by Colin Taber
A flash of light from below marked the beginning of the Guild’s magical defence. Great waves of red power rolled out of the building to strike the bands of storming Loyalists. The attack only incited the mob, drawing more of them. Half a dozen died in a moment, while a score fell wounded.
Sickened by the sights about me, and already fatigued by a catastrophe that was far from peaking, I wondered; perhaps they deserved each other, these people in love with their barbarous city.
My own home lay behind us already aflame. I hoped everyone had got out and that someone had taken my grandmother's tome; regardless, I couldn’t worry about it now. It was just too late.
I turned from the fighting in Newbank. For my people I could do no more. It was time to focus on my family, perhaps – with all that was going on – an indulgence, but to me it was a symbol of hope.
Finally, I was strong enough to get them.
Damn it, I was an awakening avatar!
We rose higher, having passed the worst of Newbank’s fighting to now be above the Cassaro. Hundreds still rushed across to join the battle, but increasingly the Loyalists were turning about: Their vengeful charge had left a flank exposed.
The Reformers had been ready, heading straight for Ossard’s undefended heart. They surged down the alleys of the poorer districts, to the avenues that had for so long marked the boundaries of wealth and class.
The city heaved with the desperation of thousands of separate life and death struggles. Fires flared and chaos swept its streets. Crowds fought, looted, or in some places celebrated victories. In many places buildings burnt, not just homes or businesses, but also whole blocks.
Sef gasped, “The Turo!”
The mid-level windows of the high tower flared with blinding flashes of light. After a moment, more came from the next level up as an unknown spell caster advanced.
I said, “The fighting’s spread so quickly. The Reformers were ready.”
As they had been all along.
The casting continued in the Turo, making its way up floor by floor. Whoever led that charge stalled on the second highest level, before unleashing another series of spells, each followed by rumbling booms.
A final flare lit up the night. The brilliant light shone from the tower's top level to roar angrily and blow off part of its roof. For a moment it drowned out the rest of the city’s fury, before sending a rain of burning timber and rock to shower down on the streets below.
“Sef, keep an eye on it, they can see everything from up there – including us.”
A pulse of power flew from the top of the Turo, screaming as it zoomed across to hit one of the Cathedral's towers at its base. It was lost in a ball of blue flames, the writhing fire dying quickly, but not before its stonework fractured to bring the tower down. The rumble of its collapse snuffed out the screams of those it killed, the sight of it quickly smothered by a great cloud of billowing dust. A shocked silence came to settle over the square.
More pulses of power shot out to eat into anything the Reformers considered a threat. The flurry of attacks targeted the dust-shrouded Cathedral and other church-owned buildings, most of them near or edging on to Market Square.
I slid my perception into the celestial where I could watch the amazing pull and tug caused by so many users of magic dragging power from that other world. It moved with huge tides and eddies, the energy passing from and through it, leaving me to wonder; could the boundary somehow tear?
How strong was the barrier between worlds?
In the celestial, lost spirits, shades, and feeders all gathered, eating at the fragments of soul-stuff left over from so many deaths. They also waited for another kind of opportunity; for the chance to slip back into the realm of the living.
Elsewhere, other practitioners of magic took up the fight. For the Loyalists, that meant the senior priests of the Church, and for the Reformers, both the Cabal and priests of the cults. From a dozen different locations jets of energy and crackling bolts of lightning flew. Fires sprang up, bursting into sudden life, explosions blossomed, and buildings collapsed amidst a hail of red-hot stone and rubble.
Amidst the chaos, a pulse of power burst out from the Turo to scream towards us.
Sef cursed in surprise.
As quickly as it was cast, my celestial reflexes worked to diffuse it, stripping its energy away. So empowered, I could defend easily – but not forever. We all had limits.
I gathered myself for something final.
A bolt of lightning crackled out from my hand to flash across the sky. It set the pall hanging over the city aglow, before blasting the top of the Turo off to send stones flying. When the smoke cleared, it revealed the tower still standing, but crowned in ruin.
Beside me, I could sense Sef as he wondered: From where has all this power so suddenly come?
With guilt on my mind, I ignored him.
To the west lay the Port district, in many places it also burned. The air over there swirled about to gather the countless smoke plumes and weave them together. At its heart glowed a pillar of sparks of a deep violet hue. I didn’t have to check to know that it rose over the previous ritual’s site.
Sef yelled above the noise of the wind, fighting, and roar of Ossard’s countless fires, “Look at the River Gate; others flee the city!”
Crowds gathered there, many marked by the white and yellow or black and gold of the Loyalists. They were leaving, ushered on their way by the ghostly priests of St Marco’s.
Passing over the Loyalist district, my excitement soared. For the first time I could sense that I was closing in on Pedro and Maria.
My family!
Sef's thoughts again fluttered through my mind: She's so powerful, could she somehow stop all this?
With a cold voice, I said, “To save them, I'd have to kill them – and I don't want their blood on my hands. Let them kill each other if they must.” Yet, deep down, I knew I could only play with such power because of my feeding on Lady Death. The admission stirred my hunger, it rising from a nagging ache to mature into a throbbing pain.
We passed plumes of smoke as the fires about the city continued to grow and spread, and then, finally, we began to descend towards Ossard’s main battleground; the bloodied and rubble-strewn ruin of Market Square.
I slipped into the celestial to search for the souls of Pedro and Maria. I could taste them; they were close.
There!
“Sef, I've found them,” I said as I laboured to weave the view of two worlds together.
“Where?”
“The Malnobla!”
Sef drew his sword. “Let's get them!”
And my thoughts were also of Kurgar.
The cultists had secured the building, and now used it as it always had been – as Ossard’s seat of power. The Loyalist banners hanging from the balcony were cast down as we watched.
I offered a prayer to Schoperde, begging her to lend me the strength to end Kurgar’s life.
Surely such a thing would leave the new Ossard weakened?
And all the while, I guided us down into the slaughter-ground of Market Square.
It surged beneath us under the tide of battle as the two sides clashed. The dead lay scattered about, but also strangely piled in places like islands amidst a furious sea’s swell. Both sides fought hard, but clearly the Loyalists had been caught out and were now being pushed back. Their only line that held, albeit as a thinning ring, was around their crippled Cathedral.
So close now to the end of all things, my anger at having had my family stolen away to start with only bucked and grew. I wanted them back, and to make the perpetrators pay, but that fury only helped work free my dark hunger. The pain of it throbbed inside me to grow more desperate and hard. At the same time its demands took strength from the deaths around me, as if it could taste them.
We came down amidst the fighting a hundred paces from the front of the Lord’s Residence. There was little space, but an impatient wave of my hand called a force that pushed aside th
e combatants regardless of loyalties.
Some of their contests finished abruptly as one lost balance and fell on another’s sword; in others, those that struggled to keep on their feet or move back into my cleared space, I dealt with by reaching into the celestial and brazenly draining their souls.
Part of me screamed in disbelief!
The beginning of that feeding hadn’t been a conscious decision, more a loss of my battle to stay in control. Now, blinded by its high, I grabbed another, and another, and then only more.
Sef could feel something of what was happening, becoming restless beside me and afraid. I tried to twist his silence into an endorsement.
Surely I needed souls for power, otherwise how was I to best Kurgar and get my family back? There was also my grandmother to deal with before I could free Marco and his wife and daughter.
In that feeding I claimed six more. Of them, five had been promised to others, and I could feel the celestial shift in anger as larger entities turned to see who dared steal their own.
The fear of being caught by such powers saw me finally calm. I could feel myself stepping back from a crazed binge, one that would see me drink of all the souls in the square. Lost to such madness, I’d even sup on Sef.
The thought both sobered and disgusted me.
I said, “Let's go, Kurgar’s already claimed the Lord's Residence. They’ll be there with him.”
Sef nodded, his eyes wide as we landed in the square.
Few combatants noticed us, most too busy in their own struggles. A smattering raised weapons against us, but I just snarled to see them drop.
I’d fed some more!
But I hadn’t meant to...
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I came here for Life, not as Death’s servant!
I grabbed Sef to drag him forward, trying to remain focused on my purpose and get out of the square.
He flinched at my touch.
The crowded battlefield parted before us to reveal a path of blood-slick cobbles, it all lit in amber by the flaring light cast from the city’s countless flames. About us rang the clash of metal amidst the crunch of breaking bones, the tearing of flesh, and the screams and moans of the dying. This was the bleak world the old gods wanted; one where souls were quickly claimed.
Sef pleaded, “Juvela, you’ve got to control yourself. I can see what you’re doing, and if you’re not careful you’ll become just like our foes!”
He was right, but was it already too late?
The further we moved, the more we escaped the battle’s heart and came into a strange kind of peace. It was dotted with exhausted Reformers who smiled and quietly celebrated, despite their wounds and fatigue.
We passed through them to stop at the base of the Residence’s steps. Ahead of us, at the centre of the rising stairs, spread a pool of blood being fed drip by drip from a plump and robed body hanging from the balcony. Bloodied and burnt, with arrows sticking out of it, it slowly twisted and turned in the smoke-heavy breeze.
It was Benefice Vassini!
The body twitched – life remained in the poor man!
I looked into the celestial to see bonds of power humming about him. The casting was a curse, it blocking his soul from breaking its last links to his mortal form. The cultists had done it to torment him.
Unbelievably, a child played at the edge of pooled blood. Next to her, a slim but tall man dragged his own fingers through the congealed mess as it dribbled down step by step. Horrified, I moved to stop him, but at the same moment he stood and turned while rubbing his bloodied fingertips together.
The air chilled.
By the flaring light of Ossard’s fires, I could see that he was neither Flet nor Heletian, but Lae Velsanan.
He looked up to the Benefice, his spell breaking the bonds entrapping Vassini’s soul. The dangling form shuddered, and then gave out a final but relieved moan.
I turned back to the Lae Velsanan, but he was already disappearing into the crowd. His magic tasted familiar – it something of Life. He was an ally, if a mystery, perhaps something for another time.
Holding Sef's arm, I stepped forward to skirt the pooled blood and climb the stairs. It was time to get my family and deliver justice to Kurgar.
25
-
The Residence
-
The great timber doors stood open at the top of the steps, yet I had to stop and steady myself against one of them as I tried to deal with my roiling power.
I looked back across the square. It had seemed so chaotic only moments ago, but now I could see that most of it was already in the Reformers’ grip. The Loyalists still fought on in isolated pockets, outnumbered, and being cut down. Their only organised resistance stood to ring the Cathedral, but even that force was being overrun and wasted.
The Loyalist defeat was so certain a thing that many Reformers turned from the fight. Their leaders directed them to clear the cobbles of bodies and prepare for the building of a great pyre, while behind them, from the direction of the port, a convoy of timber-loaded carts began to come into the square.
The ritual?
They were quick with their work, their hurry nagging me to also move. Beyond them, I noted, the eastern sky was brightening.
I lent hard against the door, trying to deal with the power boiling within me. It was caustic and difficult to handle, particularly now that it mixed with my excitement as I closed in on my family.
Sef put a hand to my shoulder. “Are you alright?”
I could only give him a nod, as speaking would have revealed the truth.
“Are you sure?”
I closed my eyes and nodded again, but this time concentrated on calming myself. After a deep breath, I pushed off from the door to open my eyes and said, “Let’s go.”
Sef’s worry lifted into surprise, him staring at the woodwork I'd been leaning against. I turned to look.
Spreading from where my body had touched its polished finish ran the swirling images of white roses. Green leaves and shoots also ran through the decoration, all of it tinged with the red health of new growth.
Sef whispered, “The Lady of the Rose, that’s what they call you!”
So many things were happening to me, and there was still so much more to learn. All I could say was, “Better that than the hag of oleander.”
Sef smiled and gave a soft laugh. “It’s a measure of your power. You’re ready.”
I blushed, knowing the truth of where so much of my power had come from – the souls I’d stolen.
What was I doing?
Ashamed, I promised myself; I’d not steal another, never again. I took a deep breath and tried to hold on to my calm. “Sef, with you by my side, I can do anything.”
The entry hall spread before us with a layer of ash and litter covering its marble floor. Likewise, the walls’ rich wood panelling had already been defaced with obscene carvings and angry scrawls.
I whispered to myself of courage and promised to be true to Life...
But the hunger was still there despite my gluttony. It ached deep down in an empty place, sending up giddy shivers of longing...
No, I’d be strong. I had to be. Feeding on stolen souls was the path to addiction and submission to Death.
Yet that hunger now lurked within me, and was always going to be there. The damage was already done...
No, control and strength would see me through. If I took one more, it’d only lead to another, and then another two.
But it had felt so good, and the power harvested could ensure my family’s escape. Surely, just one more soul wouldn’t lead to addiction? I could control it, and besides if it were Kurgar’s, it would merely be a kind of justice...
No, I couldn’t!
But what if I needed that extra power to rescue my family?
No!
But to come all this way, only to fail because I didn’t have the power needed...
Well...
Just one, just to seal the rescue...
And, as we advanced across the entry hall, I noticed that I was drooling.
No one came to stop us, not at the entry, nor in our passage through the hall. When we reached the stairs we both paused before beginning our climb, knowing that Kurgar would be in the Lord’s office, at the traditional hub of Ossard's power.
Noise came to us from above as we ascended. Footfalls and slamming doors, people rushing from room to room; meetings, discussions, and of course some looting.
How quickly they’d taken this place.
We came to the first landing, Sef with his sword drawn, and me with my determination. I shivered as I wiped saliva from my chin.
A voice came to us from down the corridor, a hard thing followed by heavy footfalls. “Stop! What’d you do here?”
Sef and I turned to face the speaker.
A man stepped forward with his sword out, moving to block our path. He looked to be a Kavist from his arms and armour, with another stepping up behind him to back him up.
Sef said, “Let us pass my friend, our business is not with you.”
The first man frowned as the rhythm of more footfalls sounded from further back. “Your business is with us if you're here.”
I said, “We’ve come to see Kurgar, and that’s something we’ve done easily enough before.”
“Before you turned half of Newbank against him!” the lead Kavist growled, and then he addressed Sef, “Brother, you’ve turned your back on Kave!”
Sef shuffled uncomfortably.
The Kavist’s fellow snapped, “It’s to be expected! If I’m not wrong, this isn’t any brother of mine, he’s Sef, the lone man of Kaumhurst.”
Sef grew tense, but I had no time for taunts and bravado. I said, “I’ll not be refused.”
The footfalls behind them grew louder, before the silhouette of another hulking warrior showed in the dim light.
The lead Kavist, ignoring the latest arrival, sneered. “You can’t pass.” And he raised his blade to let it hang in the air between us.