“And no asking questions about my personal life, or others’,” he added.
“Of course not,” Kep replied.
Tyen picked Vella up. If we do not meet again, Vella, I wish you well.
And I you, she replied in Doumian.
He smiled, closed her and set her satchel beside her. “If you discover anything, tell me right away.”
“We will,” Annad assured him.
Tyen took a step away, then sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I’d like to stay and help, but I had better make sure civil war hasn’t broken out above.” Inclining his head to them both, he made himself turn and walk to the door, and started his journey back to the Academy above.
PART SEVEN
RIELLE
CHAPTER 19
Rielle knew they had reached the edge of Kettin’s army when the first breath she took as they entered a world stank of fresh blood.
Too few bodies were scattered around the arrival place to explain the smell. Levitating above the Restorer army, Rielle and Qall soon located the rest. The arrival place had been the beginning of the carnage. They could trace the progress of the attack outwards by the arrangement. The closest ring of corpses was sparse – the first victims had been caught unaware or were unable to run. A gap separated this from a thicker band of bodies, where the machines had caught up with those fleeing. The gap was smaller where the streets narrowed and slowed progress, further away where there was more room.
The occupants of vehicles were next. Slow carts first, then faster ones. Next came the corpses of riders and the local beasts of burden, some clearly better bred for speed. None fast enough to escape the machines, however.
Many of the dead wore similar clothing. The most numerous type of uniform included armour, and victims wearing it were scattered through all groups. Less common was a kind of cape cinched at the waist with an embellished belt. The wearers of those did not carry weapons, but had fallen in lines that stretched across the road in a defensive manner, and were surrounded by the twisted and melted parts of machines. Sorcerers, Rielle guessed. More lay closer to the arrival place than further away.
Machines remnants lay among the once-living. “No whole machines,” Rielle noted. “Just parts too broken to reuse. What had been salvageable had been carried away, but where to?”
“The east,” Qall told her, his eyes focused on the horizon. “They are constructing a factory under the supervision of three of Kettin’s followers.” His eyes narrowed. “Two of whom are new to Kettin’s ranks, and who are still shaken by what they saw here.”
“Would they turn on their companion, if nudged?”
He shook his head. “They joined Kettin because they believe she is the Successor. This only proves it, in their minds.”
Rielle sighed. “That ridiculous prophecy again.”
Qall shrugged and turned back to her. “If we removed it from the minds of all the people of all the worlds, another almost exactly the same would replace it. It is in the nature of people to see patterns, but not to be able to interpret them realistically.”
“Would they be able to if they lived long enough, I wonder?”
“Perhaps. Being ageless does not make you realistic, however. Or long-lived. A moment of bad luck or misjudgement can still kill you. Or not being on your guard. Or being surprised by an unexpected danger.”
She looked at him. “During battles with unpredictable opponents – like machines that keep growing more sophisticated.”
Qall grimaced. “Yes.” He looked down at the Restorer army, which had moved out of the arrival place and into the courtyard next door. Unlike in the battles against Dahli, and the earlier one between the Rebels and the Raen, the army was not made up of a small number of strong sorcerers fortified by the magic gathered and delivered by weaker sorcerers. With Rielle able to provide a world’s worth of magic in a short time, all fighters effectively had the stamina of powerful sorcerers – as long as it wasn’t first taken by those positioned closer to Rielle.
Fighting large machine armies in dead worlds presented entirely new challenges to the Restorer army. Fighting with a Maker on their side was not as simple as it first seemed, either. Qall’s advisers had considered how best to adapt to both. They’d suggested that many sorcerers were better than few, since the Restorers’ targets were so numerous and they could aim accurately at only one or a few at the same time. Reports from refugees of defeated worlds supported this.
Tyen hadn’t tried to fight the machines in Kettin’s world, so he hadn’t been able to advise on how to approach it. Rielle blinked as she remembered something he’d said.
“Tyen said he ran out of power quite suddenly. That the more magic you use the more abrupt and surprising it is coming to the end of it. We should be wary of that.”
“Are you two together again?”
Startled by the change of subject, she raised an eyebrow at Qall. “So you haven’t read my mind lately?”
“Of course, but your thoughts regarding him are… ambiguous. Something has changed. I’m wondering if you’ve been too busy to think about it.”
She shook her head. “We’re friends.”
“You’re more than that,” he told her.
“Close friends. We have a lot in common.”
“It’s more than that,” he insisted.
She sighed, exasperated. “Does it really matter to you what we do in our private lives?”
He shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m interested in him myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “Trying to make me jealous? I don’t think he’s interested in men, Qall.”
“He wouldn’t have to be. If I can change my appearance, I could be everything he’s interested in.”
She stared at him and, annoyingly, found she was jealous. And protective. To deceive Tyen like that would be—
He chuckled. “Don’t worry, Rielle. I won’t steal him from you.” He gave her a sidelong look. “On the other hand, I could try stealing you from him.”
She let out a disbelieving huff. “You’re like a son to me, Qall.”
“You might feel differently in time.”
“What, when I’m old and wrinkly?”
“You don’t have to be. I can keep you young.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure I’d like to be constantly in debt to ageless sorcerers. Perhaps it’s better to age and die like ordinary people. Besides, I may not even live through the next few hours.” She looked towards the army. “What will you do if Kettin manages to kill me off?”
His smile vanished. “We leave. Don’t worry. I am fully aware that having no source of magic will rapidly turn us all into ordinary, vulnerable human beings.”
“Even you,” she pointed out, relieved that he had returned to a less personal subject, though she suspected he had only been teasing her to find out how she regarded Tyen now.
“Yes. So much for being the most powerful sorcerer in the worlds.” His shoulders lifted. “I need to be the smartest instead. And for my fighters to follow my orders, without Baluka here to show his support of me.”
Baluka had returned with the news that the Travellers would not be joining the army. He had stayed behind, in charge of the base.
“Do you doubt they will?” Rielle asked.
He looked down, scanning the crowd. “Not at the moment. There are a few who aren’t convinced about me, but if they don’t trust me, they do trust those who are willing to trust me.” He sighed and began lowering them to the ground. “I may have Valhan’s knowledge, but I don’t have his confidence in himself.”
“You have courage.”
“Is there any difference?”
“Yes. Bravery is what you have when you choose do something despite being afraid, not when you aren’t afraid.”
He raised one of his eyebrows. “How do you know whether I’m afraid or not?”
She smiled. “I knew you as a young man, when all your emotions were written on your face and in
your gestures. You still give a little of that away, though nobody else can see it but me.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ll have to try harder to hide them.”
They were nearly at the ground, landing in the centre of the army. Rielle waited until her feet were on the pavement before she spoke again. “Must you? Can’t you leave me one small advantage?”
Qall didn’t answer. Something had caught his attention. He was looking upwards, his gaze moving back and forth. The chatter among the Restorers began to fade. Rielle searched the aqua-blue of the sky, wondering what he had noticed.
Then she saw it. A shadow so large her mind had not been able to make sense of it. It was like a moon hovering over the arrival place, the base nearly touching the ground and the top disappearing behind clouds high above.
“Link!” Qall shouted.
Rielle tore her eyes away from the enormous globe as the army obeyed. The fighters drew close together, taking hold of a neighbour or two. She took hold of Qall’s arm and grabbed the shoulder of the closest sorcerer.
“That’s incredible,” Qall breathed, still looking upwards. “So many machines. They must already be carrying magic, since there’s almost none here for them to take. When they get here we’ll have to – ah!”
Machines? Rielle looked up again. Details of the globe were now visible. Limbless machines nestled against other machines, like a giant round puzzle. All were exactly the same: grey, smoothly metallic and double the size of a human head. As she stared, the gaps between them grew darker…
Then gasps and curses came from the Restorers as the globe suddenly fragmented. The closest machines blurred as they passed through people and buildings into the ground. A dizzying impression of shapes spreading outwards followed, and as this expansion slowed Rielle was able to see fine cables stretching between the machines, forming a massive ball-like net expanding to surround not just the Restorers, but the entire world.
“Why aren’t we leaving?” someone asked.
“Because if we do, we’ll encounter whatever that is in the place between worlds,” another voice replied.
The net was hollow, so only the skin of it settled into place above and around them. But that skin was made of so many machines it was thick enough to fill the air between the city and the clouds. When the cables between each machine were stretched out fully, the machines were spaced about a hundred paces apart, in a formation not unlike the one Rielle, Tyen and Dahli had encountered in Kettin’s world.
“They’re arriving!” Qall shouted. “Check your position! Check your neighbour’s position!”
Looking down, Rielle saw that a cable appeared to pass through her leg. She took a step aside, out of its way. The sound of shuffling feet and spoken warnings broke the eerie silence of the dead city. Most had to let go of their fellow sorcerers. Looking further afield, she saw that Restorers were moving not just out of the way of the arriving machines, but to surround individual ones.
The grey metal invaders turned black.
“Attack!” Qall called.
The air exploded. Deafening noise and flashes of light assailed Rielle’s senses. Attacks came from all sides, making the shield of stilled air she held about her body vibrate. The scream of metal distorting and breaking joined the cacophony, as well as human shrieks of pain. Not all the fighters had stayed out of the way of the arriving machines. Not all had withstood the first attack.
This was not the formation the advisers had suggested. It was exactly what they had warned against.
“Don’t stay on the ground. A clear space all around will allow you to see what is arriving from the place between, be that obstacles or assassins hoping to get within your shield.”
But it was not long before the attacks on Rielle’s shield lessened as the closest machines used up their store of magic and were smashed by the Restorers. The remaining assault was coming from the swarms of machines that were crowding down from above, no longer linked by cables.
“Levitate!” Qall ordered.
The fighters began to rise as one. Rielle concentrated on the shield she held around herself and moved it upwards in synch with the army. Levitation would use up more magic than standing on the ground, but this wouldn’t matter once she began producing more.
Which I should be doing now, she realised, looking towards Qall.
“Now?” she asked.
He glanced at her, then nodded. “Yes. Let’s see if the machines understand what you are doing and single you out.”
She looked up. “Is no sorcerer controlling them?”
He shook his head. “Whoever brought them left before I could find their mind. Perhaps to bring another one of those… things.”
Rielle shuddered at the prospect. “Then I’ll get to it.”
Qall move away a little to give her space. “Formation!” he shouted.
“Keep Rielle in the centre, not just to protect her but so that your army can take all the magic she generates and none goes to the enemy,” the advisers had said.
Drawing upon a little more of her store of power, Rielle started creating sparks of light. As each began to glow, she set it on a little dance that followed in the path of the previous one, until she had several threads of them, like strings of beads, swirling around her. It was strange to be doing this in the midst of a battle. She didn’t want to be doing it. The Restorers were forming a protective sphere around her, and she wanted to watch to see if it proved as effective a strategy as the advisers hoped. She wanted to smash the machines, too. Though the prospect of fighting always filled her with dread and reluctance, machines were not people. She could destroy them without shouldering the burden of guilt that had increased every time she had killed someone.
But generation was her role here, not destruction. Nobody else could do what she did. She drew in a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and focused on the sparks. On the designs she created. On trying new and interesting patterns. Twirling lights would not produce magic without her will behind them. Only creativity generated magic.
The battle intruded. It was impossible to ignore the rare scream. Each time she could not help trying to see if someone had been killed or injured. Each time she was relieved to see that the Restorers were doing a fine job of dispatching machines, overall. As each device depleted its store of magic, it could be smashed or melted or torn apart. The fragments fell, sometimes bouncing off the shields of the sorcerers below them, to a steadily growing mound of them below. The strategists would be proud.
“Destroy the machines, so they can’t be revived with more magic and sent against you again,” they’d said.
“Link on my signal! We are moving on!”
Rielle looked at Qall in surprise. He was holding a hand out to her.
“I think we’ve proven we can hold our own under this sort of attack,” he said as she took it. “Time to see how close we can get to Kettin’s world.”
The order was being repeated so that all would hear it. Fighters moved closer together, those above dropping and those below rising to the same level. The machines crowded in, still attacking. When all the fighters were close enough to easily take hold of a neighbour, Qall called out again.
“Anyone not ready?” he asked.
No answer came.
The world faded. Machine attacks that had been aimed at Restorers struck other machines. More fell from the sky, but the scene faded out of sight before any reached the ground.
“Take the fight to Kettin,” the advisers had recommended. “The machines aren’t your target, the controllers of them are, and Kettin is the foremost controller.”
Rielle stretched out her senses, searching for presences beyond the army. She detected a pair retreating. Too far away to see. Qall took the army down towards the arrival place, found the path they’d arrived along and a different one leading away. The last shadows of the freshly conquered world disappeared as he started down the latter.
The next world emerged from the
whiteness. A vast depression in the earth, perfectly round as if a bowl had been pressed into it, stretched below them. Rielle recalled the size and shape of the sphere of machines and guessed it had been the cause. All around the depression were tracks radiating outwards. Or, more likely, inwards if the machines were the source. Smoke or steam wafted up from the soil and pooled in the base of the depression. Qall paused just before arriving, perhaps wary of this. Rielle sensed another path and felt him direct everyone along it rather than entering the world.
The next world’s arrival place was within another ruined city. Huge pointed structures with five sides remained standing amid a flat plain of rubble. A red river choked by debris curved like a slash of paint or blood through all. Qall brought them into this world long enough for Rielle and the other mortal sorcerers to catch their breath, then pushed out of it again.
This time Rielle sensed several presences in the place between. They kept their distance, tracking the army’s progress. Two worlds later, a shifting darkness appeared on the path ahead. It was travelling quickly towards them and, as it neared, the shadow expanded. Rielle recognised the same moonlike structure as before, like a vast net hoping to enclose the Restorers.
Qall swerved around it. The net changed direction too slowly to touch them. It followed as the Restorer army continued towards the next world.
When we arrive we’ll have to get out of its way quickly, Rielle thought. But they didn’t enter the world. Qall abruptly skimmed the army to one side, using the advantage of superior magical ability to outrun the net. He brought the Restorers into the world on a sandy shore scattered with washed-up vessels of many different sizes and shapes, their crews lying on deck or floating at the high-tide mark.
“Stay linked,” he called.
Rielle breathed in and out as quickly and deeply as she could, wincing at the smell of death. The Restorers looked around, searching for signs of the machine sphere’s approach.
One moment the sky was clear, the next a dark network surrounded them. Only this sphere did not expand to match the curvature of the worlds. It remained closely connected, the gaps between the machines kept small to make it harder for the Restorers to slip through, and shifted to surround the army.
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