by Matt Langley
Something else had uncloaked in Shryke’s mind. Something that not even he knew before and certainly was in no position to understand; the ghost-scar from a future battle shimmered on his forearm. Before it disappeared completely, he made out the faint outline of a boy’s hand.
The God-Queen gathered herself up, pulling the red habit around her. She backed down the sacristy with a face full of confusion and not a little fear. She didn’t make it more than five steps away from the Warrior.
With a crackle of energy, Galdar stepped from the Quantum Aether, and with one almighty swing, smashed the battle-mace through the old woman’s bones, felling her. She collapsed in pieces. Broken. The skull rolled away like a child’s ball. Cogs and wheels, servos and gears clattered and wheezed amid the bones. There was nothing mortal about the God-Queen. The machinery that kept her alive struggled, failing.
Summer nodded with satisfaction as she herself stepped out of Aether and surveyed the aftermath of the violence.
“Who…who are you?” Shryke said, rising, both hands clutching at his temples. The rush of memories clamoured madly through his mind. The force of them made him stumble. He was forced to hold a hand out to stop himself from falling.
Summer went to Shryke. She cast a new and deeper codespell across his memory. Shryke fell unconscious and Summer picked him up as if he weighed nothing. She threw him over her shoulder. “Let’s take him down to where he rescues you from the Raiders.” Summer said as she brushed past Galdar.
Galdar looked at the pile of mechanical bones. “Have we killed her?”
Summer stopped and looked around, “The God-Queen? No, we still have to go there to get here. It’s the way of things. But the God-Queen won’t remember who Shryke or Barl are, or rather that they are one and the same, and that’s the important thing. That’s the secret that must never be told.”
Galdar followed Summer from the Sacristy as the Overloop above the Shrine turned and sparkled in swathes of golden light cast the Sun-Machine high above, a glittering chain, a beautiful illuminated helix…
The story continues in The Science of Magic.