by Jeffrey Cook
Celeste leaned to rummage through her bags, full of their usual bandages and herbs and candles and salt. Her ring slipped out of her shirt to hang on its chain for a moment, before she pushed it back within. Hobie very much approved of that ring. It was right. But clearly, something right now wasn't.
"If we didn't stop them all, we need a plan," he said. "Where's Marshall? He'll know what to do."
Celeste shook her head, opening her mouth as if to say something, and ending up coming up with a choked sob instead.
"Where is Marshall?" Hobie demanded again, ignoring the shots of pain that went through his neck and right shoulder when he moved his head to look around. They were not far away from bright blue water at the edge of a beach. Not far in the other direction, rocky hills rose sharply, dotted with green vegetation. He had to give the group credit: Marshall had them used to finding well-hidden places to camp.
"Marshall is dead, Hobie. Xharomor killed him." Celeste's voice was all wrong, not like her. And now she wouldn't look at him.
"No! That's not possible." Hobie never meant to shout at Celeste. His brother, sure. Noriko, sure. Marshall—yeah, sometimes. A hero worth killing and dying for could still be annoying and all. Had been from the very first 'Don't mind me, Hobie. I just want to pick Nils's brain. Go back to sleep.' They'd all seen how well that had worked.
Hobie couldn't fathom why Celeste would say something that couldn't be true. She was one of the most honest people he knew. But they were all tied to fate. Xharomor had to be dead, even if his lieutenants were still out there somewhere.
"It shouldn't be possible," Celeste said, still not looking him in the eye. "But it's what happened."
Hobie's hands shook. He buried them, closing his fingers tight around fistfuls of sand. He was far too exhausted and hurt to be pulled back into the rage, but that didn't mean he didn't want to hit something, break something, that wasn't one of his friends. "How?"
"Dr. Nathaniel betrayed us. He sabotaged the ritual and stole the sarcophagus."
"Why would he do that? We were going to win." Hobie had stopped doubting her, and now, after all the loremaster had done to help them in the past, he regained some focus on the moment by letting his mind wander through images of all the ways he could break Dr. Nathaniel's withered, frail body.
"We don't know, Hobie. Xharomor can't cure him, but Nils thinks he offered some kind of Otherrealm workaround of immortality that stopped the progression and the pain. Maybe the disease made him insane."
"Well, he has to go down, then," Hobie said. Anger was still easier than despair. "We need to gather everyone, hit back."
Celeste finally turned back around, crouching next to him and starting into her work again, as if something he'd said prompted her to return her focus to the healing. After a minute or two of more Latin, salves, and the smell of hot wax, she responded in something he understood. "We've gathered everyone. Ms. Williams, Noriko, and your brother are working on gathering food and building a shelter until you're healed."
Marshall was dead. He'd heard it, but his name being left out of the usual roster of who was doing what hit Hobie like a ton of bricks. He went through the names she had mentioned and waited for her to list more. The names didn't come. "Headmaster Carvalho? Ms. Venn? Swordmistress Khachtryan? Sgt. Azevedo?"
Celeste shook her head. "Marshall is dead. The Academy and its Seal are destroyed. We don't know if anyone else made it out. We know a lot of people didn't, but they bought us time to escape."
He'd failed. Hobie shut his eyes tight, and clenched his fists harder, ignoring the sensation of a few new rivulets of blood as the motion aggravated a couple of his wounds. "Buying time is my job."
Celeste's voice softened as she got back to work, not chiding him for re-opening his wounds like she usually did. Not that he ever minded. "You did your job,” she said. “You killed a daemon. You helped us get back to the walls."
"I should have bought more time. More people should have escaped." He kept his eyes shut, lowering his head, and trying to stop shaking and not make her job harder. She was doing hers.
"We could have had a whole army of bear-sarks: it wouldn't have mattered. Without the sarcophagus, we didn't stand a chance against Xharomor. You did everything you could."
"I didn't kill Matvei," Hobie said. "Is he why I was unconscious?"
Celeste just nodded as she went back to the incantations in Latin.
"Where is the sarcophagus? Where's Fragarach? We worked so hard to have everything ready."
"They have them all. We barely escaped alive."
“The prophecy...”
“The prophecy said 'If.' So I guess it's going to go the other way.”
"Then what's the point in escaping alive?" Hobie asked. "If Marshall is dead, we've lost. Xharomor rules the world. I should have just died fighting."
"You almost did," she said. "We'll figure something out."
"What's to figure out?" He could feel his nails digging into the palms of his hands. He didn't care. She would: more blood, more things to fix. That thought finally got him to stop. "It's pretty clear what happens next."
"Maybe. But as long as we're alive, we'll keep fighting."
That, at least, he could agree with. They might have lost, but he'd go down fighting and take as many with him as he could. For the moment, though, there wasn't much in evidence to fight. The color of the water said they were somewhere tropical, though the vegetation covering the rocky hills wasn't quite right. Still, he had to admit, with the rocky hills at their backs and few approaches, this wasn't the worst place to make a last stand.
A ways down the beach, the others had set up a small campsite. They had a low fire going, careful not to put up too much smoke. Ms. Williams sat on a rock, some way back from the fire, staring out over the water. Nils and Noriko were huddled together somewhat closer to it.
Noriko was at her combat height. That was different than usual, although Hobie was never really sure why Noriko ever went back to being short. It was inefficient, except for keeping pace with Nils in the hallways of the Academy. Of course, he wasn't sure why she'd transferred to the Academy in the first place. The Hikari Tower's educational combat resources were good enough that Marshall had done a stint there, and it wasn't like Noriko'd had to deal with a note in her mother's will. At any rate, Hobie accepted not being sure about the girls—not because they were girls, but because they were more like Marshall. Gifted. Blessed. Hobie didn't know anything about that stuff.
As much as Celeste would have preferred he rested more, Hobie joined the others by the fire. His brother had used magic to bring in a few fish. They'd had to use that method to gather food more than once in the past, and there was nothing technically wrong with the fish, other than the bleeding out causing them to be a bit dry. He still saw Celeste wincing a bit at the sight of them cooking, but no one objected. They didn't have many options or tools. "I'll hunt next time,” he offered.
"You're in no condition," Nils said, without looking up from helping Noriko handle the gutting and cleaning.
"Will be soon enough," Hobie said. He didn't say more until Nils actually looked up, meeting his eyes. Nils would see what Hobie was looking for, what he couldn't find with Celeste. Bjornsson bickering had been commonplace over the years. Hobie had long since lost count of the number of times Marshall had needed to act as a go-between for the brothers. And he had tried to keep count, at first. Hobie always kept score. "So when are the bad guys getting here?"
"With any luck, they're not," Nils said. "As long as we keep the magic use limited, they shouldn't have any reason."
"So we hide out and just let them take everything?" Hobie asked.
"You have a plan to stop them?" Nils said.
"Yes! No! But I'd rather die fighting than hiding!"
"Calm down, please," Celeste put a hand on his shoulder. She didn't get it. She never got it. And deep in whatever soul he had, Hobie didn't really want her to.
His eyes stayed focused on his b
rother, who did get it. Nils wasn't just ridiculously intelligent. He knew what Hobie knew, the way he knew the fetid air in his own lungs. "Why did you get me out of there,” Hobie said, “instead of leaving me to do my job?"
"You're one of us. We need you," Noriko said.
Hobie's hands clenched. "Need me for what? I let Marshall die. I let all those people die!"
"We all did," Noriko said, quietly.
"No," Nils said. "Dr. Nathaniel killed them. This is about treason, not failure. We had the right plan. We had everything in place. We'd worked for years on this. And he threw it all away."
"And none of that matters now," Hobie said. "We'll be dead soon too. But maybe we can take Dr. Nathaniel down with us. Or Matvei. Or something." He glanced down at the preparations. "Something other than fish, anyway. We need to go back."
“Hobie,” Nils said pointedly. “We lost everything without any mistakes. This is not the time to start making them. The closest thing we've got to instructions is that Headmaster Carvalho thought we should go to the Third Tower. We need to plan first. If you want a real chance to die well, sit down and wait until you're called on.”
Celeste was already glaring at Nils, but Hobie sat.
Nils sighed. The mask made weird sounds when he sighed. At least, others had called the sounds weird. It was how Nils had sounded their whole lives. “Look, Hobie, I know I'm not in charge.”
Hobie nodded. There was a faculty member a hundred yards away, but they all knew who was supposed to be in charge, and the vacuum was palpable.
Nils continued. “So I can only speak for myself here, but you're my brother, and I love you, and I promise that when it comes down to it, I will not hesitate to sacrifice you for the greater good.”
“That's all I'm saying,” Hobie managed to reply. The wind out of his sails, he noticed, slightly guiltily, Celeste's horrified look at the exchange.
Noriko put an arm around her. “Boys, huh? Go figure,” she said, evoking a soft, near-hysterical giggle from the traiteuse.
“Don't think you're off the hook either, Lightning-girl,” Celeste said in a quiet, half-mad voice. “Look at all the cookies you're not getting.”
And the girls just held each other tightly for a bit, while Hobie tried not to watch them cry. He glanced over at Ms. Williams, waiting for the very thing he'd been claiming he didn't need since he'd finished basic training as a kid at the Gisting Tower: adult supervision.
4
Part on the Stage
Melody Williams
It was certainly embarrassing that they'd probably be dead if she hadn't been saving a set of stones for a subtropical vacation when the world was at peace.
She'd been fully prepared to die a gruesome death achieving that peace instead, but she'd never thought that Edwin Damn it Edwin Nathaniel....
Melody Williams looked out at the bright, sunny horizon. Granted, this was probably more of a snooze button on a gory fate than a cancellation.
She shook her head. There had been a point in the chaos of battle when hope turned to despair. There had to be a way to turn it back. Or at least go down right. 'When the fall is all that's left, it matters,' after all.
What exactly finding anyone would do at this point was hard to say. Some Asimovesque plan for maintaining a secret preserved resistance over a thousand years of horrific oppression didn't sound optimistic, but in the face of all they knew about the possibilities, it was on the table in her mind.
But she also knew that hers wasn't the only mind at work.
She watched from a distance as Nils and Noriko leaned closer, and Nils pulled his mask down. The faculty had always frowned on his taking his mask off around other students, even with Noriko's toxin resistance, but they were just kids.
They were just kids.
Yeah, Melody, she thought as she reflected on the years of struggle, of downright endangerment. Keep telling yourself that. The Chosen One's friends had grown up too fast, and it was as much her fault as anyone's.
They'd run a school. Sure, it was one of the Towers guarding the weak points of reality, but they tried to remember that they were a school, not a warrior lodge. The Horizonte Academy's students were as diverse as a course schedule that had included swordsmanship, Othertongue Runes, and Home Ec. Most had been evacuated to the T'ila Tower when things went down, but not the ones the faculty had already let run around the world and put it on their shoulders.
It had seemed like the logical solution, because the prophecy was one you could feel sure about. It had all been there, engraved in beyond-ancient words, mystically enchanted for perfect translation, on hammered-out meteorites. The prophecy of the final return of the Otherlord was just days younger than the first pacts to keep Xharomor out of the human realm. Religions were founded around some of the entities who were there that day.
They'd all been so sure they'd been following every step of the best possible route to the final safety of the world. And now it was … over?
Not over, she chided herself. Taken to a very dark place, perhaps, but two of the Towers still stood, and all of the pieces that were supposed to take down the Otherlord were still out there. Except they'd had it on good authority who could deliver the final blow, and now they didn't have him. There weren't any other Astral-blooded boys lying around.
She looked towards the fire, to Celeste, fidgeting with that darn engagement ring. They'd all thought it was ridiculous, to be getting engaged at only 17. But here Melody was doing it again, shocked that the children they'd made responsible for the safety of humanity would be age-inappropriate. All the more hypocritical as Melody was staring there wondering if maybe the Day hadn't really come after all. Maybe they were off by 18 years, and Astral blood would be mixed with Cajun and Creole and Haitian and Houma and whatever else the girl kept in her family tree. Tough call, there, what with the Towers having fallen already, and … no reason to think they'd grown up quite that fast.
And then she looked at the kids again, huddled near the small fire. And they were back to very much looking like kids again.
She couldn't blame them. She'd lost most of her best friends, and in the coming days, was pretty sure she'd lose more. They'd all prepared for this, and most of the staff had lived much of their lives in service to the Towers, prepared to sacrifice themselves for the good of the world. The fact that their predecessors had managed to build a functioning school in the midst of that was amazing... and made these moments that much harder.
She sighed, focusing on the future, trying to push the past a little further away. “All right, you four. Where are we?” Soon she would have to do what she had to do, but she could give them one more pop quiz.
She got some surprised looks, and the kids remained huddled together, but they still reacted like students, or at least like there was probably something important behind the question.
"Somewhere tropical," Noriko said right away.
"The trees aren't quite right," Nils said. "Maybe a bit north of tropical?"
Melody nodded.
“Can't check the stars yet,” Noriko muttered.
"We're probably near one of the Towers, or allies," Hobie said.
"And why is that?" Melody asked.
Hobie shrugged.
Nils stepped in to help his brother. "Because while there's some pathstones that are just random places that people with the power to make them wanted to go, most of them were still justified by having some specific use to the Towers."
Noriko looked, for a few moments, like she had something to add, but ended up just rubbing her temple and whispering to Celeste. The traiteuse, in turn, went through her things and offered a small bottle of what was probably willow tea or something. Noriko nodded, taking the headache remedy and went back to listening in.
“We wouldn't be right by one of the towers, though,” Celeste commented.
Melody did her best to smile. "Good thoughts. Yes, we're south of Japan, on Kominato-kaigan Island. It was recommended to me by a friend as a good
place to rest and meditate." And they all needed some rest and focus right now.
"So we're in the wrong ocean. We need to go warn the Third Tower," Nils said.
"We're in the ocean we have," Melody said. "And you need to coordinate with available people.”
"Hikari Tower is already in ruins," Hobie said.
Noriko winced visibly, but didn't say anything.
Melody nodded. "The Tower was destroyed, but they got reinforcements there and drove them off. They kept the rift Sealed, tower or no."
"For all the good it did," Hobie said. "And now that he's through, daemons and all, Xharomor will be gunning for the survivors there, too." Nils gave his brother a sharp look, and Hobie went mostly quiet, aside from some grumbling.
Noriko sighed, looking into the fire. "Look, this is the last place in the world I want to be. But they can help us, and besides, they'll need help too. Because you're right. Xharomor will send someone after Japan."
Celeste looked a little hopeful. "We haven't been back to Japan since the tower fell. Who is still there?"
Noriko sighed. "The Storm's Light Dynasty, for one,” she said, gesturing to her armor and its emblems of sun and lightning. “And Amaterasu is still one of the biggest opponents of the Otherlords."
"Lot of good that does us," Hobie said. "Not like she's going to show up and fix anything."
Nils stepped in before Noriko responded. "You know she can't, any more than Celeste's saints would cause a huge metaphysical upheaval to man the hospitals in person. In each case, they've got People for that.” At the last, he looked pointedly at his girlfriend.
Hobie sighed. "Sorry, Noriko." He did look it, as much as Hobie looked anything besides tired and angry today. Melody had always figured the two were reasonably close. She'd certainly seen them spar often enough, even though zanshin and terrain assessment and coordination tactics against 'RAWR' was a fairly ridiculous looking match-up to watch.
Celeste waited until Noriko took Nils' good hand and looked calmer before speaking again. "Okay, so there's people we can ask for help. And like you said, Xharomor will be sending people after Japan, so we can help them, too."