by Andy Havens
There was no instant shock of revelation. Just the cool, dry smoothness of polished ceramic broken only by vein-thin lines of plaster.
She was very, very still. Took a deep breath and held it. For a moment she felt foolish, but then…
There it is: a pattern. A rhythm.
Whether it was a physical throbbing or a sound too low to hear with Mundane ears, she couldn’t tell. But after a few repetitions, she realized that it was a kind of percussion pattern repeated on a seven-beat. Like a very unusual drum cadence.
Actually… wait… no… not seven.
It was eight beats. Seven strums of an invisible cord, and then a pause. A rest.
The rest is the Gate, she realized. The Otherwhere. The Beyond.
Once she was able to discern it, she realized it was obvious. Not just obvious—necessary.
Like the white of a page or the spaces between words. You can’t have meaning without its absence. The Gate defines a space that is... what? Everything else? Everything that’s not the Gate?
Kendra leaned back further, her shoulders hunched uncomfortably against the curving wall behind her. She didn’t really notice, though, because she was tracing the lines of the Domains, feeling the pulse of them through the Sanctuary Way that defined the Gate and encircled the entire hall.
After a few moments, all sound and light and ordinary touch drifted away as she swam among the seven currents that were defined and drawn along and through each other, all encircled by the eighth.
It’s lovely, she thought, floating in and around the Way. The balance and precision of it. They are entirely separate, but moving together. Like fish in a school maybe? Or strings on a harp? Maybe that’s a better analogy. Maybe…
In that moment, exactly as she was thinking of the Sanctuary Way as a harp, a jolt ran through the Gate as if a giant hand had plucked all its strings at once, as loudly as possible.
If she hadn’t been as deeply immersed in the Way, she would have been startled out of her meditative reverie. Instead, she experience the shock and vibration as a beautiful, almost profound completion of the pattern around her. As if she’d been hearing all the individual strings at a distance. But now they came together in a great, thunderous chord.
With a gasp of awe and appreciation, she felt the Sanctuary Way turn and form a new pattern. It felt like the first two notes in a chord progression or half of the formula for a beautiful, new color.
The Way of the Gate was waiting for something to happen.
What next? What now? The entire hall was suffused with a sense of expectation and all her senses were caught up within the turning Way, anticipating its next movement.
Eyes closed, ears full of the harmony within her Reckoning, she did not see or hear as three of the Sae below unsheathed their weapons. Using the surprise of the Gate’s activation to their advantage, they turned on their four fellows and slew them so quickly that none of the victims had a chance to draw blades, much less defend themselves.
The three took up a stance, weapons still bare, near the blue border of the Gate’s approach. They had not seen Kendra during the change of guard when they’d entered the hall and they did not see her now, hidden in shadow, leaning back against the wall in the very last row. They were too eager, perhaps, for what was coming.
* * * * *
By the time McKey – now fully in her Hieretha Seeming—discovered the source of the screams, dozens of the Sae were dead. Fifteen of their still-living fellows stood in a fighting wedge, and she knew in that instant what was happening.
The attackers are all of Blood and Earth. Great Mother! How did we not think of that possibility?
She knew the answer. Before today, the idea had been unthinkable. The Order of the Gate was ancient and revered. Sanctuary Reckoners gave their loyalty to that duty over their Houses.
Except for this one time when they didn’t. And now we won’t ever be able to trust it again…
But those thoughts were for another day.
While the Sa who had admitted her to the Cathedral had taken her guns, she’d been allowed to keep her blades and bludgeon. Truthfully, she preferred them. Guns were easy and fast, but had a tendency to be more strangely affected by Ways during a fight with other Reckoners.
From her shoulder holster she drew two of her four throwing knives.
Pitching her Way and voice to carry and maim, she cried out, "Tir y Bas! Tir y Gododdin!" and waded into the fight.
If I had Vannia by my side, she thought a few moments later, we’d wipe these guys up.
The problem was that both the defending and attacking Sae knew each other’s’ styles and moves so well that it was simply a matter of odds. And her side was outnumbered four-to-one. While her throwing knives took three of the traitors out, two more of the defenders fell in less time than it took her to draw her longest knife from its sheath between her shoulder blades.
She stood back-to-back with the last of the loyal Sae, one from her own House. A Reckoner of Sight and a true guardian of the oldest Sanctuary on Earth.
“If we die today,” the woman said, “I am proud to die with you at my back, Hieretha Mac Aodha.”
McKey chuckled grimly. Not knowing the woman’s name she simply replied, “Aye, sister. But we will not die dry.”
These were some of the most well-trained martial artists of this or any age. McKey could tell from the heat rising off them and from the mad flash of their eyes that they were all well and truly in the grip of whatever fighting Ways they’d called down. Whispering a few words to summon her own Ways, she crouched down and prepared to take as many of them out as possible.
At that moment, the Cathedral Sanctuary thrummed as if the whole building was a brass gong and the roof had been struck by the hammer of a god.
Someone is trying to open the Gate, she realized. The first key had been triggered by two Reckoners within the Zambar. When the answering key was placed by two of the same Houses in the Ibrahim—Earth and Blood, she assumed—the Gate would invert and trap everyone inside the Cathedral.
That must be their plan, she thought. Begin the fight, open the Gate and close us off to the rest of the world. Then they can take their time finding and finishing us off…
That thought was almost on her tongue when the door behind her darkened. She turned her head just enough to see who the newcomer was. She expected that it would be more Bloods or Earth Lords coming to complete their treachery.
Instead she saw Solomon Monday walk calmly into the room to stand between her and the remaining twelve attackers. His jacket was off and his shirt unbuttoned lower than she’d seen in, well… more than a century.
And he was in his stocking feet.
He must have been sleeping, she thought. I don’t recall him ever showing himself in front of others in such a rumpled state.
Disheveled or not, here was the Master of Sight—the Librarian, once named Sayem Muni, the “Ever-Moving Sage.” Sometimes translated as “Seer of the Sky.”
As he passed by her and the Sa of Sight at her back, he touched them both on the arms and she nearly gasped in relief, thinking, It’s going to be OK. It’s all going to be OK.
Just as Wallace had been amazed to see Hieretha fight Jimson’s gang, so was McKey astounded at the Ways in which Monday flowed among his opponents. He did not move like a fighter. He didn’t even more like someone in any kind of hurry.
His were the barest steps and feints. Even with her understanding of Sight, she was only able to catch at the edges of what he was doing. He seemed to not only see where the Blood and Earth fighters would be before they were there, but to see what would happen five or six or twenty moves afterward. Within moments they were tripping over each other and she was able to lunge and take one in the thigh with her knife. The Sa at her back was probably even less able to completely comprehend Monday’s style. But she was from Sight and understood what he was doing at some level. She, too, tripped an Earth Sa down at a point when he was off balance and shattered his j
aw with a mighty kick.
It was like watching clouds in the sky or waves on the ocean. Monday was simply exactly where he needed to be in order to accomplish his tasks.
A few beads of sweat glimmered against his dark brown skin at his temples, but he wasn’t even breathing hard. He read his enemies like a scholar reads elementary texts, like a concert musician reads a practice piece. His Ways so strong and ancient that nothing escaped his notice or his judgement.
Another two of the turncoats went down as he stepped between them, one slicing the other’s hand off and then falling on his own blade.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous and sad, McKey thought.
Eight left, though, and they were beginning to understand that they’d have to fight together if they wanted to win. That simple odds were not going to help. They pulled back and formed a wedge of five Bloods with three Earth Sae to the rear. The Bloods were calling up a Way of combined arms that would help them move and strike as if they were one beast with ten arms. She wasn’t sure what the Earth fighters were doing, but it was probably going to involve defending the Bloods, as Earth Ways were better at damage absorption in a close, fast fight like this.
As they readied to strike, she and Monday and the Sa of Sight lined up to meet them.
Monday turned to look at her and his eyes and quiet smile said, It may not be enough, daughter. But we shall certainly try.
She nodded, prepared—as she had been for millennia—to die protecting him.
The Blood’s weapons came up, the Earth Way caused the air to shimmer. McKey could tell that it was a good, solid Way that would keep their own attacks at bay while the Bloods concentrated on offense.
Even with Monday at my side, I do not like our odds right now.
Just as the Bloods reared up to strike, Annie of Flux leaped into the room, a streak of black and blue, nearly flying as she silently struck one of the Earth Reckoner’s at the back of the formation.
The Earth Way interrupted, she felt Monday switch from a defensive mode into a more forward-leaning Way, poised to attack. She and her sister nodded slightly, understanding his Way as it flowed around them. With the addition of Annie, they had someone else who could strike and they could concentrate on Sight; finding and exploiting the gaps and mistakes in their enemies’ movements.
Annie seemed to sense this, too, and positioned herself well to begin the melee.
With a nerve-piercing shriek, the Bloods threw themselves into a joint attack and McKey could see that it was a mistake. She could feel Monday’s Way as it pulled apart their intention and left it for them all to see, even Annie. He opened them up like a child’s book whose ending is both predictable and preordained.
The two sides met in a clash of Ways and steel and skin on the blood-slick tile. As her knife found another opening beneath one of the Blood’s thrusts, the Cathedral rang like a gong again as the second key was triggered. She could feel the Gate open behind and beneath her and…
The Otherwhere stopped being a niggling distraction at her periphery and snapped shut around them like the walls of a prison box.
All the Ways in the room collapsed in an instant. Blades came down in random, almost arbitrary arcs as both sides sought to keep fighting. But Monday’s tactics had been based more on knowing and seeing than sheer power or skill. And now…
We’re fighting blind…
Enough of their Way’s original prescience remained to guide them through two…. three… four strikes, but then it all came apart. A mass of arms and swords, knives, fists and feet flooded McKey’s senses as she struck out at anything, using all her skills.
But she was too dependent on the Ways of Sight.
The Sa to her side took out one more Earth Reckoner and then went down herself beneath a flurry of blows, too many to count.
I’m going to die, she thought. I’m going to die in a damned Sanctuary.
It was an odd thought, but it gave her a kind of sardonic comfort.
She felt a cut on her left arm, then another across her cheek. She parried the blow of a fist and another struck her on the chin, spinning her around and leaving her head ringing and blurry.
She dropped to one knee, expecting the final blow at any moment, then looked up to see Annie and Monday fighting together, almost as fluid and connected as if they were bound by a Way. They seemed like two halves of a body with four arms—their coordination was that perfect.
Impossible.
But still…
Where did Monday get a sword? McKey thought. Oh. Probably from one of the dead.
One by one the traitor Sae fell. It was a slower fight now. One based almost entirely on physical skill and strength. How many minutes passed? She was accustomed to being able to read time to the second through a Way of Sight. Now? She had no idea how long Monday and Annie had been engaged in the final fight, turning and dodging together as one, then striking in opposite directions as if joined by a single guiding spirt.
She really was foggy. She tried to stand, but a wave of dizziness overtook her and she sat down, hard, in a puddle of blood.
Luckily, the traitors were ignoring her. The final four pressed the attack desperately against Annie and Monday, trying to get within the gracefully rotating dance of their weapons.
Is he smiling? She certainly is. How odd.
One down. Two. Three. Monday and the turquoise-haired woman of Flux turned to finish off their last opponent when another Blood Sa stepped in from the opposite side of the gymnasium and shot Monday twice through the chest with a pistol.
McKey cried out: “No!” Expecting to see him fold and bleed.
But he did not. The shots had passed through his shirt but had only grazed his chest and, seeing this, McKey understood.
He is so much of Sight that he carries the Way within him. Not all its power. But enough. Maybe enough.
Annie had also seen and understood. She turned, shouting something in a language McKey didn’t recognize, and threw her sword at the intruder, striking him in the shoulder, nearly pinning him to the wall.
Monday struck at the remaining Sa, killing him instantly with a thrust through the eye. He turned to see if there were any more enemies. There were not, except the Blood with Annie’s sword sticking out of his shoulder, who was about to shoot at him again.
He’s going to be fine, McKey thought. He Sees it! The gun can’t hurt him!
The Librarian leaned down to scoop a knife off the floor and fling it at their only remaining foe. The air was still thick with the effects of the Gate and McKey could see him concentrating hard to do what he had to do. She could almost see it hers; the broad pattern, if not the exact details. He would throw and dodge at the same moment as the Blood squeezed off one final round.
The bark of the gun was drowned out by a simultaneous ringing sound that made the Cathedral shake. A third strike of the gong. The Gate snapped open. Ways of all kinds flooded back into the room and, distracted, Monday miscalculated his dodge.
McKey saw the results as a series of almost unconnected, frozen images.
The Librarian’s knife took the Blood Sa in the throat.
The traitor’s Way-enhanced bullet crashed through Monday’s chest.
The Lord of Sight collapsed on the floor.
Annie half caught Monday, putting herself between him and the tiles as he fell. He landed mostly in her lap, one of his legs bent back at an unnatural angle.
Silence filled the room, except for Annie’s heavy breathing and the blood pounding in McKey’s own ears.
That leg is going to hurt in the morning, McKey thought, still oddly distant and distracted, knowing herself to be stunned and possibly in shock, but unable to do anything but watch and breathe.
Monday seemed fine. He seemed calm and even a bit bemused.
Like he does when he finds the answer to something in ten seconds that you’ve been working on for days.
Annie’s blue-black hair had come out of its knot and was draped across Monday’s
chest. She lowered her mouth to his ear and whispered something to him that McKey knew she could have heard if any of her Ways had been working even a little. But she was still too dazed by the blow to her head.
For a moment, Monday seemed surprised. Maybe even a little angry. But then he turned to look at Annie and smiled. He whispered something to her, she nodded in reply.
Then he closed his eyes and died.
She felt it as a great rush of pressure, like when a storm blows through, but all in a moment instead of over minutes or hours. As if she’d been kicked in the stomach. Like a blow to an organ she didn’t realize she’d had. It was the going out of a breath that she knew she would never take in again.
Around her, the stones themselves seemed to groan—the death of a Domain Lord is not without great consequence. The Ways tied to his mind and held within his ancient body flying out and tumbling through the world. The air contracted again and something like the note of a high horn seemed to crease the sky from outside, reverberating through the air on the other side of the skylights.
Then all was still.
She didn’t know what to do. Where to move to. Or even if she could. Annie’s head was bowed over Monday’s chest. She may have been crying. McKey couldn’t tell through the curtain of her ridiculously dyed hair.
I may just stay here, she thought. He’s so still. So empty. Did anyone ever look so empty? Surely there was no reason to try to stand up.
“Stand up,” a voice behind her said.
It was Vannia. Parrot Girl, I believe Kendra calls her. That’s funny.
She turned her head enough to see that the little Chaos assassin was covered from chin to ankle in blood and gore. Her hair was remarkably clean, as if she’d spared a Way to do nothing but keep it so. The rest of her, though…
Wow. Just. Wow. I’ve been in plenty of fights, but I can’t imagine how you’d get that soaked in carnage.
“Stand up,” Vannia repeated and the hard tone was not something you’d expect from Carroll’s Alice.
Wavering a bit, McKey managed to stand.