by Del Law
He turns then and yells to the other marines to set up a matrix in the center of the chamber, the peak of it pointing toward the third Sister. “The Beast will be back,” he tells his First, a white-feathered Stona with a slightly crooked beak. “Be ready. We will avenge your worldmates.” The Stona turns her head to one side and clicks her beak. They bring up a matrix and the hissing and crackling spreads around the chamber.
“You promised a fair fight,” Mircada calls. “A fair one, Bakron. Not all of this! You swore it!”
Semper whips his head around to where another Stona holds the Kerul woman’s arms behind her back.
He sees the realization that she’s been betrayed by this betrayer spread across Nadrune’s face, then. Flames spark with emerald and crimson in Nadrune’s eyes, and her lips are coal black.
Bakron swaggers over to the Kerul woman. “I swear many things to many people,” he says, and presses his mouth against hers in a long kiss. She struggles against him, but the Stona holds her firm. “I will swear more of them to you later, personally.”
He steps back, and the woman spits in his face. Bakron laughs, lowers his visor, and steps to the head of the matrix.
They don’t have long to wait.
Without preamble, the Sister’s mouth opens, and Blackwell steps through it with a flower in his hand, one that is unmistakably Te’loria. Semper finds it hard to breathe.
Blackwell looks around, takes in the situation fast and draws Semper’s knife in one hand.
The flower glitters in the other.
He crouches, ready to leap.
But Bakron wastes no time—he pulls aether from the matrix and throws it at the Beast. The blue fire crackles across the room, but when it reaches Te’loria, rather than crawling down the length of the flower or the knife and straight toward Blackwell’s heart, it gathers into the air above the bloom of the flower, in a fast moving cloud, circling in on itself again and again and growing brighter.
Blackwell seems as surprised and Bakron is, and looks from the cloud to Bakron and back.
Bakron throws another large blast and another at Blackwell, but each of them is drawn up into the cloud at the top of the flower.
The cloud grows brighter and denser, fast moving bolts of fire whipping the blossom until it’s too bright to look at, a miniature sun in Blackwell’s hand.
Semper has seen many duels in his time with the Akarii First Family.
He’s seen teams of marines arrayed against each other in elaborate matrix platforms, strange new matrices set up as part of complex engagements between Akarii and tiAkarii and even the rustic k’Akar, a seeming infinite series of cousins that sought notoriety or death.
He’s saw a bloody assassination once, and even witnessed a bizarre Bakarh Contest of Symmetry, something very few men (outside of the Bakarh) had ever lived to tell of.
He’s never seen anything like this.
He’s read of Te’loria, of course, but it was a symbol, not a weapon.
Semper sees Bakron hesitate as the cloud grows hotter. Sweat beads up beneath his faceplate, which starts to fog over.
Tall mosaic figures and thin, mysterious statues from the city’s history stare down at him from the great dome, assessing and judging.
Bakron throws back his helm and yells to the other Stona. The ones holding Semper and Mircada release them and jump into the matrix to expand it. They draw up more power, and Semper can feel it moving through walls and the floor of the Alabaster Tower even without his knife.
The new matrix glows fierce and hot, and the armor of the marines lights up like suns themselves.
The blast that Bakron throws at the Hulgliev is tremendous, and it could have leveled any of the tall buildings in Tamaranth. Semper had never seen that amount of force from such a small group of marines, and knew no one other than Bakron who could have channeled it.
Outside, the wards around the Residence flicker.
The aether burns across the great room, twists, and is pulled up into Te’lorian’s cloud too—it circles there like a flaming skeck in a cage.
Blackwell bares his fangs.
The flower in his hand swivels to look at Bakron, as though it’s alive. It’s petals open.
And the cloud above it strikes back.
It reaches out with a flicker of lighting that jumps over Bakron to his First marine. It crawls across the white armor, setting the Stona aflame, and then it leaps to each of the other marines in turn.
There is a fierce roll of thunder that goes on and on. The smell of ozone and burning flesh fills up the room, and Semper turns away and covers his ears to block out the screaming.
When the smoke clears, Bakron stands alone in the center of the great room. He staggers back a step and drops his knife, looking frantically around him.
Blackwell has hardly moved—he stands with the three Sisters at his back and the great arc of the dome gleaming crimson and gold and aquamarine rising up above him, flashing in the watery light from the wards outside. Then he gestures with Te’loria and the cloud descends on Bakron. It swirls tight around him and lifts him into the air, kicking and screaming in a terrible high-pitched wail that ceasesabruptly when his armor bursts.
Piece of the armor fly across the room, and one of them clips Semper’s cheek. He ducks.
When he turns back, there is nothing left of Bakron’s body to be seen.
For a long time, the room is very quiet.
Nadrune’s mages run for the stairs. Mircada slumps to the floor, bites her lip and studies Blackwell, hesitantly.
Blackwell stares at where Bakron had been and at Te’lorian in his hand.
In the distance Semper can hear rushing water, the barking of a dog, the distant crack and hissing of magefire from the gardens, and some distant popping he thinks might be some Earth weapons. The ocean sounds very close and somewhere up high a great bird calls out, some sort of great hawk or vulture.
Nadrune picks up a knife from the floor and draws up enough aether to reassert something of her shape, although she looks terribly stretched and bloated now.
He should help her, he realizes, but he can’t seem to move his feet from where they are locked to the stone.
40: Blackwell
Nadrune quietly clears her throat. “Hulgliev,” she says. “I will have you at my side. I will grant you the Tel Kharan and all of the city of Tamaranth as your own. I will grant you ten thousand acres in the Akarii reserves, Hulgliev. Just as Dekheret did for Farsoth.”
Her voice is pretty calm, but even I can tell she’s ready to explode if I give her the wrong answer. I can see it in the set of her shoulders, the clenched jaws, the dark black smoke curling up out of her nostrils and ears. Her legs are swelling. The hand holding her knife is nearly three times its normal size.
I look over at Mircada. She nods her head, slowly. She wants me to take it, and I guess I’m not surprised. Who wouldn’t want to run a city?
What I am surprised about is how I still feel about her, despite everything that’s happened.
Semper was right. It’s a hard time in the world.
Can you see me running a city, though? An army? Tamaranth is enough of a disaster now, and the Tel Kharan would probably just have me killed. I study Nadrune across the room.
I shake my head slowly, and hold up Te’lorian.
“You don’t get it, do you? Dekheret must have loved Farsoth, Nadrune. Why else a flower? She could have given him anything. A crown. A sword. A great suit of armor. She didn’t. It was her love for him, and I’m guessing his for her, that probably bound them. We’re not pets, Nadrune. We have names. We’re not for sale.”
Flames burst from her eyes, and the heat spills from her in waves. Her head doubles in size, and her torso right behind it. She reaches across and slashes a palm of her hand with the knife she’s holding, and fire spews out. It’s hot and red like actual fire, not the electrical burn of aether.
Before I can react, she throws it around Mircada and it surrounds her, a b
urning circle on the floor.
I suck in my breath. My fur goes jet black. I pull up aether with Semper’s knife, and I’m ready to use it.
“I’m not going to trifle with you, Beast.” Nadrune says. “I don’t give a damn what you feel. You will take my offer and hand me that flower and I will let this thrice-traitor live. Or you can watch her die and be right behind her when she goes.”
Mircada’s clothes are smoldering but she doesn’t cry out.
Her eyes are wide and they focus on me, pleading silently even as the skin on her arms and legs reddens from the heat and the bracelets on her wrists glow red and begin to melt.
Her lips are pressed together. Tears roll down her cheeks and turn to steam.
Semper is shaking his head back and forth at Nadrune, and Nadrune is ignoring him.
“Nadrune,” Semper cries. “Do not do this thing!”
Part of me says I should let it happen. Mircada is one woman, and yes I care about her but look what she did with that. I’d never be able to trust her.
That’s my head talking.
The rest of me knows I can’t let this happen. I take a step forward. I reach out with the flower.
But then, before I can take another step, Nadrune’s glowing skin ripples and her arms burst out of her control. They triple in size, and her hands with it. She’s struggling to keep in all in check, but her thighs shoot out and her chest ruptures and fire spills out in a cloud around her.
Her head distends and as she yells in frustration her crooked mouth gapes open and all the flames and smoke and ash blow out of her like a volcano.
Mircada screams as all of that fire consumes her.
It happens so fast, even I can’t react in time.
Her back arches and she twists and beats at the flames with her hands and I see her skin turn black, grey, I can see her bones through it and then they burn, too.
I roar and leap through the air at Nadrune, mouth wide and knife raised.
Nadrune, eyes wide, sees me coming.
She takes the knife, slices off her left hand and points the stump of her arm at me, and the blast of magma hits me squarely in the chest.
It blows me up through the chamber, up past the Sisters, and backwards out through the thick stone roof of the great dome itself.
41: Semper
Nadrune, Semper whispers. Nadrunenadrunenadrune. He’s shaking his head and there’s a deep sadness in him, a sadness for both Nadrune and Blackwell, but for the Akarii too, for what he had hoped the world could have been and now would not be, could never be. How could something go so wrong in the space of moments?
The Sisters are singing now, a pulsing chant that raises the hair on the back of his neck, and they are rising up from their pedestals again.
“Semper,” Nadrune snarls, bent over her severed arm. “Attend me! Maintain my shape!” She throws one of the Tel Kharan’s knives at him. He catches it and she slaves him to her. She leaps to him, pulls him into a scorching embrace, and then vaults through the air for the distant hole in the dome.
They push out onto the roof of the Tower, and Nadrune sets him near a spire, allows him to grab ahold of it and hang on.
Around them the sun is coming up, and the city is in chaos. The Residence Gardens are still on fire and the smoke up here near the top of the wards is dense and black, but Semper can still get glimpses through it, through the flickering wards. There is renewed fighting on rooftops as city troops clash with the Tel Kharan, and as he watches he sees a building fall, people leaping into the water. Grohvers are flying in formation out there. The city District now situated crookedly at the mouth of the harbor is exchanging blasts of aether with the ships at sea, though it looks like the Fleet can only bring up a ship at a time with the way the channel narrows there. Mages are up in the matrix platforms on most of the other ships too, though, and it looks like they are struggling with something coming up out of the sea on the far side. As he watches, something swarms up over the Seafire and the whole ship lists to one side.
High overhead, podships circle.
A shadow passes over him as a great bird swoops and pulls away at the wards.
The song of the Sisters spills from the tower and spread over it all.
This is what you have made, the part of Semper’s mind that was still his says to Nadrune, though the knife. Look at it.
But she pushes his thoughts aside, and commands him to maintain her shape. He has no choice but to do so, but he thinks he can’t hold her for long.
She’s stretches again, blossoms with fire, and he’s sure the whole city can see her now, shining up here like a beacon.
A beacon for what, though?
Fire pours from her hand and burns into the great dome as her eyes search for sign of Blackwell.
The smoke gusts and twirls over them, thick and black, and through it comes a blast of Blackwell’s magefire, followed by another. Nadrune catches each of them and deflects them. A tracer carries a bright Bakarh glyph spinning through the air, silver and crimson, and it slides up the edge of Nadrune’s knife and begins to eat at her. It tears chunks of her arms and chest away, and gouts of fire burst forth that blacken and crisp the skin of her shoulders and chest.
Semper struggles. Nadrune expands, and he’s not sure how long he can hold her together. Her eyes are all flame now and Semper isn’t sure that she can see through them. She sucks aether up through the great dome and shatters the glyph but the aether flares around her, burns away her robes.
She’s so large now, the knife is like a needle in her grip.
She’s so hot and light that a hard wind might blow her off the dome and there won't be anything Semper can do about it.
The smoke clears for a moment, and she sees Blackwell. She raises up the stump of her arm and the magma pours out. He holds up Te’lorian but Semper knows it won’t help. The fire in Nadrune, and in all of the flame-bonded, is much older.
The magma blows Blackwell backwards off the dome.
Nadrune gathers Semper to her again with one of her big arms and leaps, landing at the point where Blackwell stood, and they look down.
Blackwell is hanging now on a long, metal spire, one of six that juts from the dome and usually relays power across the city. The Tel Kharan are using them now to help maintain the wards around the Residence. Semper can see the aether flowing through them. Blackwell's fur burns from the current, and sparks fly from where he’s holding on. Te’loria is loose in his grip. Semper’s hands and arms are starting to burn, too. His robes are on fire, but there’s no way he’s letting go of Nadrune, not as high as they are here.
Nadrune raises the stump of her wrist and Semper shouts—he’s not sure what.
Magma flies at Blackwell, and at the very last moment he leaps awkwardly, aiming for the next spire.
He lands hard and off balance on the next one.
The spire he was on burns.
Nadrune leaps closer and and throws magma again, and again Blackwell leaps.
Nadrune melts spire after spire, as Blackwell keeps moving, until he perches on the last one. He crouches and brings up thick warding, and Semper knows he’s got nowhere to go.
No, he tells Nadrune through the knife. I won’t let you.
He fights the slaving, and pulls his mind back from her shape. Her back hummocks. Her face ripples. She yells in frustration and her magma goes wide, hitting the base of the last spire instead of Blackwell directly. Blackwell stumbles and falls as the spire groans and folds, grabs the end of it with one hand and the whole long span of metal bends down toward the city.
As it collapses, the Akarii warding falls.
Freed smoke rises into the air on all sides of them, and from somewhere up there comes the harsh cry of a bird.
It’s the largest bird Semper has ever heard.
Semper looks to the sky and there it is, this huge pterosaur speeding downward at Blackwell. Its beak is open and there are rows of sharp teeth there.
It falls out of the sky tow
ard him faster than any podship.
Only as it nears the dome Semper sees something he can’t understand, here in the last moments of his life.
The face of the bird melts into the face of a girl, dark and covered with tattoos.
And in the very last moment, the bird’s trajectory shifts away from Blackwell.
She flies straight at Nadrune.
It’s that girl’s face that captures him.
That beautiful and terrible face, with the wide open violet eyes and the black tattoos, that face that bears such a look of triumph and relief that he’s sure the image of her will be forever held in that place, burned into the dome of the tower by the sheer force of her beautiful will.
42: Blackwell
The spire bends and begins to collapse and I know I’m done for. The Akarii warding falls and I’m hundreds of feet in the air. As the spire shudders I wonder if this flower wound around my upper arm now is going to be any good after all. It won’t help me bounce on impact. It won’t help me fly.
The chanting of the Sisters is all around me. I hear some other harsh cry, and then there’s one of those large black birds out of Tilhtinora, spinning down in the air at me. As if Nadrune wasn’t enough to wipe me out in the first place?
It’s three times the size of a grohver.
It’s jet black feathers are gilded with the light of the sun.
And as I stare upward, I see something I don't understand. The face of the bird becomes Kjat’s face, fierce and determined. Her wingtips twitch and then it’s Nadrune she’s falling at, not me, but her eyes are locked on mine. Her lips are moving, and I can’t hear her but I can see what she’s saying.
Hang on, Chief. I’m coming.
I’m shaking my head no. She can’t. I can’t let her.
I thought she was out and away from all of this and I want to shout at her to stop. I’ll handle Nadrune somehow. I’ll find a way. I’m shouting no you can’t do this no I’m not worth it just let it happen and no get out get out get free.
Somehow she hears me.
She gives me a fierce look. Goodbye, Chief, she mouths, and I don’t see fear in her face. I see relief somehow like a weight is being lifted from her.