by Alan Baxter
Alex put an arm each around Silhouette and Jarrod, grinned. ‘Thank fuck you turned up when you did. Seriously. Thank you.’
Silhouette kissed him. ‘I told you I wouldn’t leave you behind.’
He grinned again and everything went black.
28
A buzzing rush passed through Alex and he felt bittersweet wetness at his lips. He knew the taste and sensation of Silhouette’s healing potion well and drank deeply.
‘Easy, Iron Balls. You know you’re a pussy for this stuff.’ Silhouette pulled the cup away.
Alex laughed, winced against the pain in his ribs that began to subside even as he noticed it. ‘Thanks.’
‘Lie still for a minute.’
Alex opened his eyes. He lay with his head resting in Sil’s lap. Jarrod crouched nearby, helping Claude to a cup of the potion as he drank one himself. Haydon gibbered quietly in the corner.
‘Lost his fucking mind,’ Jarrod rumbled.
‘Lost it a long time ago,’ Alex said. ‘Poor bastard. I can’t help feeling kinda sorry for him.’ He looked to Claude. ‘Well done, keeping him alive.’
‘I was going to protect him or die trying. There’s no other way out, right?’
‘Right. What did you do exactly?’
‘It’s a shielding spell, to protect against combat magic. But I’ve adapted it to form an actual physical barrier as well. It would never have lasted long against those bastards, but it was enough while you lot did your thing.’
Alex nodded, dragged himself to sit up. ‘I’m glad you guys came back when you did.’
Jarrod winked, gave him a thumbs up.
‘I had no intention of leaving you here,’ Silhouette said. ‘And besides, there’s nothing we can do over there right now.’
Alex stretched, flexed, tested the remaining injuries. He felt almost new again. ‘What’s happening out there?’
‘Jarrod got in touch with Armour the moment he got back. They’re on it.’
‘I mobilised Condition Alpha,’ Jarrod said. ‘That’s for when a massive and dangerous event is occurring or going to occur. Armour get huge numbers of operatives to the location, by means mundane and rather more instant, and they set up a command post. They immediately start clearing the area under the pretence of a national threat. You know, nuclear accident, impending tidal wave, disease outbreak, whatever suits. That gets people in a large area evacuated fast and Armour can contain the situation.’
Alex smiled. He liked the sound of that. ‘Just what we need. Does that mean Armour have been catching all the Kin escaping Obsidian?’
‘Most, not all. The site on the other end of the pathway is like a huge quarry, like a meteor crater. It has all kinds of superstition attached. Nothing will grow there, animals die, the usual. It’s partly true and partly encouraged by the hierarchy. You can see traces of obsidian glass throughout the area, which was taken here when the village was removed and subsequently used to grow this fucking horrible place. The pathway itself comes out in a cavern at the base of the quarry, hidden the same way Kin hide their Dens.’
‘I’ve seen that magic,’ Alex said, remembering Rome.
‘Right. So Armour have been trying to apprehend anyone who comes out of that cavern, but there’s been a lot of fighting. We’ve lost a lot of good Armour operatives out there. And the cave has tendrils through the rocks all over the place. They haven’t traced all the exits yet, so it’s almost certain some Kin are getting away.’
Alex pursed his lips, nodded. ‘Shit, sounds like a mess. Inevitable, I guess.’
‘Were there only five?’ Silhouette asked. She pointed at the corpse of the Autarch.
‘Yeah, I think so. I guess two defected.’
‘Or they’re still here, chosen to stay.’
Alex shrugged. ‘Whatever. Fuck ’em. Jarrod, I need you to go back and tell Armour to move out. That whole place needs to be cleared. An area the size of Obsidian needs to be free of people.’
‘Other than the Armour command post, it already is.’
‘Good. Go tell Armour to pull out. If I wait an hour here, will that be enough time for you over there?’
Jarrod thought about it a moment, brow furrowed. ‘Should be. Time is pretty fucked up between here and there.’
Alex stood up. ‘Okay.’
Jarrod stood, reached out a hand. They shook. ‘See you on the other side,’ the big Maori said.
Alex slapped his shoulder. ‘See you soon.’ He hoped that was not a lie. He turned to Silhouette.
Before he could open his mouth she said, ‘Get fucked, I’m going nowhere.’
‘Fair enough.’
Jarrod crouched down, kissed her forehead. ‘See you soon, sis.’ With a nod to Alex and Claude he turned and jogged from the church.
Alex pulled Silhouette up into a hug, kissed her. They both sat beside Claude and Haydon.
‘We better hope no one else turns up,’ Claude said.
Alex grinned at him. ‘I don’t think they will. The council, if they stayed together, would have attacked together, I’m sure. We lay low for an hour or two, let me rest again, then Nicholas here gets to do his thing.’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Silhouette said.
Alex kissed her. ‘It’s cool. Trust me.’ He hoped she didn’t hear the tremor of uncertainty in his voice.
29
Claude picked through the rubble that used to be the front of the church. ‘I can’t find his body.’
Alex looked up from the body of Lily, who he had laid out in repose near the altar, near the other lowen who had all died in the fight. So many deaths. ‘Rowan?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. I want to desecrate that fucker’s corpse.’
Alex grinned. ‘Nice. Hardly worth it though. That’s a lot of rubble.’
‘The Autarch burst out of it and sent the stone flying everywhere. I don’t understand why I can’t find crushed pieces of that cowardly bastard seer.’
Alex stood and walked over to Claude. Blood covered the stones in places. ‘He’s probably buried. Do you really want to try to shift all that?’
Claude spat on the pile of rubble. ‘Fucking worm.’
‘Come and help me move these poor lowen. I don’t want to leave them all broken and twisted like they are.’
‘Lily’s friends?’
‘Yeah. They died trying to protect us. We owe them a moment’s respect at least.’
They straightened the bodies to lie beside each other near Lily. Alex tried to see past the terrible wounds and missing limbs. ‘Feel like I should say something.’
Silhouette put a hand on his shoulder, squeezed. ‘Nothing needs to be said. They were brave souls and they died fighting for what’s right. That’s a good legacy.’
Alex nodded, put his hand over Sil’s. ‘Yeah.’
Sounds of the revolution in Obsidian drifted to them from time to time. Sometimes shouts of pain or fear, sometimes whoops of joy.
‘I wonder if there are any hierarchy left out there,’ Claude said.
‘They’ll be in hiding if there are.’ Alex turned to look down into the hole where the large flagstone had been removed. ‘Time enough, eh?’
Silhouette nodded. ‘You ready for this?’
‘That thing down there has been pulling at me like a magnet ever since I got close to this church. It’s dragging at the Darak something fierce.’
‘The Darak used to be a part of it.’
Alex put his palm over his chest. ‘Can you imagine the magic needed to remove a piece of that stone to make this? These things are supposed to be indestructible.’
‘When you banished Uthentia it split the Darak in three again,’ Silhouette reminded him. ‘These things can’t be destroyed, but they can be split. A similar degree of magic must have been used to split the Darak away from the Fey anchor stone all that time ago.’
‘And now I have to risk getting them close together again.’
‘What are you planning to do, Alex?’
He went to Haydon, crouched down. Haydon muttered under his breath, his eyes squeezed shut. He constantly reached out towards the hole in the church floor, pulled at his bindings. ‘He’s been repeating the same thing over and over since we got here,’ Alex said. ‘It’s the ritual we need. But he’s too far from the stone to make it work. He has to be in proximity to it, just like the other ritual that brought us here. Remember how it took my presence to trigger the magic?’
Silhouette frowned. ‘But if we make that ritual work …?’
Alex still had one hand pressed to his chest. ‘I’ve felt his ritual pummel me, right here, since he started. The only thing preventing his spell from latching on to me is the presence of all that power down there.’
‘Alex, no!’
‘Listen to me! This is the only way. I’m going down there. You wait here with him. Things are likely to get pretty horrible around here pretty quickly. You’ll know when to bring him down.’
‘Alex, please …’
He put a palm against her cheek. ‘That thing cannot return to our realm. But we can. This is the only way back, or we die here. That’s it. No other options. When it’s time, bring him right to me.’
Silhouette stared hard into his eyes, lips pressed together. A tear glittered on one eyelid.
‘You still have a way out,’ Alex said. ‘Claude can help me. He can’t leave anyway.’
Silhouette shook her head. She leaned forward and kissed him hard on the lips. ‘Be careful down there, it’s a furnace of power. You fucking make this work, Iron Balls. You hear me?’
He smiled, kissed her back. ‘I ever let you down before?’
Without waiting for an answer he hopped up and turned to the removed slab. He looked at Claude, who nodded. Alex returned the gesture and trotted down the worn steps.
He came into a small chamber with a large stone removed from its far side. Blue light flickered and pure energy pulsed out from below. His chest raged into a searing, beating mass. The stone down there hauled against its missing part embedded in Alex. And it hauled at Alex too.
He drew his magic tight, gathered his breath deep in his centre and built shields, layer over layer of eldritch armour. He contained himself within himself, tried to cut his essence off from the Fey emanations below. It was impossible to remove the connection entirely, but the desperation in his mind dulled.
Slowly, carefully, he descended into the cavern.
As he emerged, the anchor stone shone bright blue, blindingly intense. Arcane winds like a tiny hurricane whipped through the space. Alex’s feet left marks in the earthen floor as he was dragged forward against his will. He bit down on a suddenly rising panic and concentrated only on self-control. The brightness shone pink, red and blue through his tightly closed eyes, but he did not need optical vision to see clearly everything that happened. His magical awareness saw folds and sheets of aura. Unfettered Fey magic pulsed and lapped through the cave. He looked past it, tried to ignore it.
The anchor stone sat on a carved pedestal, a small ball of shining black, seemingly fashioned from obsidian, like the entire city around them. The stone had been hidden in Averleekan and had spent centuries since trapped here, abused by the magic of the Kin hierarchy, bloating that unnatural resource into the unnatural city of Obsidian. There was rage in the anchor stone, a sentience that resented its misuse, that yearned to be returned to the mortal realm where it could once again link the human world and Faerie. It felt the missing piece of itself in Alex and joy swirled within its insane fury. It wanted that piece back.
‘You’ll get nothing,’ Alex said through clenched teeth.
His pushed his mind past the stone, tuned out its wild yearnings, traced the pedestal down to the earth on which it stood. He drove his will into that earth and pushed it apart. The Darak seared his chest, the anchor stone howled in defiance. Alex continued digging.
His control of the elements was masterful, but his magic was the same as that of the anchor stone, drawn from the Darak. It defied him, tried to cajole him into another course of action. It dragged him forward again.
Alex growled in defiance, bent his knees, dug in with body and mind. He continued to disrupt the earth below the pedestal, which sank slowly, carrying the anchor stone with it. Ice and dread flooded his mind as he dug deeper, to the very base of Obsidian, where the absurd, impossible city sat in the Void.
The anchor stone wailed, its magic thrashed his body and mind. Alex pressed on. The ground below Obsidian broke away and the pedestal and anchor stone fell through. Alex pushed and pushed and the stone spun down into the Void, indestructible, but separated from the city. From everything.
Icy, hollow nothingness gouted up through the hole and Alex fell to his knees in despair. He sobbed as Obsidian shuddered and began to crack and crumble. The protective dome of shielding quivered and split, spiderweb fractures throughout the city’s skies. The magic itself poured out through the hole in the base of Obsidian, desperately drawn by its source.
Alex had never experienced a sense of such desolation, such loss. The very point of existence drifted away from him, an irrelevance in the face of absolute nothingness. He tipped back his head and yelled, forced his own magic to stay strong. He drew the earth closed over the hole in Obsidian and stumbled to the spot. He fell to the ground, willed the flailing, crumbling magic to find him.
He arched off the floor in agony as all the lost power in Obsidian arced through the Darak, into him, the only remnant of that which it needed to survive. And he wasn’t strong enough. Still Obsidian cracked and broke. Still the protective shields weakened and shattered. He felt the city and all the people in it as though they were tiny parts of his own body. He shared their despair and pain. He felt parts of himself break off and spin dead into the Void, taking hundreds of desolate lives with them. Obsidian collapsed.
Alex’s mind burned with the energies pulsing through him. He gathered his strength and screamed, ‘Silhouette!’
But she was already there, stumbling through the cavern with Claude, dragging Haydon between them. Tears streaked their faces as the Void leaked into Obsidian and made everything pointless.
‘What the fuck, Alex!’ Silhouette’s voice was a tiny wail in the soaring screams of distress that were all Alex’s mind could comprehend.
Obsidian broke and split, more lives drifted away from him and were snuffed out in the Void like candle flames in a breeze. ‘I can’t hold it!’ he cried.
Silhouette and Claude fell to their knees, sobbing. Haydon fell with them, his face a mask of terror and misery, but his mouth still worked with words of Fey ritual.
Alex burned as the magic coursed through him, a ritual of such strength, intended to be funnelled through the immense power of the anchor stone, hammered through him and tore at every fibre of his being even as he desperately tried to hold Obsidian together. The agony was familiar, but the energy forced through him to banish Uthentia to the Void was nothing compared to the power that arced through him now as he dragged an entire city back from the Void.
More of Obsidian crumbled and fell, parts he couldn’t hold on to. Hundreds of lowen screamed in fear and despair before they were instantly silenced by the blackness of nothing and still the magic tore through Alex’s soul.
Thousands of voices rang in terror, Silhouette and Claude howled nearby. Obsidian shuddered and flexed almost as if the city itself shared their terror and the magic ripped through him. Alex concentrated on nothing but holding himself and Obsidian together. He ignored the misery in his heart, tried to silence the desire of his being to just give up and shatter into atoms, taking all of Obsidian and everything and everyone in it with him.
Haydon’s voice rattled on, his mouth working not only of his own will, but with the resolve of the Fey sprite within him. Its own base self-preservation drove it to do that with which it had been tasked.
Alex screa
med, high and long, gave voice to his despair as he clung onto the last vestiges of himself. Magic tore through, Obsidian crumbled and something else became apparent. Something good and solid and green. Something alive and vibrant. Hope came with it, the need for life came with it.
Alex ground his teeth and drove his mind towards that new sensation, paid attention to nothing else but his need to be there. Haydon’s ritual pulsed through him again and again, and the Void gave way to form, despair gave way to hope and all of Obsidian crashed into solidity with an impact that deafened them and Alex let the blackness at the edges of his mind smother him.
30
Slurred sounds and sensations of cold and pain shivered through Alex in waves. The Darak beat weakly in his chest and its magic slowly knitted him back together. His body would take longer to heal, unless Silhouette had some powder left, but his essence, his magic, slowly regenerated. He opened his eyes.
The walls of the cavern were cracked and broken, had fallen in in places. Weak light pushed through from above. Some of the sounds resolved into distant voices, cries and shouts, sobs of pain and anguish, but none of it as lost and empty as the noise of Obsidian’s imminent destruction moments before. Gasping came to him from nearby and he sat up, crying out involuntarily as pain pulsed through him.
Silhouette crawled over and pulled him into a crushing embrace. She sobbed into his neck for what seemed like hours and he held her, his own tears running into her hair. Rocks tumbled, rattled together and Claude pulled himself up. He dragged Haydon with him.
‘You okay?’ Alex asked, shocked at the gossamer weakness of his voice.
Claude nodded. ‘Think so.’ He looked down at Haydon. ‘Not sure about him though.’
Blood covered one side of Haydon’s face and he hung limp in Claude’s grasp.
Silhouette moved to check him. ‘He’s still breathing. Perhaps we can save him.’ She pulled her pouch of healing powder from her belt and rubbed a small amount into the poor man’s gums. She gave Alex and Claude a dab each too, took some herself. ‘That’s all I have, but it’ll keep us alive. Let’s see what’s happened.’