The Rot's War (Ignifer Cycle Book 2)

by Michael John Grist

  He looked at his hands through the gritty rain of ash, and saw blue and green fire charging violently after each other. Here was Varial, and Leander, and a lifetime of guilt and hope. Not enough to raise the Saint again, but perhaps enough for what he had planned. Leander had shown him the way.

  He reached out through the veil; it felt thin now, jagged and frail as if the very fabric of the world was fraying from his many passages through it. His every breath seemed like it might tear a hole and hasten the end. This would have to be the last time.

  The horse came and he mounted. Every hoofbeat now felt tenuous, as if at any moment one of those thuds would punch through the surface and topple them both into the swelling Darkness. There was a terrible toll to traveling through the veil, the Abbess had said. It had driven his mother mad.

  Would it do the same to him?

  Buildings and streets whipped by in a dry gray blur, until he was racing back up the Abbey grounds in silence, through the ash and into the cloisters. As he barged through the chancel doors the cathedral collapsed again behind him, though now it was a tinny crunch that sounded only half-real. The singing of the Sisters wasn't stilled because they'd already been silent. Their faith was a part of him now.

  In the office stood the Abbess, as before. Her Moth wings were spread to either side, and she was looking through the window to the plume of dust where the cathedral had stood, though something in her eyes had changed.

  "Hello," she said pleasantly, and pointed. "Something happened there. Did you see?"

  Sen's stomach churned. He felt the difference in her; the total hollowness, and covered the distance between them quickly, reaching up to touch her age-dappled cheek. "Leander," he said.

  She smiled at his touch. "That's a pretty name." Her voice was higher and lighter than before, carrying none of the sorrow of memory. "Who is it?"

  "It's your name," Sen said, fighting to keep his voice from cracking. She'd offered him this. Her story had made it clear, and though it stung him to treat her this way, he could see no alternative. "You're a beautiful Butterfly, and your name is Leander."

  Her old face before him shone with a sudden pride. "A Butterfly? Are my wings the colors of the rainbow?"

  "They are," nodded Sen. It was too gloomy in the room to see for certain. Still the Abbess spread her wings and studied them. A child-like happiness welled up in her that pulled at Sen's heart.

  "And can I fly?" she asked, her eyes bright.

  "Like the wind," said Sen.

  "Shall we fly now?"

  He smiled. "I think so."

  He took the book from her desk, Avia's Revels, then led her by the hand out of the Abbey and into the ash-clouded air. She gasped in wonder at the hallway and portico chamber they passed through.

  "Is this a castle?" she asked.

  "Like a castle," Sen replied. "It's an Abbey."

  The Abbess rolled the unfamiliar word around her circular mouth. "Abbey."

  They stood on the grounds where she had once watched over Sen playing, ankle deep in drifts of ash that covered the green grass. Black flecks drifted steadily down, cloaking everything, but that didn't seem to bother the Abbess. She only had the memories of a few moments, and this new world was as wondrous as anything.

  "Do you remember how to fly?" he asked.

  "Of course!" she said brightly. "I'm a Butterfly. How could I ever forget?"

  She spread her wings. They were already coated with a film of ash. "They're so beautiful," she murmured.

  Distant explosions ruptured her reverie, and she turned to Sen. He reached out and felt the world beginning to crumble beneath the incessant gnawing of the Darkness. The saltpeter stores in a buckshot-milling factory in Afric had just blown up, and an alchemist's in the lower Roy had ignited. Neither of those had burst before.

  "Are those the other Butterflies?" the Abbess asked, unafraid. "They've already climbed the Angelway?"

  "Yes," Sen replied smoothly, though his heart broke, "the others are playing games above, and we have to join them."

  The Abbess regarded him a moment longer, before breaking into a grin. "Will you climb on, then? I know you can't fly. You don't even have any wings!"

  Sen nodded. "I will."

  He circled to her back with trails of ash-dust sloughing up at his feet. He took her shoulders in his hands, shocked by how frail they now seemed, as if they might crack when he put his weight on them, breaking open her shell. He hesitated.

  "We'll lose the others," the Abbess said urgently, twisting her neck to look at him. He felt the shell of her body stretch and creak beneath his hands. "Hurry up."

  He stepped closer, until the rough warm spikes of her wing-stack pushed into his stomach and chest, then lifted himself carefully, nestling his knees against the bony base of her wings.

  "Not so fragile, am I?" the Abbess said cheerfully. "Are you ready?"

  "I'm ready," he said. His face was so close to the back of her smooth polished head he could smell the cold gloss of her Sectile skin, like old books and dust.

  "Then let's go," the Abbess said cheerily, and brought her wings down in a whuff of ash and air.

  Sen's stomach lurched. He could see nothing, blinded by the sudden updraft of ash, but he felt his weight pressing down on the Abbess' back as she flapped upward again and again. His stomach jumped with each surge, and he clung on more tightly as she tilted forward, losing all sense of direction amidst the thrashing beat of her wings.

  "Butterflies!" the Abbess called, and he felt the sound tremble up through her hard thorax as much as he heard it over the ash. They were climbing fast now, surely higher than he'd ever been before, with the pulse of her wing beats flexing beneath his knees and driving them up through the endless gray.

  "Hallooo, Butterflies!" she cried joyfully.

  At last the jolting pulse of her wings slowed, and they rolled into a glide. Sen risked snatching his left hand from its grip on her shoulder to rub the grit from his eyes. He saw her wings spread wide like a kite, hanging almost motionless far above the city, as hot thermal waves lapped up at them from the numerous riot fires below. The Abbess let out another loud whoop of pure joy.

  "I'm flying!" she called back to him, the words whipping in fragments around her head by the rising winds.

  Sen looked down. The ash was thick, but hot drafts blew shifting clear corridors through it, allowing narrow views down to the city below. What he saw was the Darkness. It must have chewed through the veil, because its oily black touch was everywhere, puddling in craters and tongue-torn gouges. More explosions rang out as chemicals and munitions fired in the rarefied air, spreading flash fires that danced through the ash and rippled across districts in seconds.

  The noose was tightening. Sen turned to the north and saw the Darkness swallow the volcano's fire flower in the sky. The stars were gone already, and the tides were rolling on the city.

  This was the real end of the world.

  The Abbess beneath him sang simple happy songs as they glided on. Of course she didn't understand what was happening. He leaned in close to her head to call directions, and was met by another explosion.

  The volcano ruptured bodily. The mountain that had capped his world broke open in a staggering ball of flame that shot outward then was swallowed by the Dark. Moments later the thunderclap sound of it hammered across the distance, momentarily deafening him, followed by a powerful percussive wind.

  An instant before it struck he clasped tight to the Abbess's Sectile shell, but still he was nearly torn away in the chaos. Ash hardened by speed peppered them both, sending them reeling out of control in the gale. He heard a sick tearing sound over the roar, and risked a glance through the torrent to see the Abbess' wings tearing.

  "Fly, Leander!" he shouted.

  Her damaged wings flexed and pumped in vain. He struggled to breathe as the hot wind pricked at his skin, and the pressure on his chest only grew stronger as they cartwheeled out of control, like a cornstalk doll tossed off a cliff.
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  Another eruption followed, spewing orange magma through the middle of the Gutrock wastes, even larger than the last. It seemed the Corpse World itself was giving up its core. Sen's thoughts flattened out under the wave of pressure, becoming simple and urgent as the Abbess reeled across the sky. Escape. In snatches with his eyes cracked open he saw a spiraling black and red world revolving. All he could do was cling on and wait for the blast to end.

  Then it ended, and they fell.

  "Fly, Leander!" he cried into the Moth's ear, as ash-drafts whipped evenly by either side. He looked at her wings and saw them flapping ineffectually in the volcanic draughts, torn through with gaping holes. Something popped in his ears, and the realization hit that she was screaming.

  They fell through the clouds like a stone.

  "Leander!" he called into her ear, but she didn't seem to hear. He braced his grip about her neck and leaned forward to look into her eyes, but what he saw there stopped his breath.

  Her face was gone. What had been there before, the kindly features of an old Sectile whom he'd loved and respected all his life had been destroyed in the blast. Her compound eyes were crushed, streaming crystal shards. The hard rim of her mouth had been torn and her smooth cheeks were fractured.

  And she screamed. For a moment, struck with the horror of the broken frame he was clinging to, he joined her. She had taken the brunt of the blast while he'd hidden behind her, as ever. She had been his shield again, and now they were falling into Darkness, moments away from death.

  He pulled himself even closer to her ruined face, and shouted into her ear.

  "Your sister, Leander! Your sister needs you."

  At once her screaming stopped. He felt her body shudder, the muscles rippling within her tough old body.

  "I can see her!" he called again. "She's just ahead of us. You have to fly!"

  Her wings quivered and shook. One of them was broken and twitched feebly, too damaged to catch the wind. The other flickered hesitantly, guiding their downward spin.

  "It's Varial, Leander," he cried, "fly for Varial," and this time something changed. A ripple of pure anger coursed through her body, as the lost child of Leander ignored the pain of her caved-in face and her ripped-open wings, and beat herself against reality to finally save her sister.

  Their descent slowed. Her shredded wings thrashed enough to steer them into a plummeting glide, bursting out through the underbelly of the ash clouds to reveal the city below in detail. For long moments Sen wasn't sure what he was looking at; a hellish landscape of lapping fire and black tides chewing into buildings and streets. Only when he saw the unmistakable pink stone of the Grammaton lying jaggedly across the Tiptanic gardens, the spire coming to rest half in the burst banks of the Levi river, did he realize where they were.

  He tugged firmly on the Abbess's shoulders to guide her.

  "This way," he called into her ear.

  They glided down over the nightmarish city with the wind whistling through the Abbess' wings, trailing brown powder like a comet. Sen felt her pain and absorbed as much of it as he could. Geysers of Darkness shot up toward them, grasping like the Rot's tongues inverted, as below ships from the Sheckledown carried on Dark tides into the limey roads of the Calk and Slumswelters.

  They plummeted over the cracked façades of Jubilante, past the Gravaile mansion already sunken into a giant crack and over the seething black lake of the Fallowlands, too fast for control. They raced over the salted hummocks of dead earth until the Gloam Hallows' barrier of white fog hit them like a damp wall. They fell through it faster, barely scraping above the jumbled, ancient rooftops as the Abbess' wings flapped desperately for height. Sen steered as best he could, until he saw glowing lights in the distance; the blazing glass frieze of his mother in the cathedral wall.

  "There!" he called to the Abbess, "she's right there!"

  Leander gave an extra surge of effort. Her broken body shook as her threadbare wings beat harder into the final plunge. With his face pressed close to her cracked cheek, Sen thought he heard her whisper, "Varial."

  Then they were closing on the cathedral, the ribs of cloisters whipped by below, and it was far too fast to stop when they crashed through the stained glass window. Light crashed out around them, then Sen's skin was tearing and his body spun, as they slammed the last hard fall to earth. Something burst beneath him, and he knew it was the Abbess.

  He coughed blood and rolled off her. He reached out to touch her head but there was no head left to touch. "Thank you," he croaked, but already the Darkness was coming on slathering tides, and he struggled to rise.

  "She flew," said a voice from beside him, breathless with awe.

  He looked up and saw Varial the Butterfly standing over them, her wings gleaming many color and her compound eyes shimmering with tears.

  "My sister flew," she said, then knelt to lay her hands on the battered remnants of Leander's body.

  "To save you," called Sen, shouting over the rising cacophony of felling buildings and booming munitions. He rose to his feet; one of his legs seemed to be splintered; the pain was sharp and biting. "As she always meant to."

  "It was beautiful, child," cried the Butterfly, "like our father always said, as he tucked us in bed with stories of the great Butterflies of our race. I felt safe again."

  Sen pushed himself toward her on his one good foot. Blood welled from a dozen cuts in his body, lit by the furious blue-green light of his scars. It was moving, but there was no time now to be moved.

  "The revenant," he shouted urgently. "Where is it?"

  The Butterfly Abbess regarded him for a moment, then her mouth yawed open just as it had before, when she'd first seen his scars. "Avia's son?"

  "Show me the revenant!" he repeated.

  "Of course," she answered, and immediately took his arm to lead him away. "Yes, Avia's son, anything."

  He leaned on her heavily, as they shambled away from the dead Leander into darkness and mist. Sen trudged on through crunching Fallowland dirt, until in moments the revenant emerged. It looked just like the one on Aspelair; an archway heavy with elaborate carvings of a battle in the skies over Aradabar, images of warriors and animals at war.

  Sen stepped inside the arch and tried to open the veil.

  Nearby more explosions rang out, hot air blasted him, and a tendril of the Darkness whipped closer, pulling a scream from Varial that cut off instantly. Black flood tides poured in from all around him, racing inward to the end of the world.

  He closed his eyes and tried to open the veil again, this time imagining not home or his mother, but Aradabar; the city of his birth and the birthplace of Saint Ignifer's legend.

  The Saint moved within him like a key, unlocking the revenant scant seconds before the arch was smothered by the Dark.

  FATES OF ARADABAR

  Sen stood on a barren cliff top.

  He didn't know how long he'd been standing there. The mad flight with the Abbess seemed like a lifetime ago; the heat and the blast, the blood and the Dark. Now calm, silvery gorse fields surrounded him, the gray splintered Sheckledown Sea flanked him, and ahead lay the breathtaking splendor of old Aradabar.

  He would recognize it anywhere, after years spent studying its outline beneath the Gutrock wastes, of reading about it in legends and memorizing its bright and hope-filled thoroughfares.

  The graceful glass towers of learning rose like a spine of polished crystal down its center, bisecting a spreading panorama of idyllic bookyard rotundas and parks of beautifully sculpted greenery. Interspersed throughout were the city's most remarkable accomplishments; the Great Library with its three hundred Ellic columns and fifty hermitage cupolas, the floating University of Ripen tethered by a thousand iron link chains, the underwater College of Theological Arts submerged in its blue sinkhole, with King Seem's palace etched in humble grindstone and red metal at the city's rim.

  All of them were ablaze. Thick rolls of treacly orange magma rolled through the streets with a beautiful ferocity, sett
ing even the glass towers alight.

  A fierce white moon hung in the night sky, its face cracked and pulverized, casting discordant pale light over the whispering gorse fields, the silvery breaking waves, and the combatants in the sky.

  Saint Ignifer's army. Sen gazed at them, entranced. They were legion, galloping in to battle with the Rot as it spread its jaws over Aradabar. They were swathed in silver, lissome with the broken moon's rays; a chiaroscuro of creatures and castes, of life in all its maddening array of warps and weaves, all stalked and limbed and armored and armed, waggling and oozing and stomping and soaring, chittering, screeching, roaring and wailing.

  He tried to count their number but could not. Their ranks stretched back like a comet's tail beyond the curve of the Corpse World's horizon. He stood at the cliff edge with the fierce cool wind of their passage blowing in his face, watching them course by like a dream come true. There were too many for him to comprehend the whole; all he could absorb were details from the fray.

  Here a giant Spider raced in a chariot made of its own woven silk, hauled by what had to be a Scranth; its fifteen yellowish limbs crackling like whips around one bulging red eye. There a Cowface clung to the back of a Mandray winged lizard, a half-flayed trident in his hoofy hands, chased by a clutch of Ogric women with four breasts bared riding atop flutters of Gulls. A phalanx of Fetchling-borne Ptarmigans, blue-skinned and massive, sailed by like heavily-laden galleons, their broad backs stacked with creatures of many castes readying mangonels and catablasts, weapons of siege and entropy.

  Next came the constructions of iron and tin; vast Aigle fortresses propelled through the air on whirring helical screws, laden with outsized cannon. Around these Aigle titans swirled smaller tri-plane warships; dozens of them emerging and returning constantly from the Aigle bellies, each piloted by a pink-skinned caste like a shaven Mole Beneath them immense black metal hulks rolled along the coast, each as large as five frigates lashed together, bristling with glinting crystal weaponry.