Miles turned a corner, bringing us to a rather nondescript room.
“Here we are, then. Bunch of anti-personnel weapons at our disposal, designed to blow up invading nasties.” Pushing open the door, he fumbled with a panel to his right, and the lights came on.
“Whoa.”
I wasn’t too sure who said that, but that was rather irrelevant. I had expected a storage closet maybe five metres in length and breadth, give or take a few metres, but not an expansive warehouse. Ignoring our gobsmacked faces, Miles walked into the neatly arranged shelves, coming out shortly later with a trolley.
“We used to have a Beacon here, but it stopped working after we used it to move around half of the defenses we had intended to install here.” Miles patted his clothes down, dusting it. “But bureaucracy happens, and we never got a replacement, so we couldn’t exactly bring these things past Customs back to the Conclave HQ in Europe.”
“Lucky for us then. Do these things still work?” Crow asked.
“These mines were designed to be easy to set up en masse. One or two not working won’t be an issue,” replied Miles. “After all, you can’t expect old wrinkly men and women to be skilled in these things, right?”
Everyone else looked at him in silence.
“I’m an exception, alright?” Miles complained. “Come on, give me a hand, we have barely an hour before they come.”
He flexed his wrinkly arms, before directing everyone else around, bringing boxes and boxes of equipment and placing it on the trolley.
Chapter 25
“Wasn’t that a bit too easy?” I asked, looking at the ridiculously cluttered front entrance.
A cursory glance revealed over a hundred devices, placed haphazardly: concaved side facing the front entrance. Each of them had a wire running from their back, eventually culminating into a thick bundle of red wires, connected to a control with a single button. You’d expect setting so many of these things to be hard, but it was just a bit of wiring.
“Believe me, the crusty old men and women of the Conclave wouldn’t understand anything we’ve done so far. They’d pull over a few hundred favors just to get these things set up, maybe sell a country or two while they’re at it.”—Miles, who was holding on to that control, pressed the button—“Alright, everything’s armed, so don’t go running around here anymore.”
He looked at the rest of us, who were now huddled around the staircase downstairs. He shook his head and walked over to us, mindful of the jagged caltrops that Crow scattered around. Crow had produced them from nowhere, and no one really wanted to ask why and where either.
Mr. Meng was waiting for us downstairs. The plan had called for a defense-in-depth, whatever that was, but apparently, we would hold them off at certain areas, cause some casualties or something, and fall back when the barrier around each point was going to break.
The building also had equipment to thin out the numbers of an approaching army, according to Miles. He would also be in the ‘Boss room’, monitoring and blasting off at groups of Outsiders that should be making their way to us soon. I had gotten a mental image of an old man with unruly, white hair laughing maniacally as he pulled the trigger on some sci-fi railgun when Miles said that earlier on.
Last night, when I’d created that tower of light, Crow had wanted me to implement a detonating feature, which didn’t see much use, unfortunately. The defense points this time round would use these barriers, which had been set up beforehand, manifesting as little flames enclosed by a sparkly and spiky crystal. I had to create them after I’d slowed time, otherwise they’d had difficulty functioning.
In addition, random objects had been stacked up to create cover and obstacles all around these improvised chokepoints. There were some firearms lying around in the warehouse, but none of us knew how to use them, so they continued to gather dust. It was better than having them blow up in our faces, or even shoot our allies by mistake. Of course, that didn’t stop Crow from trying to pocket a particularly well-crafted revolver—although there were no revolver rounds that he could use.
“That’s the last one, I think,” I said, as another crystal appeared on top of my palm.
I felt a scalding spike in my brain as I stood up, exhausted by my sheer effort. It was one thing to say a word to create a barrier, but making it carry certain desired properties required the finer manipulation of Spiritual and Natural Laws.
“We’ll have to stop then. Anymore and you might black out first.” Mr. Meng assessed my face, which I guessed was quite pallid by now. “At any rate, I’m not sure whether we can really hold them off until daybreak, but that’s how it is.”
Everyone nodded.
“Let’s return to where Aurora is first,” said Miles. “We can observe our surroundings from there.”
Our pace increased, and we were soon walking through the door to the ‘Boss room.’ Floating screens providing visuals popped up around Miles as he entered the room. The sun had almost set in the short duration we had used to fortify our position, and a scene similar to yesterday was on the screen again.
The seal on the Far Shore was once again visible, its silvery light illuminating the sunless sky. Ripples appeared on it with a more rapid frequency, but the flow of time here was much slower than that of the Far Shore, so it was natural.
“Brace yourself,” Miles warned, as an utterly black line cut across the silvery sheen. Hairline fractures branched out from that blackness, creating an effect reminiscent of shattered glass.
“They’re actually breaking the seal…” murmured Mr. Meng. “Looks like a precursor to a full-blown invasion of Earth.”
As he spoke, something like a piece of glass, glistening silver, broke off, leaving a patch of darkness behind as it disappeared from view.
“It seems like the Outsiders are intent on breaking the seal completely before anything else,” said Miles. More and more screens had popped up around him, giving a room a Star Trek feel to it. Miles had squatted down to examine a certain screen which had nothing moving on it. “But why?”
“Maybe they’re scared of being trapped?” asked Crow. “In the end, even we don’t know how this seal works. Maybe the seal’s dangerous or something.”
“Extra credit, maybe?” said Hao Wei. “Wasn’t this whole thing just a trial by fire for the Outsiders? Maybe taking down the seal granted extra marks. Killing off threats probably granted more marks too. Why would they bother attacking the Alliance otherwise?”
Everyone mulled over his words for a while, but it had sounded right to me. I looked at the screen and said, “Maybe we’ll get a chance to ask later.”
The sky by now was a patchwork of silver and black. It was supposed to be a gibbous moon, but its calm light had somehow vanished, undoubtedly the handiwork of the Far Shore. More and more ripples had appeared, as did the falling silvery fragments that used to be part of the seal.
“It’s going to break soon, I guess,” I said, swallowing down a lump in my throat.
As these words left my lips, the last bit of silvery screen fell from the sky, leaving nothing but a black patch behind. Almost instantaneously, thousands upon thousands of black figures appeared, faintly illuminated by the red lights mixed within the sea of darkness.
“That’s a lot, isn’t it?” Crow asked.
Miles nodded his head. “Sure is.”
A rod appeared in his hand, and with the familiar smooth movement that resembled a conductor, an amber glow lit up the end of the rod. Without any superfluous movements, Miles pointed the glowing end towards the screen, where the Outsiders were slowly closing in. His voice was quiet as he whispered an incantation.The building shook, and on the screen, a giant beam of amber light cut through the sea of Outsiders, leaving a gaping hole in its wake.
“Unfortunately, the number of times I can do this is limited.”—Miles had a look of regret on his face—“No one from the Conclave could have expected an enemy force numerous enough to take three attacks from this building.”
His eyes flitted towards a screen, where a bar was now two-thirds filled. The screens that provided a live feed were shaking, as though the Outsider horde was screaming their lungs out. With a collective shudder, the Outsider horde sped up, obviously enraged by the massacre of their fellows.
Miles raised his rod again, but his hand was shaking this time. The amber glow flickered, and he grimaced. “Looks like my blasting rod’s going to break soon.”
He pointed the glowing end towards the screen again, and this time the rod splintered and snapped into two as another beam of amber light cut a swathe of ruin across the ocean of advancing Outsiders.
Far behind them, another batch of black figures appeared, racing towards us. My heart sank. Reinforcements. The reinforcements clustered together, forming distinct groups that flew as a vague formation that hinted at discipline.
“Miles,” said Mr. Meng, “the reinforcements have priority.”
Miles nodded, his face now an ashen-white. “That took a whole lot out of me.” He produced a bowl from nowhere, an entirely ordinary porcelain bowl. He placed the rod inside, giving it one more glance, before he raised the bowl, the opening facing the screen.
“I once told Aster that magic was about symbolism,” said Miles, with an air of a teacher. “Allow me to demonstrate once more with an entirely ordinary bowl. This bowl is going to act as a focusing glass, for the dispersed power that would be released here.”
“Cinise,” Miles whispered, his eyes glued to the rod as he watched it collapse into a grey powdery dust. A tiny and dull, ochre light remained, before glowing at an indescribable intensity as my eyes flew shut in response. When I finally opened my eyes again, the powder and bowl had disappeared, as did more than half of the Outsider reinforcements that were projected onto the screen.
Miles’ breathing grew labored. “It seems… like I’ve overdone it.”
Mr. Meng caught him before he collapsed, bringing him over to a chair. His tired eyes brimmed with satisfaction as he surveyed the destruction wrought upon the approaching forces.
Mr. Meng’s eyes fell onto me, and I nodded.
“Ward. Sanctuary. Primer. Bastion. Reinforce.” My body protested, with my internal organs churning in turmoil, as I successively commanded every single ambient law around me to obey my will.
I had thought up various improvements to my defenses, after seeing what Mr. Meng and Miles did, but adding them required more effort. A five-layered barrier, crisscrossed with a beehive pattern, appeared around the building.
A shudder rippled through the Outsiders, causing them to halt briefly as they entered the country proper, before flying onwards to the barrier. The Outsiders knew that they had entered a domain of slowed time, and I shivered as they attempted to resist.
“I’ve gotten their attention,” I said, my voice softer than usual. “They’re hesitating now.”
A flicker of concern could be seen within Mr. Meng’s eyes, but he carried on watching the screen. “It seems like they’re contemplating their next course of action.” Mr. Meng drummed his fingers on the table. “Let’s give them more things to think about, then. Miles?”
Miles nodded weakly, and his fingers flickered around the screen. I felt the surroundings tremble, and the temperature fluctuated wildly as all sorts of mana signatures appeared outside my barrier, protecting it like sentinels.
“Familiars, created from mana,” explained Miles. “They are capable of independent action and draw mana from this facility.”
The Outsiders abruptly formed into two groups of neat ranks, the crimson commanders at the front, with their thralls standing listlessly behind them.
“Audio, now!” Mr. Meng ordered hurriedly. The room was instantly covered with the sounds of nightlife, and a regular thumping that most likely came from the winged, lower-ranked Outsiders. The night was unnaturally still and silent, devoid of any wildlife or wind. The neat ranks of the Outsiders weren’t moving at all, not even a twitch.
They were waiting for something. Some higher authority.
The wind unexpectedly picked up, and a single black globe appeared in the middle of the two ranks. Black arcs of lightning flashed around the globe, and the wind grew into a howling gale. A collective tremor had run through the Outsider ranks, and they prostrated as one in the direction of the hideously black sphere.
The darkness deepened, and the surface of the sphere hardened into something like a grotesque chicken egg. At this sight, every single Outsider lowered their heads onto the floor, not daring to meet the eyes of whatever was coming next.
An immense pressure descended upon us all, despite us being in the room and insulated from the chilling presence of the Outsiders. The feeling was similar to the reactions we had when that Hazred came last night. I gritted my teeth, picturing a cleaver slicing through threads, and forced out a single word.
“Sever.”
As I said the word, reinforced with my will, I felt the natural and Spiritual Laws around me react. It was the same phenomenon; whatever that was in that black globe was another source of authority that could command these laws, and my chest throbbed in protest as the unnatural weight was lifted from us.
I raised my eyes to the screen, just in time to see the globe fall apart, revealing two figures, and I immediately recognized one of them as Hazred. Shockingly, he was suspended in mid-air, floating at the side of the other party. A closer glance revealed that there were many stakes-like things embedded into his limbs and torso.
It was evident that he was at the mercy of the other Outsider. His captor, wreathed in mist and shadows, was unmoving and still.
“That’s…” Hao Wei began, before trailing off. He wasn’t the only one lost for words. The humanoid Outsider, who had been so mighty and imposing, had his life completely under control by the other party. A few tendrils of mist wrapped around the powerless Hazred, forcing him into a standing position.
“A demonstration?” asked Mr. Meng.
Miles nodded. “In front of us, no less. But I think there’s something more.”
The shadowy Outsider hadn’t moved, but I felt his gaze fall upon the barrier and us inside it. An uncomfortable feeling rose up, like it was entirely natural for every part of us to be revealed to his eyes.
“Greetings, protectors of the Key,” whispered a honeyed voice, right into our ears. My heart constricted, and my limbs numbed. Everyone else around me reacted similarly. “I am the High Overseer. It seems that my subordinate has been rather mouthy, no?”
There was a desperate scream and our eyes, despite the pain, fell onto the screen again. A stray tendril of mist was flitting about, an arm in its embrace.
“Prepare yourselves, protectors of the Key,” the honeyed voice whispered to us again. “My subordinate’s going to attack. Don’t let me down.”
The temperature abruptly dropped, and streaks of ice started to form around the furniture. Hazred crumpled on to the ground, freed from his misty bindings, and it took a while before he managed to push himself up from the ground. I met Hazred’s gaze through the monitor, and the world shuddered as he moved his right arm with a vertical slash, directed at us.
I could feel it. Something was descending from the heavens. Miles and Mr. Meng acted, almost on instinct, pulling everyone together into a corner as every single item in the room started splintering and breaking. The barrier around the building burst into resplendent light as the ceiling and walls crumbled to dust, revealing the night sky—and an impossibly long blade of ice, created by powers beyond our comprehension, falling onto our location.
Even before the blade had fallen, my body was barely holding up. Specks of blood appeared in my vision, while I could vaguely feel my fingernails cracking, its fragments embedding themselves into my nail beds. I was struggling to breathe, my ribcage under constant assault from the unbelievably heavy pressure as I collapsed onto the floor.
An anguished cry came from my side, extinguished as swiftly as it came. It was Crow. His chest had been utterly c
rushed, his facemask overflowing with blood.
“Damn it, Crow,” I said, trying to draw attention to him. Drawn by my call, Miles looked at him, and his eyes widened as he saw Crow’s crushed body. His pupils flickered over to Aurora and Mr. Meng, where a feeble, golden sheen was covering their skin. I saw Miles clench his fist, but he was as helpless as I was in this situation. I could feel it; the mere presence of that icy blade was something close to a sovereign existence that called for our doom.
For the second time in less than a week, I felt a power that dwarfed everything I’ve sensed so far seize control over the world. Everything around me quivered as an unearthly wind picked up, and the icy blade cracked as the wind smashed into it. The crushing weight weakened, and fresh air entered my lungs as I regained the ability to breathe. Hao Wei, who had also seen what happened to Crow, was the first person to crawl over to his broken body.
Aurora mumbled Crow’s name, her eyes flicking over to his body, before looking around at everyone else. Whatever the wind was, it had caused the icy blade to weaken, but it was still more than enough to break through our defenses and engulf us. The last of the building crumbled as the icy blade shuddered and continued its descent.
Golden lightning flashed high above us, accompanied by a deafening crack of thunder, and the misty figure reacted immediately. A single tendril of mist flickered, sending Hazred flying a good distance away. The High Overseer backed off swiftly, away from his abandoned prisoner, tendrils of mist flailing in something close to panic.
Just in time too.
Bolt after bolt of lightning fell on both the descending blade of ice and Hazred, causing shards of ice to break off as large fractures appeared throughout the falling blade. Its owner fared little better—he could only writhe and shudder as innumerable lightning bolts struck it everywhere, and the ground around its pitiful figure was burnt black.
The battered icy blade, now a far cry from its previous majestic appearance, continued to descend, effortlessly crushing the familiar spirits that rushed up to resist it, before finally clashing with the barrier I’d created.
To Fling a Light Page 17