sword fell from his hand, and he dropped to his hands and knees, gulping in air.
“Thank you,” Kerian said, voice raw.
“What lovely weather we're having,” Darius said. Then he shook himself like a dog. “I'm sorry, I go a little crazy when I'm struggling face-to-face with death itself. Weren't you supposed to go for that box?”
Kerian could barely fight to her feet, but she managed it, even scooping her shears up from where they'd fallen. She hobbled forward, still fighting off the memory of the clashing auras. Death and decay slid around beneath her skin, like a layer of filth that could never wash off, horror lurking like a predator breathing just behind her shoulder...
She had to step over four Consultant bodies as she picked her way forward. Every tree she touched was withered, its leaves lying black and lifeless, every bush blighted. The clash of Regent and Guild Head had left the land dead. Even the grass crunched with every step.
Finally she arrived at the box, though it sat only a few yards away. It seemed like a mile. She moved to pick it up.
A swirl of the mist revealed Bliss standing over it, one hand reaching into the inner pocket of her coat. “This is a nice box. I like it, but I'm sorry I have to take it.”
When a snake was startled, it struck. Kerian had been trained in much the same way. Her shear flashed out, dull bronze flashing in the mist.
The edge struck bone.
In an instant, Bliss unfolded a bone spear taller than she was. It was yellowed and irregular, thicker at the base and flattened to a sharp point at the tip, and she ground it against the earth with one hand. There was no way it should have been at any angle to deflect Kerian's attack.
But it had. Now she was off-balance and flailing, facing the Head of the Blackwatch.
She would likely have died in that moment, but a half-dozen pops sounded in the woods, muffled by distance. Musket shots.
Sand sprayed in Bliss' face, and she sputtered and spat, swiping at her mouth with the back of one hand.
Kerian took the opening to flee, grabbing the glass box and hobbling away as fast as her knee would allow.
“That's not very considerate!” Bliss called. The only response was another round of musket fire, but these turned to flower petals before they reached her.
Darius joined Kerian, steadying her as she moved over the irregular ground. “The Spear lets her change things. Anything we throw at her will be transformed, even bullets. I once saw a man...” He shook his head. “Well, you were lucky you didn't get to stab her. If it weren’t for this mist, she could kill us from here. We have to retreat, if we can.”
“The mist is weakening her,” Kerian said, nodding to the box.
“That won’t do us any good if she catches us.”
Yala appeared out of nowhere, her gray-blond hair tied up behind her, followed by a dozen Masons with guns. “Move faster, Gardener!”
Now wasn't the time to argue about Yala's tone. Kerian hobbled faster.
Whether Bliss could sense them or not, the mist should be confusing her, and of course it would limit her vision. On the Gray Island, that meant they would lose her in seconds. It was almost impossible to cross the island without getting lost under normal conditions, and with the mist and the traps, the Consultants had the clear advantage.
After the first minute, Kerian relaxed. The Emperor himself wouldn't be able to follow them now. The group slowed, Masons spreading out to cover their advance, Yala and Darius staying with Kerian and the box.
There came a scream from up above, and mist thinned at their approach. Bliss stood there, spear in both hands and an annoyed expression on her face. “I was trying to be polite. You're making that very difficult, and I don't appreciate it.” At her feet was a...mass. Kerian couldn't identify it, but it was reddish pink and it squirmed.
She felt certain that, a few seconds ago, it had been a screaming man.
“Surround and delay,” Yala ordered, and her men vanished.
Bliss flicked the tip of her spear with one finger, then spun the weapon in place. “I will try for minimal casualties,” she sa
id. “But that’s not a promise.”
Then she hurled the spear like a javelin. Straight at Kerian.
Kerian rolled, curling the box under her body, even as Darius stepped into the path. He raised his sword to block, but the Spear of Tharlos twisted in midair. It slipped over his shoulder on its path to Kerian.
It can't be stopped, she realized. But that didn't mean she couldn't try.
She dropped the box and brought up both her shears in a cross, the flat plates of ancient bronze facing outward. Unexpectedly, the spear didn't swerve again; it slammed into her weapons point-first.
The impact was like nothing Kerian had ever felt. Not like the wave of death from Jorin and Teach, but also completely unlike an actual, physical impact. It was as though her entire body rippled, like her essence had dissolved to fuzz. She was turning into something else.
And all of that Intent focused on her two blades.
The spear flipped off, tumbling through the air until a giant hand made of soil lifted up from the ground, catching it in a fist. The hand froze, inanimate earth once more, the Spear of Tharlos in its grip.
As soon as the weapon spun away, Kerian felt the spell lift, but it was too late for her weapons. The invested knives had held up better than she'd expected against the Elder artifact, but not well enough. They had both melted to puddles, but without heat; she held two puddles of cooled, bubble-ridden bronze attached to perfectly intact hilts.
If the weapons hadn't been so significant, they wouldn't have saved her life, but she was still unprepared for the surge of emotion that tore through her upon seeing them ruined. They were just tools, after all, but they still represented her life as a Gardener, her identity as a Consultant. She'd carried them everywhere since she was a girl.
Bliss strolled over to pick up her spear, and Kerian snatched the box. There would be time to reflect later, if she survived.
As the fingers of earth uncurled, leaving the spear sitting on an open palm of soil, Kerian turned and ran. Behind her, she heard the beginnings of an attack as Yala and her men ran at the Guild Head.
