by Ian Whates
Tom stared at Kat, reckoning that her suggestion might just be an inspired one. If this Insint had fought against the city in the war, then it was already an ally of Thaiss's brother. The natural place for him to flee. "All right, that settles it. I'll take us back to the Stain."
"At last!" Kat said. "That'll be one of the Prime Master's promises fulfilled." She gave a wry smile. "I guess the gold can wait."
"No, stop!" Jayce said. "First we have to report to the council, the Prime Master, to let them know what's happened."
Tom hesitated, loathe to lose any more time.
"That's where my duty lies," Jayce added, not quite pleading, but definitely heading that way.
Tom nodded, reluctantly, but both he and Kat did owe the young Guardsman their lives. "All right, I'll take you to the Prime Master and then Kat and I will head for the Stain, leaving you to make your report."
"Thank you."
Tom had Kat and Jayce stand close to him, each gripping one of his arms. He cleared his mind and summoned an image of the Prime Master, concentrating as the goddess had taught him, honing in on that face, drawing it to him and him to it and… nothing happened. He tried again, but still nothing. He thought about the process, trying to work out what he was doing wrong, and concluded that he wasn't doing anything wrong.
He felt Kat adjust her grip on his left sleeve. "Anytime you're ready," she said.
"I know," he assured her. "It's not working, and I don't know why."
"Maybe all the fiddling around with the core is to blame, affecting your power in some way," Kat suggested, as she and Jayce relaxed, letting go of his arms. "Maybe it has to settle into a new pattern or something."
"Maybe," Tom agreed, but he didn't think so.
"Try someone else," Jayce said. "Perhaps something's blocking your connection to the Prime Master but it'll work with someone else."
Good idea, but who? The Prime Master was someone he knew well, but the other council members he'd only caught brief glimpses of and they were just hazy impressions. "Thaiss!" he said at length. There was one other person he could picture clearly.
"What?" Kat wanted to know.
He sighed. "The only person whose face I can see in enough detail to try this is… Carla Birhoff."
Jayce snorted, which, Tom suspected, provided ample comment regarding his opinion of the assembly member.
"Really?" Kat said. "She obviously made quite an impression."
Tom glared in response to her mischievous smirk.
"Go for it, kid," she then encouraged. "It still beats walking back."
He supposed she was right.
He waited as they shuffled closer to grip his sleeves again before taking a deep breath, hoping he wasn't going to regret this. He pictured the insincere smile, the avaricious eyes that marred the almost-attractive face of this slender older woman, who struck him as someone past her prime but determined to keep age at bay. This time there was no problem. He felt the increasingly familiar rush of energy, and the anonymous blank-walled corridor they'd been standing in disappeared.
He trusted the core energy, trusted that it would deposit them safely in a position free of obstructions, and it did. They materialised in what was obviously a bedroom, where a semi-naked Carla Birhoff was in the process of changing her clothes.
The assembly member shrieked, snatching up a garment and clutching it defensively across her torso while at the same time turning away from them in a cowering crouch.
"Dear goddess, what… how… how dare you!"
Kat sniggered. Tom averted his eyes instantly and felt his cheeks burn. He wasn't too certain what he'd seen but he knew it was flesh, her flesh, and fervently wished he could be somewhere else just then – anywhere else.
Only Jayce seemed unperturbed; as cool and professional as you'd expect from a Council Guardsman. "Assembly Member Birhoff," he said, stepping forward and suddenly all business. "Apologies for the intrusion, but we're here on a matter both grave and urgent. We'll wait in the next room until you're able to join us. I would urge you, though, to please be prompt."
With that he herded Kat and Tom from the bed chamber into a well-appointed lounge that, if Tom's memory served him right, pretty closely matched the size of the one in which he'd been held prisoner by Miles and Ryan and the gang of renegade boys.
Kat flung herself backwards into one of two comfortablelooking sofas, arms outspread. "Hey, this is nice," she approved, wriggling a little. "Think I might get one of these for the new home… when I've got one." Tom made no comment, anxious to be on his way.
They didn't have to wait long, Assembly Member Birhoff joined them within moments, now fully clothed.
"Right," she said, clearly still angry, "would you mind telling me what the hell you think you're doing popping up in my bedroom like that?"
"I'm sorry…" Tom began.
"So you should be!" Birhoff snapped. "You have extraordinary talents, Tom, that's obvious, but they should be used wisely, not in some childish prank or for the sake of cheap thrills."
"I wasn't…" he began.
"Hey!" Kat interrupted, now on her feet and generating the sort of menace that Tom knew only too well. "Don't talk to him like that. He just saved the whole breckin' city!"
To her credit, the assembly member didn't flinch, though she did blink a couple of times before replying, in a much calmer voice, "For which we're all grateful, I'm sure, grateful to all of you." She graced them with a politician's smile. "But there are still such things as privacy."
"Let's all calm down," Jayce suggested; more for Kat's benefit than the assembly member's, Tom suspected.
"Sorry for bursting in on you like this," Tom said. "But I had no choice."
She looked at him quizzically.
"I couldn't reach the Prime Master for some reason, and… " He stopped, seeing her expression, which conveyed, shock and discomfort at the same time, her mouth forming an oh without any sound emerging. "What?" he said, though, with sinking heart, he already guessed what was coming.
"I'm so sorry, Tom." She lifted a hand to rest gently on his arm. "Of course, you wouldn't have heard. The Prime Master is dead."
"What?" Tom was stunned. Even though this was what he'd feared but had tried so hard not to consider, his brain still refused to decipher meaning from what his ears reported. "What do you mean he's dead? He was safe, here, with all of you."
"After you left the attacks intensified," the assembly member explained. "It was almost as if the Rust Warriors or the guiding intelligence behind them realised they were running out of time. There were so many of them, more than we'd ever imagined… the Blade, the Kite Guards, the Council Guard, arkademics, watch officers reassigned from other Rows, hastily organised militia drawn from ordinary citizens, we needed every single one of them just to hold our own. I don't think any of us imagined how many of our people had fallen victim to bone flu. They just kept coming. It was horrible."
Tom still couldn't believe it. "And the Prime Master fell defending the Row." What was someone of his importance doing on the front line anyway?
"No," and she shook her head. "That was the worst part. While we fought, he faced his own battle, alone. He had bone flu, Tom, very advanced. How he held it at bay for as long as he did we'll never know."
"The gloves," Tom murmured, suddenly understanding. "Didn't anyone guess? You were around him a lot more than I was."
She sighed. "We were all so busy. There were so many other things to think about, to worry about, and the Prime Master always seemed so…"
"Permanent," Tom supplied.
"Yes, exactly; permanent."
He drew a ragged breath. "So what happens now, for the city?" For me.
"We go on. We rebuild. We celebrate our survival and the lives of all the wonderful, brave folk we've lost. We assemble a new council, promoting the most worthy of the senior arkademics to replace those members who have passed away or can no longer serve. That's what we've always done, if not generally replacing so
many at one time… in short, we go on."
Tom had only known the Prime Master a brief while but this wise and generous man had his respect and, yes, his love. He could cope, though; he'd suffered losses before. News of this latest one only strengthened his resolve regarding the future. The Prime Master had been Tom's only strong tie to the Heights and the world of arkademics and councillors, and now that tie was severed. In a strange way, this news of the Prime Master's death freed him. A final unwitting gift from a man to whom he owed so much.
Tom's gaze fell on Kat. He saw the concern haunting her eyes. "Do you still want to do this?" she asked.
"Yes!" Even more so now. For the Prime Master's sake as much as anything else, he was determined to see this through. "Are you ready?"
She nodded. They held hands this time. Tom had no trouble summoning the face of the Tattooed Man, M'gruth, and the familiar rushing feeling swept over him.
Tylus still led the way. Their company was hardly silent as they stumbled through that deep and dark second chamber, but the further they ventured the more they found that any noise was muffled by the omnipresent roar of what had to be a waterfall. Conversation became difficult and they lapsed into the habit of silence. For no discernible reason one of the torches had packed up within minutes of its being switched on, so they were reduced to using just one at a time, which Tylus held. The resultant cone of illumination that fanned out before him provided a welcome tether to reality in these extraordinary surroundings. He sensed the others behind him but wondered if that was only because he knew them to be there. Part of him suspected that if they should disappear one by one he might never even notice they had gone.
Although by no means level or even, the ground had at least stopped dropping ever downward, for now at least, though it had taken Tylus a little while to recognise the fact. With no real visual clues and hearing all but negated by the thunder of rushing water, the mind took to playing tricks, and judging anything as subtle as gradient became a challenge.
Droplets of water drifted onto Tylus' face – nothing obvious, more in the nature of condensing mist. He lifted the torch's beam away from the ground to find the light reflected back at him from myriad such drops floating in the air like ephemeral jewels. Beyond this curtain, he thought he could glimpse more concerted movement – something rushing downward – which could only be the waterfall. As if to confirm the assumption, he nearly slipped over; the rocks beneath their feet were becoming damp and treacherous.
Tylus was just trying to work out whether he really had heard someone call out his name when he felt something land on his shoulder, startling him, but it was only a hand; Issie's to be precise. She was making a valiant effort to shout and make herself heard above the roar. He leaned towards her, trying to catch the words.
"The Blade are saying we should stay here," she yelled. "They've sensed something up ahead."
"Insint?" he asked.
She shrugged. He wasn't about to argue either way. Who knew what senses the unsettling ebony colossuses could call upon? Tall black shadows slipped past them, three of them, catching the edge of the torch's beam. This left just one to safeguard the arkademic – two of their number having been lost beside the Thair. Despite having encountered the Blade on more than one occasion, Tylus still wasn't sure whether to think of their fallen as dead or broken.
He became aware of the Tattooed Men gathering in the gloom around them and managed to catch hold of M'gruth's arm, leaning forward to explain what was happening.
"Hell of a place to call a halt," M'gruth observed. "We'll be drenched through in no time at all."
It was a fair point but not one Tylus could do much about.
M'gruth leaned closer to say something further. "Did they give any idea of exactly…"
Whatever he'd been about to ask was cut short as the world lit up with no warning, dazzling Tylus, while the sharp crack of an explosion boomed out to momentarily override the noise of the waterfall. At the same time the ground beneath their feet shook, causing M'gruth to lose his balance and grab hold of the Kite Guard to stop himself from falling over.
In the bright flash, a split second before he was dazzled, Tylus caught a glimpse of their immediate surroundings; no more than a snapshot perhaps, but it was enough to show him the waters of the mighty Thair cascading down the rock face in a spectacular fall not far from where he stood. The water plummeted into a swollen pool, at the lip of which a battle was being fought.
The three Blade had engaged something that could only be Insint, though Tylus couldn't see enough to identify their enemy for certain. Nor could he be sure exactly what had exploded.
M'gruth had evidently grown tired of hanging around waiting on the Blade's instructions. As Tylus's vision cleared, he saw the Tattooed Men's adopted leader speaking in the ears of his fellows, clearly intent on organising them to join the fray. The Kite Guard wasn't surprised. These were Pits warriors after all, and, from what he knew of them, sitting around and waiting wasn't in their nature.
Even without the flash of an explosion the site of the battle would have been easy enough to locate. Energy crackled and sparks flew, clearly marking the spot. Tylus was loathe to fly, not trusting the limited scope of the torch's beam to identify any obstructions, but he was hanged if he was going to stand by and let the Tattooed Men and the Blade carry the fight.
He turned to Issie. "I'm going to try to help…"
"You can't fly, not down here," she said instantly.
"I've got to. Would you hold the torch for me, try to follow me with the beam as I fly…?"
"I can do better than that."
"Sorry?" He thought he must have misheard her due to the roar of the waterfall.
"This won't last for long and I can't generate too many of them, but here."
A silver glow started to form between Issie's cupped hands, a glow which built and strengthened until it became an orb of dazzling light, far too bright to look upon directly. Issie tossed the ball into the air, where it floated upward and outward, drifting towards the battle and bathing the scene in pale luminance. Tylus could see the uneven ground, the combatants, and he could see where the treacherous ceiling sent its sharp, hard teeth of rock downward to snag the unwary flyer.
"Go!" Issie urged.
He was already clipping the torch to his belt. With a mouthed "thank you" in her direction, Tylus took to the air.
He had no clear plan beyond wanting to contribute something – to dignify the vague notion of dousing Insint in the arkademics' blue light by describing it as a "plan" would have been to stretch the concept to breaking point. In the event, he hesitated to do even that, uncertain of how the arkademic's weapon might affect the Blade. The battle was being fought at superhuman speed and it proved impossible to get a clear shot. Beneath him, everything was a blur of black and silver and steel, of flash and spark punctuated by the hammer of impact and shriek of metal rising above the thunder of the falls. Tylus was reduced to circling above in a tight figure-eight, alert for any opportunity. He nearly panicked and lost concentration as the light from Issie's flare started to fade, but held it together by reassuring himself that he could probably keep up this tight pattern even in the dark, especially with the sporadic bursts of energy from the fight below as guide. Fortunately he didn't need to, as a second silver sphere floated out to replace the first before the luminance died completely.
Below him, one of the Blade took a heavy blow from a metallic limb that sent it spinning out over the pool to splash down into the water and disappear. The pool's surface, already in constant motion due to the proximity of the falls, seemed to froth and boil oddly where the Blade had struck. Curious, Tylus widened the loop of his flight slightly so that he could take a closer look.
As decisions went, this proved not to be one of his better ones.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, far too quickly for him to react. He had the impression of something erupting from the water straight towards him – like a thick plant stem
bursting from the ground at surreal speed. Before he could even think to manoeuvre, the thing struck and wrapped itself around him with crushing force. Pain lanced through his side and he couldn't breathe. Then he was being dragged downward, to hit the surface of the pool. The force of impact and the abrupt cold would have been enough to knock the breath out of him if he'd had any. The tentacle continued to pull him downward into the cold, stygian depths. He'd had no chance to draw a deep breath and knew that if he couldn't free himself he'd drown in a matter of seconds, never mind the cold or the fact that he might well be crushed to death before that. On top of everything else, his ears started to hurt acutely with the rapidly increasing pressure.
