by Simon Kewin
One of the undain riders stepped forward and held her blade over Hellen, ready to strike. She glanced to Charis for his approval.
“Now,” said Charis, “I will offer you a choice, Hellen Meggenwar. You can either die first and get it over with. Or you can live a few moments longer and see your friends go first. Which is it to be?”
Hellen moved closer to him. There was a glimmer, the merest hint, of fear on his features, as if he still suspected some trick. It was a small victory, but that was all that was left to her now.
“I will go first,” said Hellen.
“Very well.” Charis nodded.
The rider stepped forward and swung her sword.
Cait watched as Menhroth stood unmoving, his gaze passing between Cait and Ran, kneeling at his feet.
More than once since the day at the library, Cait had experienced a sense of expanding perspectives, of seeing the wider world around her from outside, above. On the bridge back in Manchester, when Nox was pursuing her and Danny, she'd seemed to fly from her body and look down on the scene. Then again when they'd fought the riders outside the factory. And in Angere, at Greygyle's palace, it had happened more strongly. She'd seen the whole area, the undain army outside the walls. A moment of clarity. Another came to her now, and it seemed to her that her mind's eye flew upward, taking in more and more.
She and Menhroth confronting each other. Ran kneeling. Greygyle quivering and shivering, the hooded figure holding his leash. Farther out, the massed undain behind Menhroth, countless in number. Farther out still, the throng of them at Islagray, surrounding a few remaining sparks of life that were Danny and Fer and the others.
Farther still, and she saw the towns and cities of Andar, one or two flecks of life among them. The dead and the dying. There were the lines of prisoners being led across the ice to their fate in Angere. She saw Hyrn's Oak in ruins. She saw Guilden in ruins. Then, across the An, her gaze flew over the white halls of Menhroth's city and the palaces of the undain. Caer D'nar. All of it laid out like a map.
Here was the turning point. Here was the moment that the fate of everything and everyone was decided. And not just them. Everyone back home, and maybe in other worlds, too. Now it would end, one way or another.
Then she was back in her own body, facing Menhroth. He still hadn't moved. She could feel the hunger raging inside him, his mind briefly open to her as he grappled with the decision of what to do. For five hundred years he had sought the blood and the book and now here they were in his grasp.
He looked to Ran, trying to gauge whether the rider's words could be believed. He didn't know, Cait saw. He didn't know. He longed to seize the prize they had dangled before him. Hungered to take the book and not believe what Ran was telling him. Menhroth had gone along with Ran all this time partly because the King couldn't be sure the rider was telling the truth, couldn't be sure he wasn't simply another of Hellen's subterfuges. And perhaps Ran had been too good at maintaining his pretence. More than once he'd fought and killed the undain to protect Cait. He'd actually trained Lugg, shown him how to move and fight.
A worm of doubt twisted in Menhroth's mind, whispering that Ran wasn't loyal. That he was simply, desperately, trying to prevent the King from working the necromancy. There was the possibility, also, that Ran had been tricked into believing what he'd said. A last, desperate gamble by the wicca to foil Menhroth's intentions. Ran's mind, protected by his rider markings, remained closed off, unknowable even to the King.
Still Menhroth didn't act, his indecision pinning him in place. He was running out of time. His urgency burned in him, clear to Cait. He consumed a huge amount of Spirit to survive and now that supply had been cut off. Fer had done that. By disrupting the flow she hadn't only crippled the catapults. Menhroth had sated himself as best he could, draining the supplies of the White City, but most of their resources were deployed to the invading armies. His borrowed life was ebbing dangerously low. He'd come to take her blood, seal the Ritual then and there and so put an end to his constant need for Spirit. There was an edge of desperation in him, he was so close to what he craved. But now there was Ran, the troublesome wyrm lord, telling him not to take the final step.
Menhroth's eyes narrowed as he turned to her. She was the only one who knew the truth. He would find out from her. She had to keep him out, hide the reality of what they were attempting. If he discovered even the possibility of Ran's words being true he might not take the leap. He'd suffer for a while, perhaps, but no doubt he'd survive once he could feed from the captured people of Andar. And the worlds would be lost.
His assault on her was terrible, like fire raging around her brain. Desperately she threw up defences to deny him, keep him out. She was stronger now. She'd grown. Bethany, so used to hiding away, had taught her well. With an effort that felt like she was tearing herself in two, Cait beat him back, refusing to reveal her mind to him. Snarling, Menhroth's handsome features twisting into ugly rage, he attacked her again, spikes of red hot iron seeming to lance into her brain.
This time she was ready. Phoenix had said it would grow easier for her as the winter wore on. Ice. She always envisioned her magical power as ice. And there they were, upon the frozen An in the depths of the winter. She was strong there. She saw the pool of mountain water where Bethany had lived. It, too, was frozen. Cold power breathed out of it, ferns of frost feeling their way across the stones as she watched, a mist solidifying in the air. Walls of ice formed about her mind, so thick even Menhroth's attack couldn't batter it down. She hated fire and the cold kept it at bay.
With a scream of rage Menhroth stepped back. He could kill her there and then. That was a real possibility. Still he needed to know the truth from her. He reached down to the thing that had once been Greygyle and placed his hand on the creature's head, sucking out what dregs of spirit the former Duke had in him. Greygyle shivered, then sagged to the ice as Menhroth drained him. In a moment, the Duke was dust.
Menhroth turned to the unmoving figure holding still holding Greygyle's lead. Cait thought this must be some guard, or some noble of the Holy Court she hadn't met. Instead, as the figure pushed back the grey hood that hid his face, she saw the truth of it.
Nox stared back at her, his eyes blank.
Menhroth caught the look of shock on Cait's face. His voice was little more than a snarl as he spoke. “Yes, here he is, your precious Nox. I have given him a reward for his betrayals, too. He longed for ascension and now he has been granted it. He is aware of everything that is taking place but is powerless to act. I planned to keep him enslaved like that for a few hundred years, but now I need his Spirit.”
“But he died,” said Cait. “His body was burned.”
“Dying is no obstacle to us,” said Menhroth. “As to his body, that survived. Those archers couldn't even hit a slow-moving boat. We found him floating alone on the waters.”
Menhroth held out his hand to touch Nox on the forehead. Nox didn't flinch. After a moment, he, too, slumped to the ice, his eyes closed. His body didn't collapse into dust as Greygyle's had. Perhaps he had been too recently ascended for the decay to take effect.
Menhroth looked down to Ran. “Step forward, rider. I need you too. Be true to your vows.”
Ran hesitated. He glanced aside at Cait for a moment as though there was doubt in him. Regret. But then, still on his knees, he shuffled forward and let Menhroth lay a hand on his head. As Greygyle and Nox had, Ran quivered and shook. Then, groaning once, he fell to the ice and moved no more.
Menhroth looked back to Cait. He seemed to swell with energy. “Now we shall see the truth of it.” He threw himself at her for a third time, intent on ripping the truth from her mind.
It cost her everything she had to resist him, hold his raging fire at bay. She was waning, the screaming pain in her body so great she wanted to cry out in agony. She refused to relent. Menhroth could not know the truth.
The intensity of the attack increased and she did scream, sinking to her knees, hands clutched
to her head. She felt warm blood trickling from her nose. Menhroth towered over her, bearing down on her. Still she resisted. Nothing else mattered. She would keep him out. She wouldn't be violated.
With a cry of rage of his own, Menhroth relented. There was nothing left of that handsome man she'd seen on his throne in the White City. The creature before her was a snarling monster, features twisted and dripping, misshapen sides heaving from his exertions.
He was weak, spent. She saw what she had to do. It was her turn. They'd thought to fool him, make him complete the Ritual by his own hand, but now she saw another way. She would do it instead. She would take the place of her ancient forebear and speak the words that completed the rite.
His fingers had touched her blood. Was that enough? She had to make sure of it. Beads of blood still pearled across her palm. She stepped forward to place her hand on Menhroth's head, leaving her mark upon him. He cowered back, like an injured animal cornered by its attacker. She spoke the words Fer had taught her. The family secret. The sealing words of the Ritual of Seven Ascensions.
At the first syllable Menhroth went rigid; his muscles spasmed. His obsidian eyes were unreadable, but she thought she saw hunger on his features as she worked the long-withheld magic. Hunger and something like rapture as he drank in her words. Did he understand what she was doing? Did he believe she was helping him? No. His hunger was too great; it blotted out his reason.
She spoke the last syllables, including the one different. Yaelth. Menhroth sagged to his knees immediately, as if the electricity making his muscles rigid had been switched off. For a moment he didn't move. Cait waited for him to crumble and collapse as Fer had described.
When he looked up at her the expression on his features was stark. But not with the horror or shock she'd hoped for. Instead there was joy there, a wild triumph in his flaring eyes. He stood, casting her to the ice with a wave of his hand. Stood and laughed, a hideous delight on his misshapen face.
Hellen, bowed, her eyes closed, waiting for the blow. Charis was right. She had no more moves. She had failed. She only hoped the pain would be brief.
But the blade didn't fall. In its place a wind howled through Islagray Wycka, strong enough to make Hellen stagger. It brought with it a smell of dust and decay, of damp and ancient tombs. It washed over her, filling her nostrils, and then was gone.
When she opened her eyes, Charis and the wyrm lords and all the host of undain were no more. A grey-brown dust flew on the breeze, whipping around in little spirals like water spouts. Then the wind fell and the dust drifted with it, becoming only a coating upon the stone floor of the Wycka.
A dust they could brush away.
Barion, the resentful and angry wyrm lord, let his sword clatter to the ground. His single good eye wide with disbelief, he turned to her and threw his arms around her.
Slow and low at first, but then gaining volume and speed, a chorus of singing thrummed through the stone of the walls and floor. It took her a moment or two to understand what it was.
The Song of Andar beginning again.
There was a moment when understanding dawned on Menhroth. He stared down at Cait, rage and disbelief twisting his features. He stepped forward to reach her, perhaps intent on his revenge with his final act.
Then Cait was thrown backward by the force of the explosion from the King. It blasted outward, seeming to fill the whole world. An explosion on the ice but also flashing in the aether, reaching to every undain he had created, all those bound to him and his existence. The power, the stolen Spirit, screamed from him, from all of them, destroying them in the moment he was destroyed.
The Spirit raged and seethed, a cloud of anger, seeking the object it craved. The person it craved. With a howl of glee it threw itself at Cait, offering itself to her.
Filling her.
For a moment the power of it was too much. She floundered in a rush of streaming energy, a babble of confused voices, screams and laughter. She fell, or flew, swooping to the ground but never hitting, thrown in whirling circles, like riding a roller coaster that went faster and faster but never reached an end. There was more screaming, and it was her own voice.
But then she found her footing, found solid ground, and she was no longer within the streaming river of power. Instead it was within her, flowing through her, and she could step aside from it, look at it. She could control it, direct it. Bend it to her will. The power of it was terrible, but it was hers to wield, not to fear.
She stood, chest heaving as the power fizzed through her like a charge of electricity, and only a moment of time had passed. She was alone on the ice save for the bodies of Ran and Nox, the two who had accompanied her through the portal to Angere. Where the King had stood a ragged crack had been torn into the ice. A cloud of ash swirled in the air above it. When it fell, it carpeted the ground with a dusting of grey.
The book lay where she'd dropped it. A breeze ruffled its leaves, revealing page after page as if it were deliberately showing her its secrets. She stooped to pick it up. Ilminion's Grimoire, the cause of so much trouble, so much loss. How insignificant it seemed. A dangerous, terrible book. But, also, a thing of wonder. A book of possibilities.
Her gran had told her the point about witchcraft was that a price had to be paid. You didn't go too far because the cost would be too great. But there were other ways to do magic. Hellen had said Ilminion had started out with good intentions. Perhaps he'd only lacked the sense needed to wield the power he'd unearthed. She could succeed where he'd failed. She could do great good in the worlds where he'd done such harm. Hadn't Hellen said there was a time to use the mancers' arts? Doing so had saved them, and now there was another opportunity. An unforeseen opportunity. A fate that, perhaps, was meant to be hers all along.
She would use the book. She would wield the undains' power. She could do anything. Many wounds in the world needed healing. She would set about doing so.
She leafed hungrily through the book with its diagrams and charts and incantations, deciding where to start. The people of Andar and Angere, and even her own world, would thank her, adore her, for what she was about to do.
Then faces came to her: faces in the streaming river of power that seethed inside her. The images of those whose Spirit had been sucked from them by the machines of Genera. Screaming, terrified faces, confused and lost. Then other faces danced from her memories. Her gran. Her mother and her father. Danny. Johnny. Hellen. Fer.
Cait paused. The sadness on those familiar faces was terrible to see. What was she doing? She boiled with so much energy it was hard to think straight. But the power wasn't hers. It was stolen. It was corrupt, rotten. She couldn't do this, this wasn't her. She thought about Danny, the way he'd looked at her in the White City when she'd unleashed the ghosts. The fear on his face.
She slumped to the ground. Her mother had used the cobbles of Manchester to work the magic. Cait had only the ice. But the ice was the An, and the An flowed over the ground, washing everything away. She placed her hands on the ground, holding her palms flat, ignoring the shock of the cold. She worked the magic she needed. She didn't know how to do it and the Spirit filling her resisted, the power of the Ritual binding it to her.
She grunted from the effort of what she was attempting and kept at it. Still the necromancy fought her, but the spirits longed for their release. Whoever they were, whoever they'd been, they craved the peace of oblivion. Cait opened herself to them, showing them the road to take. Down her outstretched arms to the ice, to the water. In a moment the flood was unstoppable. The agonies of loss as the power flowed from her made her gasp again and again, but she kept her hands where they were.
She watched them go. The countless slaves and soldiers of Angere. The higher nobles, Greygyle among them. The undain wyrm lords. Charis was there too, somehow still alive. The waters took him, also. Then, finally, Menhroth himself, fighting and seething but unable to resist. The An claimed him.
She was about to lift her hand from the ice when she saw there
was one more in line. A final soul, clinging to existence.
Cait, said Nox. Let me remain.
You have your revenge, she said. You are the last of the undain.
Genera still exists. They must pay for what they did to me, too.
You were enslaved to the King. How can you survive?
Menhroth is gone and I, the last, am free. Free if you will make me free. Return me to my body and let me go.
She hesitated. If she did this thing how was she any better than Ilminion?
Why should I trust you?
Why shouldn't you? I've proved myself again and again. Hurry, please. The river pulls me in. I have only moments.
She hesitated. Perhaps he'd earned this after everything he'd done. Perhaps it was hugely dangerous. She didn't know, but she didn't want him to go. She'd lost too many others.
She lifted her hands from the ice and placed them onto Nox's head, letting his essence flow from her.
His body twitched and bucked, then his eyes opened. He stared at her for a moment with alarm burning in his eyes. He gulped in lungfuls of air while his muscles spasmed and he writhed in agony.
After twenty or thirty seconds his thrashing movements and breathing calmed. He twisted round to haul himself to his knees, and then to his feet.
When he looked at her again it was the old Nox, the familiar mocking look on his face. But he was an undain, the light in him gone. A triumphant smile sidled across his features. How much power did he have? How much had she given him? Would he fade or grow stronger and stronger? She didn't know.
His voice was slightly slurred, as if he was getting used to controlling his tongue. “Thank you, Cait.”
“What will you do?” she asked.
