by Ryk E. Spoor
Poplock stared up and wished he could argue, but he could see the way his friends were weakening. They may not even make it to the end of those five minutes.
But . . . “Wait a minute. Say that again.”
“I fear we are—”
“No, no, the rest of it.”
“Without some other factor?”
That was it. “An outside element!”
He dove into his neverfull pack. Where? Hid it away safe. Where . . . here!
He pulled the matrix off his arm and tugged hard on the prongs. “Come on!”
“I do not know what you think you are going to do,” Hiriista said, taking the ring-shaped Calling Matrix from him, “but I will help.”
The magewright pulled the currently-drained gem from the socket and looked at Poplock’s proffered replacement. “This? It is flawed, and not terribly magical at all. I—”
“Just lock it in!”
The magewright shrugged and took the clear gem with the blackish inclusions. “As you wish.” His taloned fingers delicately repositioned the crystal and pushed just so, and it was seated in the matrix. “It is done.”
Poplock shoved the matrix on his arm again. How would this work? Not attuned, got no time to work through it . . . “By the gift I was given and the hope of the legend, I call you—COME FORTH!”
The gem detonated in a spark of pure white light, spraying sand-sized shards outward to abrade and embed in skin, shattering the Matrix itself, sending a screaming wave of pain through Poplock. Broke . . . my arm. Lost the gem. Stupid, stupid!
But as Hiriista shook his head, they heard another voice, a voice that spoke from the empty air, air that shimmered with pure black night speckled with stars, as though they looked through some spectral gateway to the sky.
“I cross the void beyond the mind; the empty space that circles time. I see where others stumble blind, in search of truths they’ll never find. An alien wisdom is my guide.
“I am . . . the Wanderer.”
From that darkness, gripping his elaborate staff, white light playing about him, the Wanderer stepped, his blond hair shining faintly in the night from the flickers of the desperate combat. “A True Summons, touching on my own essence. I sense it was felt even by my original.” He looked up. “And a desperate enough reason to try it. An Elderwyrm, huh? Should’ve guessed it was something like that in here.”
“I don’t know if you can do anything . . . but you were the only thing I could think of.”
The wizard’s smile flashed out. “Oh, I think I can manage something. Hmm. Twilight Cannon? No, probably not quite bad enough for that. But this is still a very, very bad situation . . .”
For a moment he stood, studying the uneven battle between Dragon and defenders, and then smiled again. “Yes, actually. Time for a spell that I’ve wanted to use for a long time, but wasn’t ever quite appropriate before. Too much collateral damage. But in this case, you’ve already got something giving you plenty of collateral damage. Magewright, have you anything that could convey a message to your friends?”
Hiriista didn’t bother asking how the Wanderer knew what he was, just took out a pair of rings and put them on. “We can speak with two of them using these—it will last but a few minutes, though.”
“That’s all we need.” The Wanderer stepped forward. “Tell them that the Dragon must be confined to the open water, and they must be clear of him.”
Hiriista relayed the message, choosing Miri and Tobimar. “What?” came Tobimar’s voice, edged with exhaustion. “Why? We might manage that for a minute or so, but—”
“Do it, Tobimar!” Poplock said. “Trust me—we’ve got a plan!”
“All right, I’ll trust you. KYRI! Me, you, and Miri are going to wall him in! Miri knows how to do it, a three-sided seal!”
“We’ll run out of strength—”
“We already are! Do it!”
Blue-green, red-gold, and blue-white energies suddenly shimmered from three points as the three combatants darted away—Miri once more standing at the very end of the peninsula, Kyri far off to the right, Tobimar far to the left—and the triple light stretched out, touched, and then grew, a triangular box reaching from the depths of the water to the clouds above. Sanamaveridion snarled and threw himself against the wall, but though they could see sparks travel its length and Miri stagger as though she’d been struck, it held—for the moment.
“This is pointless!” the Dragon roared, half in puzzlement, half in anger. “A minute, perhaps less? And then you will be exhausted!”
“Wanderer . . .” Poplock said.
The youthful-looking mage grinned, a sharp and dangerous expression, and then his face grew grave as he raised the legendary Staff of Stars. “Don’t worry. They don’t have to hold him long.”
“Distant beyond measure, source of every dawn
Blazing in the heavens, hope when all is gone . . .”
Sanamaveridion’s eyes saw the faint white light, and widened. “Wanderer?”
The Dragon redoubled its struggles, suddenly aware that it might well be in danger. Miri staggered and went to one knee, her power streaming out so swiftly that her gigantic form was shrinking. The barrier rippled now like a curtain, and Tobimar and Kyri bobbed like corks in the air . . . but it still held.
“Reach beyond the sky, opening the gate
Bridge the gap ’twixt world and light, heed you now my call . . .”
Abruptly the roiling clouds above were pierced, racing away from the point above Sanamaveridion, and Poplock thought he saw a single faint point of light within the stars, a point starting to brighten.
“From the depths beneath I summon now your fate
Come now, final destroyer, enemy of night—
SUNFALL!”
The point of light suddenly widened, as though a door the size of Kaizatenzei had been opened, and from that door blasted a ravening pillar of inconceivable incandescence, so unbearably bright that Poplock whimpered and shielded his outraged eyes and Hiriista gave vent to a pained hiss. The column of pure distilled destruction smashed into Sanamaveridion, spanning him from wingtip to wingtip, and the scream of the Elderwyrm shattered every remaining window in the city, a scream that was as abruptly cut off.
Poplock peeked from beneath his good arm and felt his mouth drop open.
Towering above the lake, rising in still-flaming glory, a massive fireball trailed a stem of steam and smoke and incandescence, a mushroom cloud that overshadowed the lake.
Of Sanamaveridion, there was no trace.
For several long moments they stood simply looking at the slowly dissipating monument to destruction, and then—as the Wanderer’s summoning bowed and began to disperse—Poplock finally found his voice.
“Someday you have got to teach me how to do that.”
CHAPTER 55
“Don’t go in there now!” Tobimar protested.
“I have to!” Miri said. “There’s no telling when the rest of the Palace will collapse, and there’s one thing I absolutely have to get out of there before that happens.”
“Something that won’t survive the collapse?”
“Maybe. But you know what such a collapse will do. It could take weeks or months to find it, and we’ll have to concentrate most of our work on reaching Wieran’s lab before it finishes collapsing on the Unity Guard.”
Miri sprinted through the slightly-sagging doorway of the Valatar Palace before anyone could raise more objections. My past has to be finished, and I have one more deception to play—this one on the other side.
She couldn’t risk anyone else finding that scroll; even she wasn’t sure of its full capabilities . . . or what it might do to someone not allowed to use it. Besides, if she could recover it, it might have some of the exact answers that Kyri was seeking.
And rescuing the Unity Guard was essential, too; a few were dead or nearly so, but apparently the chamber had not yet completely collapsed. But as soon as the immediate emergency ended and anyone s
tarted examining the bodies closely, there would be horrified questions, and they had to have the right answers for those questions.
Even as she ran up the broken stairs, skipping over gaps in the stonework and trying to ignore the faint groans of the structure and sifting hiss of breaking rock, she made herself relax inwardly. Maybe they won’t forgive me when they find out. But that’s all right; I probably don’t deserve forgiveness. Kyri’s accepted me, and I think that’s more than I could ever have asked for.
Her room had half-collapsed; her bed was crushed under a massive slab. But the large vanity desk was still intact, and on it, the scroll rested, face-down. She snatched it up—
And froze as she saw the cheerful, smiling human face looking out of it, the form used by Viedraverion.
“Why, Ermirinovas, how fortuitous!” he said in his usual calm, friendly tones. “I had almost given up on being able to contact you this day. How are things there?”
Father’s Hells! This was almost the worst possible situation. She wasn’t prepared, she hadn’t even begun to try to figure out how to tell her story. Now she’d have to improvise, and improvised stories were always dangerous.
Remember the cardinal rule of lies: tell as much of the truth as you can. “Not terribly well, to be honest. Your little miracle-worker, the one you found for us? Wieran? He backstabbed us all.”
“You mean he had his own agenda and betrayed you for the power of the Sun of Terian? How shocking.” The lack of surprise in his tones was matched by the lazy smile. “Your outrage would be more justified, I think, had you not been planning to betray him.”
“He wasn’t the major problem. But the resulting conflict unleashed the Dragon, and so I now have a much . . . larger problem.”
“Yet you are speaking with me, so obviously he was dealt with. Which is very impressive.”
“Well, we did not lose all of the power to Wieran. It proved . . . barely sufficient.”
“So, you and Wieran completed your ritual, he betrayed you just before you could do so yourself, and had to use up what you had gained to deal with the Elderwyrm you had yourself led there and imprisoned. Something of the completion of a circle there, I see.”
He is absolutely—and deliberately—infuriating. She didn’t rise to the bait. “Yes, I suppose so. I did have one question: we did not see that assistant, Tashriel, around when Wieran completed his work. Do you know—”
“Oh, yes. He completed his assistance with Wieran and I recalled him immediately. I was a bit concerned with the alchemist’s ultimate intentions, which—I see—were more than adequately founded.”
She nodded. One minor question answered, and so far no problems. “Well, I have other things to work on. What did you want, Viedra?”
“Tsk, tsk, so hasty. But yes, you have your own business to attend. I wanted to let you know that henceforth I may be rather less available. Father’s getting a bit testy, the plan’s looking a bit shabby at the seams, and so on.” The cheerful and casual way in which he said this gave her a crawling sensation up her spine. No one should be so relaxed about failing Father.
“Well, given how things have fallen out, we probably have little need to speak at the moment. I wish you . . . good luck.”
“Oh, wait, one more thing,” Viedra said, holding up his hand.
“As always with you. What?”
The smile widened. “Where is Kalshae? I need to speak with her.”
“Dead.” She didn’t have to work to put anger and loss into the single word. “Wieran’s betrayal cost her everything.”
The smile did not fade. “Oh, I rather think it was something else . . . don’t you, Miri?”
She stiffened. “What?”
The hand suddenly shot out through the scroll and grasped her arm. “I think I’d like the truth now,” he said.
Miri collapsed to the floor, feeling her strength and power drain out of her as though through a broken cup. What . . . how is he doing this? Viedraverion’s stronger than I am, but I should be able to fight it; instead, I’m barely slowing it!
The smile widened, and she thought she saw the teeth glitter unnaturally. “Ahhhh, so very not demonic, my dear. Stunningly human, or more, I think. So that is how it actually played out. Wonderful, wonderful. Exactly as I had hoped.”
She had thought she had faced horror before, but those last words dropped her into a pit of terror such as she had never imagined. “Wh-what? You hoped—”
“I planned on your becoming purified, yes. I expected that it would be you, and not Kalshae, though it could have worked with her too. The entire sequence worked precisely as I had hoped.”
“You’re . . . not . . . Viedraverion . . .” she said slowly, feeling the coldness that was not just from the loss of her powers.
A smile so wide it was now clearly inhuman. “A revelation too late, my dear. No, I am not the prodigal son of the Lord of All Hells. Yet there is a certain . . . kinship between us.”
It dropped its disguise and for one instant Miri saw the truth, knew what implacable and ancient evil grasped her arm now with a hand the size of her forearm, shaggy with fur and armed with talons that could sever her in a gesture, and she tried to scream, but found herself unable to even so much as gasp.
“Oh, do not be so afraid,” he said, and she suddenly wasn’t, feeling confusion rising in her. “I have no intention of killing you, none at all. There mustn’t be the slightest suspicion of anything wrong now. They’ve solved all the problems here, you’re all such good friends, and there’s just a small adjustment I have to make.”
“C-condor . . .”
“Oh, my, yes, you’re quick, even when I’m working on your mind, sorting out the memories and eating the ones you really shouldn’t keep. Condor mustn’t catch up with them yet, and under no circumstances should they even know he exists until he does catch up with them. Everything depends on timing, you know. Proper timing.”
She felt her memories slipping away, fought desperately to hold onto them, but her fading awareness told her that it was hopeless, that she was fighting . . . “L . . . Lightslayer . . .”
“Oh, now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time,” he said, with a trace of some accent she didn’t recognize. “But yes, that is indeed one of mine. A shame you can’t remember that either, because if you could simply tell her who I was, she might just escape the trap.”
The glittering smile was now the entirety of the world. “But you won’t remember enough to tell her anything except what I want you to.”
The world faded away.
Miri started up from the floor. Tripped as I turned. Don’t rush, not in a collapsing building!
She gripped the communication scroll tightly. I got away with it. He doesn’t suspect anything!
Now I can warn them!
Her heart lighter once more, Miri ran as swiftly as she could, towards her new friends.
CHAPTER 56
“Push . . . push . . .” Light Tanvol directed as Kyri, Tobimar, and Miri levered up a huge brace-beam. Tanvol and several Hues and Shades were holding the temporary supports for the building steady. Kyri felt the strain in her arms, her legs, her back. We finished . . . no, Poplock finished, with an incredible summons—that hideous battle, and we’ve been on cleanup for . . . how long? Fourteen hours, at least; look at how high the sun’s risen. But this is the last!
In a way, it had been incredibly fortunate that the vast majority of the Unity Guard had been called in; most of them were still up and working (which means the laboratory hasn’t completely collapsed . . . yet), and their power, speed, and tireless willingness to work meant that they managed to accomplish in hours what might have taken many days, even weeks. Poplock, too, had been invaluable; without the tiny Toad to wriggle down narrow cracks, sensing and hunting, there would be many people still buried under rubble. Now, the only people left trapped . . . would be under the Castle.
“Steady. . . . Almost there . . .”
With a sudden
thunk, the beam seated itself in the notch cut for it. “Done!”
A weary cheer went up all around, and the three of them sagged to the ground. “Oh, thank the Light,” Miri said. “Now maybe we can rest . . . just a little.”
Tobimar nodded his agreement. Despite the hard stone of the street beneath and the pervasive stench of bottom-mud and fire, it was still a taste of the heavens to simply sit and breathe without having to expend any other effort.
“I wish we could allow that, Light Miri,” Tanvol said, and Tobimar looked up to see that the entirety of the Unity Guard was making its way to them—some limping, some with the dragging footsteps of the utterly exhausted, but all of them coming, and their expressions were not comforting. “But before we rest—and then attempt the most dangerous and difficult work of excavating Valatar Castle—there are things that must be explained, serious things.”
Tobimar saw Miri swallow hard, even as she stood and looked with superficial calm at the broad, black-bearded Light. Tobimar stepped up to stand at her side, as did Kyri; Poplock hopped to her shoulder, still favoring his one foreleg despite Kyri’s quick healing of the bone shattered by the explosion of the Wanderer’s crystal. Hiriista stood behind, close enough for support, far enough to give her room.
“Then ask, Tanvol, and I will answer. But I hope the questions will be short and the answers needed not overlong, for we are all bone-weary—as are you.”
Tanvol inclined his head, but his expression was hooded, suspicious. “You have always been one of our most trusted and loved comrades. Yet this . . .” he trailed off, obviously unable to find words for the moment; Tobimar couldn’t blame him.
“. . . This . . . cataclysmic battle, and the events before it, have left me and the others wondering what exactly happened, how all of this could have happened. We remember being gathered to Valatar for a celebration. We remember entering the city . . . but the memories fade from clarity near to sunset. When next we are clear on who we are, we are running up steps from the depths of the Valatar Castle, steps that none of us recall ever having seen. Light Anora is nowhere to be found. And you appear, with a story of Master Wieran having betrayed us somehow, and then that . . . that monster appears from the lake and you send us away . . . to transform into something beyond anything we imagined.”
