by Kate Elliott
Zacharias grunted; he had many sounds left to him, but without a tongue few of them made words. The Old Ones understood him nonetheless. They had offered him strength—and with strength came the opportunity to avenge Hathui’s betrayal. He quieted his mind as Hugh began the chant.
“Matthias guide me, Mark protect me, Johanna free me, Lucia aid me, Marian purify me, Peter heal me, Thecla be my witness always, that the Lady shall be my shield and the Lord shall be my sword.”
The staff caught the thread of the Crown of Stars and bound it into the circle of stones, and as stars rose and others set Hugh directed his arm so the staff wove these strands into a net that dazzled his eye and throbbed through his body.
Or was that the ground itself trembling? The moon set. Night passed more quickly than he had imagined once they were enveloped within the web of the spell, pulled one way as heaven’s wheel strained at the stones, as each ply drew taut and, before it could snap, was directed elsewhere to spin the pattern on into a new configuration.
There were rents in the sky, huge gaps, like tears in a tent wall through which a man might glimpse the world beyond.
He sees the ladder of the heavens reaching from the Earth high up into the sky, glimmering in a rainbow of colors, rose, silver, azure, amber, amethyst, malachite, and blue-white fire burning so hot that he cannot look at it directly. Disquiet assails him. The ladder is empty. All the aetherical daimones who once ascended and descended from Earth to the heavens and back again are absent. Or fled.
They have fled the power of the weaving. For an instant he quails. He shrinks. Fear swells. Then he recalls Hathui and the voice of the Old Ones. He is Brother. He is Grandson. He will act. He will be strong.
“Sister Meriam!” said Hugh.
An answering voice thrummed within the web of the spell; he glimpsed her frail form, supported by her granddaughter, in the midst of a wasteland of sand and shattering sky. He felt her body beside his, although he knew it for illusion.
“I am here. I am here.”
“Brother Marcus!”
The ruins of Kartiako rose as ragged shadows along a distant hillside before Marcus’ tense figure blocked the view.
“I am here.”
The heavens turned. Night crept westward across the Earth although they were by now drowned in darkness, marching on through the early night hours toward midnight. So it was true, he thought, heaven and Earth stretched those threads out, and out, until they were as thin as a length of hair. It was true that the Earth and the heavens were spheres, for otherwise night would come all at once and at the same time in each place but instead the heavens turned and the stars rose above the horizon first in the uttermost east and later as night crept westward over the Earth.
The rents opened wider as the threads pulled taut.
Stars burn, each with its own color, each with its own voice, each with its own variegated soul.
He wept with joy at their beauty. The music of the spheres rang through his body as the spell caught him within its weft and warp.
“Hugh! Meriam! Marcus!”
He faltered, hearing a voice colder than any nightmare. The Holy Mother had joined her presence to the web.
“I am here,” said Hugh, and Zacharias could say nothing, but of course now it seemed obvious that Hugh had lied to him. Why give Zacharias the glory of weaving the spell when Hugh could take it all to himself? Why did he want another man standing in for him?
Yet what did it matter? He had to concentrate on the weaving. Patience. Soon this joy would end. What matter what came after? He knew what fate awaited him.
Every spell demands a sacrifice.
A fifth voice joined them, a man’s voice unknown to Zacharias although he spoke his name: Severus. Hugh still chanted, but his hand fell away from the staff as Zacharias wove the threads. Hugh eased backward out of the net as a sixth woman wove herself into the spell, who called herself “Abelia.”
The seventh crown waited, still silent, but within the song of the other crowns he sensed the net, yawning wide. He felt on his shoulders a prickle like the breath of impending doom, a great weight bearing down on them not precisely from the sky but from a place beside the sky, inside the sky, unseen but ready to explode out of the air.
The scatter of stars known as the Crown of Stars had already climbed most of the way to the zenith, although it seemed he had only drawn six breaths in the interval since nightfall. Mok and the Healer sank down toward the southwestern horizon as the Penitent made ready to lay down her burden. In the east, the Lion poked his nose above the horizon while the Guivre flew aloft in triumph. The River of Heaven streamed right across the zenith, rising in the southeast and pouring its harvest of souls into the northwest.
Each star glittered like a jewel, etched onto the black vault of the sky. Each one sang in his heart as the seventh voice joined them out of the crowns.
“Reginar.”
“I am here.”
Hugh stood a hand’s breadth behind him, no longer touching him although his chanting did not falter as he sang a tune as melodic as a hymn and far sweeter.
With the touch of the seventh circle, the crown lit with fire, burning heavenward, blue white and so brilliant that it hurt Zacharias’ eyes although he felt no heat. The heavens shuddered. He stared into their depths and saw the shadow of a vast weight hurtling down on them not as rain falls from clouds or as an arrow is loosed from on high but approaching from within the net of the spell.
The spell buckled under the strain, but it did not break. The seven mathematici drew their strength together, making ready to seal and close the crowns, to cast the exiled land back into the aether. To close off Earth forever.
The stars splintered into rays of color, stems banded along their length with variant light, some streaming blue and some red. The Earth groaned. Mountains shifted; the waters churned. Because he was woven into the spell, he felt cracks racing out from the crowns into the deep places far beneath the surface of Earth, down and down to where rivers of fire steamed and crackled.
“Now!” cried Anne. Her voice rang through the seven crowns.
Out of the depths a voice called as though in answer.
Now, Grandson.
He cast himself through the archway. Because he still held the staff he dragged the threads in after him, tangling them, pulling them all awry and thereby disrupting the spell. It had to be disrupted at as many of the crowns as possible, so the Old Ones had instructed him. Without Zacharias, their plan could not succeed.
In the distance down the pathways of the spell
he sees an island crowned by stones. A young abbot standing on the weaving ground gasps and turns just as he is cut down by an ax, but another cleric leaps forward to take his place, grasping the threads before they can unravel. Yet she, too, falls beneath a shower of ax blows. Beyond the crown, the ground heaves and collapses in on itself as half the island shears away. A huge winged creature rears up from underneath the dirt
he hears Severus’ voice crying out in fear and shocked anger as the glittering sand beneath his feet comes alive with translucent claws: “What means this! What?” The claws drag him under.
Blue-white fire enveloped him, burning him. No earthly flesh could withstand such heat, yet he felt no pain, only the cold grasp of death engulfing him. He would never see Hathui again unless they met on the Other Side.
With his last breath: There.
Through tears he sees into the infinite span that lies beyond the heavenly spheres. Folds of black dust form shapes like shifting clouds. Two suns spin each about the other, linked by pathways of red fire. A nautilus of light churns around a dark center. A spiral wheel composed of numberless stars whirls in a silence so vast it has weight. He is afraid, but he was once always afraid. Life is fear. Let it go.
So much light beckons, and yet gulfs of emptiness swell between the great wheels. This is the Abyss, into which all humankind falls in the end.
Let it go.
Death comes
to all creatures, even to the stars.
He let go. He fell.
3
NOW.
For a long time she lay in a state between sleep and waking, kept alive by bitter seaweed and an astringent juice brought to her by the brothers. At intervals she explored the passageways that led out of the cavern, using a trail of pebbles to mark her path, but even with her salamander eyes to guide her she at length came to labyrinthine tunnels without any illumination whatsoever, and so she returned, always, to the cavern.
It wouldn’t have mattered anyway even if she had found a path that led to the surface. She had a task she had to complete.
When she slept, or lay in a stupor, the old ones spoke to her; what a person might say in an hour took them days or even weeks. She couldn’t be sure.
She held on. She would have one chance. She might never again see those she loved, but what did love matter when weighed against duty? She knew how to seal off her heart; she did so now, so that sentiment would not distract her. That skill she had learned from Anne.
Now.
The tremors came constantly, as if the Earth were adrift on a vast sea like a ship rolling and yawing on the waves. Deep in the Earth the old ones worked their ancient magic. They could not touch Anne; they could not even move, it seemed, but they had other means at their disposal. They channeled the deep rivers and spoke to those who had the patience to listen and the ability to travel.
We. Are. The. Children. Of. The. Cataclysm. We. Are. Guardians. Of. Our. Own. Children. We. Are. Born. Of. Stone. And. Dragon’s. Blood. And. Human. Flesh.
She roused as the sting of magic melted down through the Earth from the land above, winding her in a ghostly net of blue-white fire. She staggered up to her feet. Gnat and Mosquito lifted their heads to stare at her with flat eyes.
“Go far out to sea with your kinfolk,” she said to them. “You will not survive if you remain close to shore.”
They looked at each other. The eels that were their hair twitched and writhed, hissing, as though motion were speech.
“Go,” she repeated.
They dragged themselves to the flooded passageway, slithered in, and vanished, leaving her alone. She knelt, pressing palms against the ground. She let her awareness fall as the net of magic twisted along her body and snapped in her hair, making it stand on end. She pierced with her mind’s eye far down into the molten fields lying beneath the grinding crusts of stone. Where rivers of fire flowed, she swam, making her way out of the eddies of viscous pools into faster-moving streams so red-hot they melted their own path through rock. These rivers raged at flood stage, pushed and prodded by the Old Ones in their circles. Beneath the seeming solidity of the ground, a tumult of liquified stone seethed and boiled.
As night crept westward across the land and the stars rose, the weaving caught within the stones of seven circles, the great crown that spanned the northern lands and the Middle Sea. The net of the spell blazed. Through that net she saw the shadow of the Ashioi land manifesting out of the aether not as a stone drops from on high but shifting out of one aetherical plane of existence back into the world of mortal kind. Through the widening gaps aether poured down into the world below, invisible to mortal eyes but blazing with power that Anne and her cabal gathered into their loom.
She heard Anne’s voice reaching out to the rest of the Seven Sleepers who wove the spell: Meriam, Marcus, Hugh, Severus, Abelia, Reginar.
“Now!”
A surge of emotion coursed through that net, its own kind of magic that works against those who oppose the one who is about to win: Anne knew that she had triumphed and that her enemies had lost. The warp and weft of the spell wove together into a vast glittering net that interpenetrated aether and Earth.
“Now!” echoed the Old Ones.
Now.
The Old Ones had searched and commanded, and at the three northern crowns their agents leaped into action. To the north, ice wyrms consumed Brother Severus. To the northwest, an Eika prince called Stronghand cut down the clerics gathered at the Alban stone circle. To the east in the wilderness north of Ungria, Hugh—nay, it was not Hugh at all. Hugh had set another in his place to absorb the backlash he knew was coming, a tattered, mute cleric named Zacharias. That other man flung himself bravely into the crown, knowing it would kill him, but by tangling the threads he knotted them all across the northern span of the weaving. One side of the spell began to unravel.
Anne did not falter. She was stronger than Liath had imagined any mortal could be.
“Marcus! Meriam! Abelia!”
They did not fail her. Across the southern span the net held steady and with its thrumming architecture to bolster her Anne bent her will to the north and from her place in the center of the crowns she painstakingly wove the threads back together. The spell shuddered back to strength, weakened along that line but not shattered. The Earth groaned and quaked. The heavens ripped, turning white as lightning scorched the sky. The waters of the sea were sucked out and farther out yet by an unnatural ebb tide until a broad swath of shoreline was laid bare, exposing ancient foundations, old roads, shipwrecks, and gasping fish.
There was no one in place to halt Meriam, Marcus, and Abelia because they could not reach them even with the Eika ships. They hadn’t had time. Yet the Old Ones left no contingency unplanned for. Age gave them an advantage Anne did not possess: they knew how to think things through from beginning to end. They had one force left in reserve.
One last weapon.
Liath was only sorry for Meriam’s sake, because Meriam had been kind to her, but it had to be done. Best not to think about consequences.
Swift. Daughter. Act. Now.
Aether poured through the net of the spell down to the Earth. Liath drew this bright, heavenly substance into her and used its power to unfurl her wings of flame. When those wings enfolded her in a sheltering cage of aetherical power, she reached down and farther down yet to the burning rivers—and called fire out of the deeps.
4
ALONG the outerworks of the ancient fortress Fulk ordered the men. Those who could still heft a shield formed a tight line behind the tumbled stones. As Bwr, Quman, and Ungrians filtered in, they were sent out into the clearing to cover the flanks to ensure safe passage from the line of retreat to the fallen arch of the gate. A dozen wagons trundled up, but the roadway leading up to the gate was impassable because of fallen stones and broken pavement, so after their cargo of supplies and wounded were hauled up into the ruined fort, they were rolled against the others to form a barrier, yet another makeshift wall to hold off Henry when he arrived.
“We’ll be surrounded by Henry’s army,” said Fulk, following Sanglant up the ramp with men bearing torches before and behind.
“Perhaps. The Ashioi are powerful allies. They can’t be killed because they aren’t truly alive.”
“That’s so.” The captain glanced from side to side nervously. Shadowy forms—old women clutching baskets and jars, lean children with eyes as bright as stars—glared at them from the alcoves and hollows where they had taken shelter. When lightning flared, they almost dissolved away entirely into the light. It was easier to detect their presence when it was dark.
“Can you smell it?” At the gate that led into the inner court, Sanglant paused while wounded trudged or were carried past into the shelter of what appeared to be a fallen chapel. “There’s water here. We’ll not be driven out by thirst, at least. You’re in command, Fulk, unless Lord Druthmar is found.”
He hurried down the ramp and back into the clearing, running once he gained level ground, careful of his feet given the many corpses littering the open space. To the south, where Henry’s forces pressed the assault, Sanglant saw signs of his own stragglers losing order and flying. Men passed by, some weaponless, most wounded. Seeing their prince, those without weapons took heart and moved to go back to the fray, prying swords and spears out of the hands of corpses, but Sanglant ordered them up to the walls. They were being overwhelmed, yet the shad
ow elves would soon turn the pursuit upon the pursuers.
“Hai!” called Zuangua. “Make haste. We haven’t much time!”
He left Fest with Hathui and Sergeant Cobbo and followed Zuangua as best as he could, but it was hard going once they got into the forest. The shadow prince moved so gracefully between branches that his armor or cloak never snagged and his face was never scraped. He was unhindered by the poor light lent only by shaded starlight, setting moon, and irregular flashes of lightning. He was also silent and odorless in a way most disconcerting to Sanglant who knew men and beasts as much by their sound and smell as their faces and color. He existed, but he had no earthly substance, and more than once Sanglant slammed up against an unnoticed tree that Zuangua effortlessly avoided.
They passed Malbert, still carrying the dragon banner, and a ragged group of grim soldiers marching double-time in tight formation. “Make haste, my lord prince!” Malbert called in an uncanny echo of Zuangua’s words. “There’s one group behind us. I fear they’re lost.”
At last they came upon the rear guard huddled around an overturned wagon. Wounded men had spilled out on the ground, and while some crawled or limped away down the path after the retreating line, Lewenhardt, Sibold with an arrow pierced through the meat of his neck, and six others held out around those of their injured comrades who could not move themselves. No few soldiers wearing the eagle of Fesse or the tricolor of Wendar lay dead or dying from their attempt to overrun these last few guardsmen, but a fresh assault pressed out of the trees on the heels of those who had fallen.
Zuangua danced up to the soldiers, startling them as he jumped up on the wagon and sliced the air with his obsidian-edged spear. The cut left a trail of sparks in its wake.
Lewenhardt, with an empty quiver at his back and his last arrow nocked, stood stunned, unsure if he should loose it at the shadow or at Henry’s men.
“Lewenhardt! Sibold!” Sanglant came up beside them out of the gloom. “Take every man you can carry and go. We have new allies. We’ll cover your retreat. There’s a fortress ahead where Fulk’s in command. Go!”