by David Hair
‘My son will know that if I’m in your hands, I’m dead already,’ Vann replied.
Lucia’s hooded eyes narrowed. ‘Your son will not defy me. No one does. The cataclysm to come will show him that.’ She whirled and stalked out.
Ramon looked at Vann with widening eyes. What cataclysm?
*
Seth Korion stared at the blackened circle of wreckage in the midst of the column with a numbed heart. ‘You say the bullion wagons are all gone?’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘All twenty of them?’
Tribune Storn, logisticalus of the tenth maniple of Pallacios Thirteen, nodded wanly. ‘Entirely, sir.’
When the attack had come, he’d been asleep near the advance guard. By the time he’d arrived, the enemy windcraft were lifting away. Losses had been light – apparently Ramon had advised the cohort commanders to keep their men well away from the wagons – and the enemy had been mostly focused on the wagons.
Which is what matters most to them, after all. We’re nothing, compared to that.
‘They’ve really captured Sensini?’ If he asked often enough, perhaps someone would say ‘No’.
‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Storn looked stricken. ‘He often spoke of the dangers. We’ve some contingencies in place.’
‘Contingencies? I don’t need those: I need Ramon!’ He looked at Jelaska helplessly. The Argundian sorceress was glaring up into the night, but their one windskiff had been burned out in the raid so they had no way of striking back, and no protection from the air at all. ‘We should have returned to Ardijah,’ he moaned.
He realised he was shaking and sweating, standing alone in a circle of watching faces, and none of them was the person he needed. Ramon was always in control of this army. I’m just a figurehead. What the Hel do I do?
‘Calmly, lad,’ Jelaska murmured. ‘The army draws inspiration from its commander.’
‘But I don’t know what to do.’
‘Nor I. But we’re on a three-hundred-mile-long piece of stone, and if we don’t get off one end, we drown.’ She sighed regretfully. ‘We’ve always known we’d get to this point one day, Seth. Dreams end. We were dead the moment we were assigned to the Southern Army.’ She didn’t sound unhappy about it, but she was a Necromancer; maybe she was looking forward to death.
‘Do we push on? Or do we run back to Southpoint?’ He knew his men wanted to go home. They’d made that choice a long time ago, even knowing the empire might prevent them. But now even seeing Pontus looked impossible, with all those windships hanging in the skies above, like an affront to gravity.
He was about to go on when a gnostic contact came. It was Alaron Mercer, and Seth seized the link like a lifeline.
Alaron sounded no less desperate.
Through Seth’s feet, the Bridge suddenly felt as flimsy as straw. They can’t . . .
They could though. Could, and would. There was more, information rammed into his brain by Alaron at a pace he could barely follow: plates of earth thousands of miles wide, the energy of the Bridge unleashed . . . enough power to destroy Dhassa, and Pontus too. He clutched the parapet and whispered a prayer. For a moment he just wanted to run screaming, but the practical – there was absolutely nowhere to run – caught up with the need to resist, in whatever way they could.
He looked up at the towers of black clouds, tasted rain and salt on his tongue, inhaled the briny air, caught up in a sudden, vivid dream of life, all his senses intensified. Nothing felt real, everything was intensified. ‘Jelaska, what is the hour?’
‘About four bells: two hours to midday.’
‘Thank you.’ He turned to the rest of his battlemagi. ‘Array for battle. We must take Midpoint, or die trying.’
Javon Seas, west of Midpoint
Akhira (Junesse) 930
24th and last month of the Moontide
‘Al’Rhon, listen to me. We must go to Southpoint Tower.’
Alaron peered past the sail of the skiff, which was almost ripping from the stresses they were placing the craft under. Ramita was huddled in the fore-deck to add weight to the prow and keep the skiff low to the wind. They’d been en route when he’d contacted Seth and found they were too late: the empire had struck already, and Ramon had been snatched. Now they were off the Javon coast, tearing westwards across the ocean. He’d been making for Midpoint, but now Ramita wanted to veer hundreds of miles off-course. ‘Why?’
She squirmed her way back towards him along the hull, crawled around the mast and under the boom and gripped his knee. Her face was devoutly forthright. It was an expression he knew: the one she used when she’d run out of rational explanations for anything and fell back on religion. ‘It is Fated,’ she said earnestly.
Kore’s bollocks it is! ‘There is no such thing as Fate!’ he shouted, really angry at her for the first time in his life. ‘Fate is coincidence masquerading as order! We’ve got to reach Seth at Midpoint!’
‘No! Listen, husband: Lord Meiros foresaw this moment three years ago!’
‘What?’ he exclaimed. ‘Three years ago? That’s impossible—! The number of variables involved are too many!’
‘Please, Al’Rhon! A few days before he was murdered, he took me to Southpoint! He showed me a tunnel, a way into the tower that the Imperial Magi don’t know about! He made me memorise the place!’
Alaron’s mind reeled. Kore’s Blood, can I credit that? Could Antonin Meiros really have predicted this?
What Kazim had seen in Rutt Sordell’s mind was that Emperor Constant planned at the end of the Crusade for the Imperial Keepers – the Ascendant magi who’d been given control of the Bridge after the First Crusade – to destroy the Bridge. Not only that, but they would unleash a cataclysm that would trigger a vast earthquake, intended to raise a permanent land-bridge between Yuros and Antiopia, leaving the East open to permanent conquest.
I have no idea how to prevent that, but clearly we would need to storm one of the towers to even stand a chance. Logically that should be Midpoint . . . but what if Southpoint suffices, and old Antonin really did show Ramita a way in . . . ?
He met Ramita’s eyes, trying to see past her fervent conviction that the world operated like some giant fable to the real matter: that Seth had told him the towers were fortified and nigh impregnable.
We’re going to need a way in somehow . . . which is what this tunnel would be . . . But it adds at least two hours to the journey, while Ramon is in their hands . . .
‘My father once told me that to love is to trust,’ he said at last.
Her eyes shone.
*
A few hours later, the Seeker was hurtling under semi-control on a southwest tack, moving at speeds it could only have made – hyper-charged with spells as it was – with both Alaron and Ramita pouring energy into the keel and summoning a storm behind them. Below them, the waves roared as they streaked towards Southpoint’s distant beacon.
Alaron was so deeply enmeshed in his gnosis-workings, he almost didn’t notice the gnostic contact; but it was persistent, and strong.
It was Mater-Imperia’s voice, well remembered from their brief contact after he’d slain Malevorn. He almost rejected the contact, but decided to allow it, while minimising the link so that she couldn’t trace his position.
There was a gasping sound, then a male voice.
Lucia’s voice came back.
He believed her. Which means she’s right there, at Midpoint! She’s come to watch the spectacle!
The surge of hatred he felt was most un-Zain-like.
He had his mouth half-open to retort, to tell her that he would do all he could to prevent that ‘news’, when he remembered that surprise might be the only weapon he and Ramita had. He almost offered the Scytale to prevent the Bridge’s destruction – but no, that would betray that he knew what she was up to, and anyway, he was sure that she was going to do it anyway, come what may.
Instead he broke the contact before he betrayed too much.
Three hours? Is that what Da said? They were still at least an hour from Southpoint. We’re running out of time . . .
Southpoint Tower, Dhassa
Akhira (Junesse) 930
24th and final month of the Moontide
‘This is the place,’ Ramita said, finding the angles Antonin Meiros had told her to draw between the tower, the hill to the southeast and the hillock on the coastline.
Sea mist was drifting in from the north where the waves thundered, but the skies overhead were clear. She and Alaron were cloaked by Illusion, in case there were watchers on the tower piercing the skies some four hundred yards away – no distance at all, when it filled the sky. The beacon shone so bright it hurt to look up at it.
She raised her hands and gently blew the sand from the trap-door. Alaron made a small sound in the back of his throat, but there was no time for wonder. The bridge still stood, that much was clear, but the tower beacon was glowing like a fallen star, pulsing ever brighter.
She laid her hand on the door and it clicked open of its own accord, revealing a manmade hole in the ground. Alaron eschewed the ladder and dropped through, staff and gnosis ready. Ramita followed, finding a narrow tunnel, the walls made of brick and the ceiling low. It smelled dry, and the air was cool, and utterly lifeless, without rodents or lizards or even insects.
Alaron went to lead the way, but she pulled his arm. ‘My Lord expected me to come here. I will lead the way.’ She conjured light and took the lead. The tunnel was clear and straight, and they could see their destination, a wooden door far in the distance. She strode towards it as fast as her legs could carry her, with Alaron chafing behind her.
She’d heard those snatched words: Three hours. That was two hours ago . . .
They were within a stone-throw of the door when something shimmered in the air before them. She cried out as an image of her husband appeared. He looked just as he had the first time she’d met him, with lank grey hair and a full, wispy beard. He looked haggard and drawn, smitten with grief.
‘Speak your name,’ the image said in a reserved voice.
She felt a surge of fear and hope; she’d encountered a similar gnostic message at the Isle of Glass. ‘Ramita Ankesharan-Meiros,’ she replied in a clear voice.
The image flickered, and then Lord Meiros reappeared, looking exactly as he had the day they visited Southpoint, shaven-headed, with the bristly goatee she’d persuaded him to adopt.
‘Dearest Ramita,’ the image said. ‘I leave you this message, not knowing if you will ever hear it, and also that if you do, it is likely at great need, and I will not be with you. The only reason you would come here that I can divine is to try and prevent the destruction of the Bridge, something I’ve long expected the empire to attempt.’
Alaron looked astonished at how accurate Meiros’ message was, but Ramita wasn’t surprised; her first husband had been the greatest mage in the world: of course he knew.
‘I will therefore be brief and factual,’ the image went on. ‘The Leviathan Bridge is sustained whilst underwater by the accumulated gnostic power of the five Towers, which accumulate solarus energy and convert it to Earth-gnosis. The bridge is a self-repairing entity that can survive almost anything, provided the towers remain intact. The towers themselves are warded against all but the most overwhelming attacks.
‘We’ve long known that the power of the solarus crystals can be misused, and therefore the method of constructing them is carefully guarded. To date it has suited the empire to leave the Bridge intact, but that has always been likely to change. To prevent them, you must first climb the tower to the highest room, the one beneath the solarus crystals themselves. Each of the Five Towers contributes equally to the control and flow of energy into the Bridge and they are manned at all times. Since the Bridge was seized, this has been performed by Imperial magi, with the cooperation of the Ordo Costruo. To destroy the Bridge requires the five magi manning each nexus-throne to collectively act to destroy the Bridge by disrupting the flow of energy. To prevent this requires one of the five to overcome the other four and wrest control.
‘This is what you must do, my dearest: get to that nexus-throne, enter the link with the other four and prevent harm to the Bridge. They will try to stop you, and they’ll be able to strike at you, even hundreds of miles away in the other towers. But you will be able to strike at them as well.’
The old mage’s voice became low and earnest. ‘My dearest, to achieve this you must have gained the gnosis in the strength I hoped, and learned to use it. You will be facing Keepers, cunning old Ascendant magi with vast experience. So I beg you: whatever need drove you here, go no further if you aren’t the person required for this task. I’d rather lose the Bridge than lose you. If this task is beyond you, go home. Protect our children. And know that I care deeply for you.’
Meiros reached out, but his hand passed through her, flickered and then he was gone, leaving her tearful and shaken. She swallowed heavily, looking away when Alaron squeezed her shoulder. He looked overawed, as if he suddenly didn’t think himself worthy of her.
‘Am I ready?’ she asked him. ‘Can I do this?’
‘I believe in you,’ Alaron replied, with exactly the certainty she needed to hear. ‘You’re the strongest mage I’ve ever met, stronger even than an Ascendant. Your technique is improving all the time.’ He bit his lip, then added, ‘The key to fighting against many is to keep up a strong defensive screen, be mobile and to strike suddenly at the most vulnerable. We learned that in the Arcanum.’
‘I’ll remember. Thank you, my love.’
Alaron took a deep breath and flexed his shoulders. ‘Then let’s go.’ They’d both been awake and active now for three days, and he looked exhausted, dark circles like bruises beneath his glazed eyes. She could feel him drawing on his reservoirs of energy to reinvigorate himself. She was doing the same.
The door before them wasn’t locked. It opened onto a spiralling stair that led upwards, completely dark, and so narrow they were forced to go one at a time. Alaron went ahead and she let him: she had to take the throne, so his role was to get her there.
The stair led to a blank wall, with
a touch-panel of carved stone: Ramita recognised the design from the panel used in Casa Meiros to allow only certain persons through. She put her palm to it, felt a faint tingle, then the door slid aside. Alaron peered left and right then stepped through, and she followed. The door, invisible from this side, closed silently. They were on a small landing in another spiral stair, this one well-lit with oil-lamps, floored in tiled sandstone with whitewashed walls. There was a musty, enclosed smell that hadn’t been present in the tunnel, and distant noise. Moreover, there was the throb of powerful gnosis above them, pulsing like a giant heartbeat.
Alaron brandished his staff, while she drew a knife. She hadn’t done a lot of fighting; instead, she’d applied herself to learning the gnosis with all the ferocity she could. She readied shields as they climbed higher and higher, still unseen and unchallenged, even passing doors from whence voices could be heard. Then another door loomed above, and the end of the stair. Before they could compose themselves, that door opened, and a redheaded woman wearing a silver sun and moon mask and deep blue robes stepped through, calling a farewell over her shoulder.
Then she saw them and froze, but not for long: mage-fire blossomed and flew.
42
A Storm at Midpoint
House Sacrecour
The name Sacrecour means of course, ‘Sacred Heart’, a reference to Corineus’ heart that Corinea split with her dagger. Ironically, the image of the dagger and heart is seen as a symbol of religious fidelity and purity by worshippers of the Kore. The victims of the empire have another view: their dagger, our hearts.
KING PHYLLIOS III OF NOROS, 910 (DURING THE NOROS REVOLT)
Midpoint, Leviathan Bridge
Junesse (Akhira) 930
24th and last month of the Moontide
The storm was rising, and so was the tide. Freezing winds from the north were whipping spray from the churning seas below into their faces, and lightning crackled on the horizon as Seth Korion strode to the front of the lines.
It was the strangest battle he could ever have envisaged: with the battlefield a ninety-foot-wide bridge, and the only visible enemies a pair of large windships tethered to a platform just below the summit of the tower. But he was under no illusions. We must get inside, or we drown.