by David Hair
‘Aye, and what did you mean by “enlist”?’ someone demanded. ‘We’re not fighters here!’
Bruss Lamgren and Jenet Brunlye simultaneously raised their left hands and gestured, and the doors to the hall flew open. The crowd whirled, then recoiled in alarm. Ril didn’t need to be able to see to know what was there: rank upon rank of filthy riverreek victims, bloody mucus drooling from the corners of their mouths.
‘Anyone has it in them to fight,’ Tear told them, ‘if given the right weapons.’
The shambling mob entered the throne room, baring their teeth to reveal snake-like canines, as the courtiers started wailing for help.
40
The Storm Queen
The Creation of Urte
When the Seraphs saw Kore’s new creation, teeming with life and full of beauty, they said unto Him, ‘We wish to go forth from Paradise, to dwell in your creation, and know it and through knowing it, know you.’
Kore warned them, ‘This Creation is imperfect, and it will taint your own perfection. When the time comes to return, you may no longer be worthy of Paradise.’
Despite this warning, the Seraphs left Paradise and became Man. We are their children, imperfect, and longing to return to our Creator.
BOOK OF KORE
Southpoint Tower, coastal Dhassa
Akhira (Junesse) 935
The Ordo Costruo windship drew alongside the landing platform, a small railed balcony a third of the way up the massive cylinder that was Southpoint Tower. Less than two hundred yards from the foot of the tower, massive cliffs fell into the churning sea. The last rays of a pallid, grey-shrouded sun were gone and the night was closing in. The windship’s sails were flapping briskly in the rising winds: a storm was coming from the southwest and the captain was anxious to be off.
Brother Yash of the Merozain Brotherhood stood by the gangplanks, fidgeting.
‘All that monastic training and you still can’t stand still?’ Rene Cardien teased. The big-framed Ordo Costruo mage laughed at his own jest and clapped him on the shoulder warmly.
‘We’re running late,’ Yash fretted. ‘We have to get to Midpoint tonight too: that’s another hundred and fifty miles—’
‘Midnight, we’ll be there,’ Cardien interrupted. He turned to the woman beside him. ‘You’ve had the best of the journey, my dear Ancelia.’ He bowed extravagantly.
Ancelia, a stooped, bookish woman, had a tiny white cat on her shoulder. She, like Rene and Yash, was travelling to the towers to take over watch-duties. ‘You know, Rene,’ she was saying, ‘these week-long shifts on the thrones are taxing for us older folk.’
Yash might not be old, but he couldn’t say he was happy to be here either. The five massive towers on the Bridge needed constant vigilance as they harvested the energy of the sun, capturing it in giant clusters of solarus crystals, converted it to raw gnostic energy, then again into Earth-gnosis, which they pumped into the foundations of the Bridge to sustain the structure. A mage enthroned in any of the towers of the Leviathan Bridge could hurl energy-bolts capable of blasting a windship from the sky, even one hundreds of miles away – Constant Sacrecour and most of his court had met their deaths this way at the end of the Third Crusade. Now the mere threat prevented unwanted airborne traffic over the ocean, but the duty wasn’t popular – the Ordo Costruo was, after all, an order devoted to peace and scholarship. Now they were leaning heavily on their new allies, the Merozain monks, to aid in the task.
Right now, that meant Yash. The air inside the towers always felt draining, and it was well-known that prolonged exposure to the solarus crystals could be fatal. But whether he liked it or not, he was bound for Northpoint once they’d deposited Ancelia at Southpoint and Rene Cardien at Midpoint, the nexus of the Bridge’s power. Separate windships were flying replacements to Dawn and Sunset Isles.
Once Ancelia had safely disembarked, they were off again, on the outriding winds of the oncoming storm. Their pilot conjured a fresh tailwind, sweeping the windship along the line of the Bridge – invisible, and almost a mile below the sea – towards Midpoint. Rene Cardien went below to sleep, while Yash joined the pilot, Draim Wrenswater, a veteran Rondian Ordo Costruo man, to watch the sunset and share a flask of coffee.
They were an hour from Midpoint when the aether crackled and the brass panel beside the tiller, used for communicating with a specific windcraft, began to glow. The only lights were the lamps on the deck and the stars above – it was the first day of the Darkmoon, and Luna was hidden.
The tired Air-mage was so fixed on his tasks that he didn’t notice the panel’s light, so Yash reached out and touched it, completing the link. ‘Hello, this is the Windship Cloudwatch,’ he said.
The towers constantly scryed the skies above the Bridge for illicit traders and more tangible threats. Yash glanced at Draim, who said, ‘Yup, that’s our position.’
‘I believe so,’ Yash said, ‘but it’s dark out here.’
The Midpoint mage wasn’t amused.
‘No – why?’
Yash and Draim shared a troubled look. In the years since the Third Crusade, there had been dozens of windships – from both continents – deliberately flying into the airspace controlled by the towers, which encompassed all of the ocean between Yuros and Ahmedhassa and many miles inland, testing their vigilance and resolve.
‘Let’s hope they’re just trying to see if we’re awake,’ he replied.
There was silence for a few minutes, then the tower called to them again,
Yash frowned. ‘Should we intercept?’
Demonstrate our power: a mild euphemism for sending a beam of gnostic energy, too powerful for even an Ascendant to resist, against what could be a lost vessel seeking shelter. Yash glanced at Draim, who rolled his eyes. ‘We’re happy to intercept,’ Yash sent back. ‘There’re a thousand innocent reasons for why they might not respond to your call.’
There was a long silence, then the voice came again.
‘Of course.’ Yash broke the connection, shared a pregnant look with Draim, then walked to the stern, using gnostic sight to pierce the darkness. It revealed nothing except a yawning emptiness.
If you’re out there, where are you?
Draim nudged him and pointed to the southwest, where cloud was beginning to shift across the skies. He heard distant thunder and saw pale flashes on the horizons.
‘That mess is comin’ in like a pack of rabid dogs,’ he shouted, ‘and faster’n the weather-watchers said! Going to be touch and go to get down on Midpoint.’
Yash ground his teeth. ‘How did they get it so wrong?’
‘Because we lost Lady Sakita is why,’ Draim pointed out. ‘She was the best. Damned shame she’s gone.’
Yash had met the Ordo Costruo’s best weather-mage several times and been impressed by her passion and zeal. But he trusted Draim Wrenswater to get them home. His own attention was on the skies behind them. There was a patch of gloom up there that seemed too dark, but he couldn’t pierce it. It could be nothing, but . . .
Soon, though, the storm clouds covered the sky, the stinging rain became a torrential downpour and lightning flashed in sheets across the skies. He was startled by someone touching his arm, but it was Rene Cardien.
‘We’ve got to get dow
n before the lightning finds us, Magister!’ Yash shouted.
‘Aye, but I sensed something up there—’ Cardien shouted in his ear, pointing southwest. The clouds parted momentarily and they glimpsed a dark bulk, startlingly close, and others behind it. ‘There!’
The Pontic Sea
‘Look at it,’ Tamir exclaimed, ‘it’s always changing – always in motion. Incredible.’
‘It’s just water,’ Baneet muttered. The Earth-mage looked very uncomfortable to be in the air over the ocean.
‘A Hel of a lot of it, though,’ Fatima added. ‘Look at the way it batters the cliffs!’
Twilight was fading to deepest grey as they peered over the railing at the coastline of northern Dhassa and watched the giant waves shatter into spray and foam on the towering walls of the coast. ‘We’re entering the period the Rondians call the Sunsurge,’ Tamir shouted above the din. ‘In some places, the waves will breach the seawalls and wash across the land – because it’s salty, it’ll kill more vegetation than it succours. See how high the waves are even now – so imagine them in a year’s time!’
Waqar couldn’t – but his mind was wrapped up in other matters. They’d tried another blood-scry and again got a tiny contact before it was savagely repulsed. But the direction was clear now: his mother was somewhere over the ocean, above the line of the Leviathan Bridge.
The brass panel beside the tiller flashed and the pilot squeaked nervously. They were some five miles from Southpoint Tower; its beacon was gleaming in the hazy gloom of the sea-spray. Waqar glanced at Tarita, who was gazing into the sky intently, her eyes glowing as she probed the darkness.
He touched the panel, praying they had the right passwords. He’d contacted his uncle by relay-stave an hour before and told him they’d traced Jehana to a windship, that they might need the trading code for that day. The Ordo Costruo, now policing the skies over the Bridge, had instituted a complex, secretive system of codes for legitimate windtraders, and they changed every three days. It was far from foolproof, but a smuggler would have to make some considerable effort to get those codes.
Rashid had been able to supply a code without breaking contact.
That was an odd question to ask, but when Waqar replied,
‘Sal-Ahm,’ Waqar replied to the brass panel. ‘This is the dhou Al-Talib from Hebusalim.’
The responding voice was a woman, speaking formal Keshi. ‘This is Southpoint, Al-Talib. You’re a late addition to my roster: do you have trading codes?’
‘Abou-17-Lokus,’ he replied.
There was a pause, then the mage from Southpoint replied, ‘Thank you, Al-Talib. You have permission to pass, but there’s a storm coming in from the southwest. We suggest you turn back and find shelter until it blows by.’
That sounded sensible, but Sakita was somewhere north of here. If he let up now, he might never find her again. ‘Thank you, Southpoint, but our mission is diplomatic and urgent. We must press on.’
‘Then go like Hel, Al-Talib,’ the woman replied.
‘Sal-Ahm, Lady—?’
‘Ancelia. May both Kore and Ahm be with you, Al-Talib.’
The contact was cut as the winds whined through the rigging. The windship slewed across the sky, and they all cried out aloud, grabbing at anything solid. Clouds swarmed across the sky and thunder crashed overhead.
*
The Pontic Sea
Yash grabbed Draim Wrenswater’s arm and pointed to where he’d seen that dark windship. ‘Get us up there—’
Draim looked appalled, but Rene Cardien agreed, ‘Take her up, Draim—’
‘It’s into the teeth of the gales, Milord – those winds are climbing to hurricane strength . . . I can’t risk it!’
‘You must – I need to see what’s up there. I tried to scry, and was blocked.’ The Ordo Costruo Arch-Magus looked calm, even though the winds were lashing them ferociously. ‘Yash, you have Air-gnosis . . . Ha! You’re Merozain – you’ve got everything! Help Draim, will you? I’ll liaise with Brovanius. It takes ten seconds to uncouple the energy from the tower so that it can be used defensively – we’re only a couple of minutes from Midpoint and we’ll be closer before we intercept. There is a genuine peril here.’
They threw themselves into their tasks, the crew performing miracles in keeping the remaining sails trimmed while Draim not only kept the tiller steady but also manipulated the winds as much as he could. They were rising fast and flying almost blind until Rene Cardien sent a funnel of light ahead of them. He’d been constantly scanning the darkness, a cone of light carving through the glittering sheets of rain, and all the while scrying – Yash could sense the expenditure of power. Then Cardien’s light caught on something hundreds of yards away but hurtling towards them and Yash stared as he boosted his own vision with scrying, his Ascendant-strength punching through the wards.
He was stunned to see a Keshi dhou, a large one, swarming with crew clinging to the ropes and rails with what must have been preternatural strength. Even in that brief flash of vision, he could see that these were not normal crewmembers.
They were draugs.
In the prow, her arms spread wide and screaming at the storm, was a woman he knew: Sakita Mubarak, her dead face was blackened by decay, her desiccated limbs wrapped in rags, her soaked hair streaming in the gale as her craft hurtled towards Midpoint. She was in the throes of some kind of ecstatic conjuration, energy crackling through her, her aura a storm within the storm.
In the space that it took to register the sight, it was gone – and three more vessels went soaring past, all identical, except that a different mage rode in each prow, all of them clad in shredded Ordo Costruo robes, their faces barely more than skin on skulls. They howled at Yash’s vessel as they passed.
It’s Sakita’s storm! It’s their storm! They’re assaulting the tower with draugs!
The how and why had to wait. Yash gathered energy, grabbing at his options, and settling on fire. Cardien had clearly also seen, because he breathed,
*
‘What’s that?’ Tamir shouted. He had the best eyes among them and he’d been scanning the darkness from the very tip of the prow. Now he was pointing due north, where a glimmer of light pierced the darkness.
‘It’s Midpoint Tower,’ Tarita responded. ‘Each of the towers has a beacon.’
The Al-Talib rode the winds in crazy surges, lightning flashing above illuminating the bowels of the storm in boiling, swirling flashes. The deck was rain-slick and treacherous, and the captain kept begging Waqar to let him turn back. Only the Mubarak name was keeping him from outright mutiny.
‘Wait, see that?’ Tamir cried, jabbing a finger into the north: a cone of light, burning through the rain, closer than the tower. He turned to the captain, clinging to his post beside Lukadin at the tiller, and cried, ‘That way!’
The wind-dhou lurched as Lukadin fought the storm. The crew, huddled against the railing, were glassy-eyed; they’d never flown in such conditions before and they were past praying. Most of the sails were in, but the vessel was still screaming along, the speed threatening to tear it apart.
‘What’s happening?’ Lukadin demanded of Tamir.
‘I don’t know, but it can’t be good— Look!’
Something was caught in the flash of the light beam, now only half a mile away: a giant Keshi dhou, running before the storm. Waqar didn’t need to bleed into a bowl to know this was his mother’s ship. Three more such vessels flashed in and out of sight in its wake, and he even glimpsed a tiny triangular-sailed windskiff flashing by. He ran to the side and looked about frantically, but there was only the storm.
‘Waqar?’ Fatima called. ‘What is it?’
‘I thought I saw—’ He staggered as another blast threatened to tip them over and grabbed at Tarita’s arm. He shouted, ‘I saw a skiff come up behind us – and Mother’s on that lead dhou – we have to—’
He choked on his words as two of the ships lit up like fallen suns – a beam of light blasted from the beacon of the tower and one of those lit-up vessels just ceased to exist. The blast all but blinded them, even though the beam had passed more than half a mile from their position.
Waqar stared at the darkness, trying to interpret the images burned on his retinas. He saw a grid of light coming in from four points of the compass: the satellite towers feeding the nexus of Midpoint. He called into the aether,
For a second he thought he sensed her, a flicker of contact, but something clawed at his mind and slapped his awareness away. Then a second blast from the tower erased another of the lit-up windships – but he’d divined their purpose now.
They’re just a distraction . . . He looked downwards and saw the third of the ships suddenly light up: it was heading straight for the tower and the surface of the ocean was rising like a funnel, being sucked upwards in its wake. The beam of the tower was flickering impotently, as if it couldn’t find its target in the darkness and chaos of the storm. Then it found its mark, light flashed—
—and passed behind the onrushing windship.
With a brilliant crack, lightning forked from all directions, centred on the giant dhou as it skimmed the giant waves, heading for Midpoint, lit up with a blinding crackle of energy.
Then the beam from the tower found its mark and struck the ship, which exploded in a concussive burst of energy barely a hundred yards from the tower.
Thank Ahm, Waqar breathed, staring about him. His friends were clinging to the rails of the vessel, eyes wide and terrified. He turned to Tarita, shouting—
—when his words were drowned by a sound like a goddess heralding the end of time.
*
Yash saw the moment the storm imploded. He was still reeling, half-blinded by the three explosions that had brought down the attacking windcraft, but he knew there was a fourth somewhere and was looking in all directions, panic rising when he saw that Brovanius had overcommitted, through panic or inexperience. The tower beacon was too dim, the energies too low.