The Hero Strikes Back

by Moira J. Moore

  If only I could get a chance to kick her. Then I’d do some damage.

  The drape of her wimple was getting in my face. I took a moment to reach out with my spare hand and rip the whole thing off her head. And there was the sun tattoo on her temple. Damn it, but sometimes I hated being right. Were all these people, all the guards and the servants, Reanists? Where’d they all come from? Risa had been sure they’d all be arrested or forced out of High Scape.

  Risa! Relief roared through me. The Runners. They were out there, watching the grounds! Or were they still? The party had started hours ago, with no apparent disturbances. And the Runners were no doubting thinking any danger would be from an external attack. They could be riding around out there thinking all was just dainty and delicate within. I had to get their attention.

  What was I supposed to do with this woman?

  I could use my legs after all, to flip us over. She shouted in outrage. I slapped her, which shut her up but otherwise served no useful purpose. Having spent years watching boys fight on the academy grounds, I curled my hand into a fist and punched her in the nose.

  Zaire, that hurt, shoving bones in my fingers in directions they were never meant to go.

  But it hurt her, too, so all right then. I grabbed her stake and stood up. I thought about kicking her, for knocking me over and being a part of all this, but it seemed so petty. She was curling up a little, blood seeping out from the fingers curved over her nose. She screamed insults at me, but they weren’t particularly creative, and they were easily ignored. She was out of the game. That was all that mattered right then.

  I looked around, not knowing what to do next. Karish was still on his feet, fighting another guard. I guessed he’d endured his fair share of schoolyard tumbles, because he seemed to be managing all right. Not exactly the stereo-typical gentleman boxer, though. His style seemed to involve a lot of grabbing whatever came to hand and throwing it at his opponent, or using it as a club. But hey, whatever worked.

  I heard shattering. A glass had been thrown against a window. That made me think. The ritual space. Maybe if we changed the space. Rendered it an inappropriate place to hold the ritual. Would they stop because, according to their rules, there was no point to killing anyone without a viable space, or would they continue fighting out of spite?

  It couldn’t hurt. But how to do it?

  I couldn’t begin to imagine how to stop the waterfall from flowing. I didn’t even know how it worked. Maybe I could shove something into the passage where the water came through, but I couldn’t reach the ceiling. Unless I stood on a chair. But it would be too easy to knock me down. And maybe it would alert the Reanists to my plan.

  The fire was burning too hot and too large to dowse with whatever water might be available on the tables, or to smother with tablecloths. Besides, I’d have to cross the whole length of the room to reach it. I doubted I’d make it that far.

  The pots for the plants were huge and appeared to be made of stone. They were too heavy for me to shift.

  Smashing the windows would accomplish nothing. There would still be air out there.

  But hey, it might attract the attention of the Runners. If they were still out there. A glass hadn’t managed to break it a pane, but maybe a platter would? I grabbed up a platter and threw it at the nearest window. The platter shattered, the window didn’t. Damn it.

  And out of nowhere I felt those subtle shifts, tickling the back of my mind. I looked at Karish, and he’d clobbered his guard and for the moment was standing free. Apparently he’d decided it was time to whip out another earthquake. A handy weapon to have, I was beginning to think.

  Much of the fighting stopped as people freaked over the experience of having the floor slanting beneath their feet. Not all of it, though. Some of the guards and servants lost their footing and clambered back up and tried again.

  I wasn’t sure how long Karish could keep the shaking up. I couldn’t imagine the control it required, to maintain the movement without letting it get too strong. And more of the Reanists might have time to get over their shock and resume their assault. All that effort and all it did was buy us some time. Which was good. It was a good idea. It just needed some adjustments.

  I wasn’t exactly used to walking through an earthquake myself, though the way my life had been going I actually did have more experience at it than the average person. I was able to make my way back over to Karish. I had an idea. A really stupid one.

  “Karish!” I grabbed the front of his doublet and yanked on it to get his attention. “Can you blow off the roof?” That would get everyone’s attention.

  He looked down at me. The shuddering of the floor died down quite a bit. “What?” he asked.

  “A cyclone. Blow off the roof.” The ritual required an enclosed place of stone. With no roof the people’s essence or whatever would escape. And the Runners couldn’t possibly miss that level of destruction. They’d come running.

  Karish started swearing. I didn’t blame him.

  “You expect me to spin up a cyclone inside of a room?” Karish demanded after a few moments.

  It sounded so asinine when he said it like that, but it couldn’t be that impossible, could it? “I expect you to try.”

  Karish resumed swearing. I punched him in the arm. I didn’t care how good he sounded when he did that, it was not the time.

  The shaking stopped. For a moment nothing happened, and in the silence I could hear harsh breathing and pained moans. Then someone started crying, and the Reanists began waving their stakes around again.

  And then I felt it, a wind curling about my feet. It was cold, icy, and I almost shivered. At first it played about the floor, tickling ankles and flowing over hems. In a few moments, though, it was stronger, moving faster, and creeping higher.

  The wind spread out, weakening as it rose but strong enough to push the goblets off those tables that still stood. Serviettes flew into people’s faces, hair escaped from pins and ties. And I did shiver as the chill climbed up my legs and wrapped around my torso.

  Reanists and victims alike looked about, searching for the source of the unusual droughts. Someone started screaming. The wind seem to carry the sound about the room, twisting it and hollowing it out, until it was an eerie wail circling within the walls.

  “They’re coming!” One of the guards dropped his stake and pulled off his helmet. His eyes glittered, his face twisting into an expression of vacant ecstasy. He looked up at the ceiling and raised his hands. “The gods are coming! They’re pleased with us!” He grinned, white and wide, and laughed. There were murmurs from the other guards and the servants. They all started pulling off their head gear and raising their hands to the ceiling, demonstrating the same delight.

  Oh, good Zaire. Could they be any more ludicrous? But good for us. It kept them preoccupied. Maybe we should start charging them. Who was still standing?

  The wind grew stronger and higher.

  A plate shattered against the wall. Those nearest ducked away, one not fast enough. He shouted out in pain, clutching a hand to his eyes. This was going to get messy. Messier.

  And the wind got stronger.

  Tables scraped over the floor, were picked up by the wind, were set rolling. Smashing crockery. Candles blown over and blown out. Sparks flew out of the fireplace and landed on a tapestry. The wind blew out any fire that might have started.

  I didn’t know if whatever was happening was a cyclone, but it was certainly destructive. My hair was whipping about my eyes, obscuring my vision. I tried to hold it back from face, but it took both hands and tendrils kept fluttering loose.

  The guards and servants were still standing around with hands and faces uplifted, like a goggle of proper gits. Lord Yellows was standing in a similar posture, only his eyes were closed and he appeared to be muttering something. Praying? From the expression on his face he was pretty happy about the way things were turning out. The guests were huddling on the floor, arms curled over their heads. Maybe I should try th
at.

  The Reanists were vulnerable, distracted as they were. It was the perfect opportunity to overpower them. I couldn’t. I was shielding. No one else seemed to think of it. This was killing me.

  A flying chair took out one of the guards. Neat.

  A gust of wind whipped my feet out from under me. Not so neat. Once again my head met the floor.

  Don’t drop the shields!

  Fortunately, I had some experience with holding on to my shields while the world was going insane. Zaire, my life.

  And then the wind was pushing me across the floor. I scrambled against the stones, tried to catch a corner with my fingers, but they were too smooth. I couldn’t stop myself. And all the while I had to hold onto the shields. I had to keep my shields up. If I didn’t Karish would be crushed by the forces he wasn’t manipulating and that would be the bad ending of a lovely evening.

  I wondered if I was getting at all hysterical.

  I rolled into someone’s legs and felt them fall. I kept going until I hit a wall. That hurt.

  But I didn’t drop my shields.

  I couldn’t see Karish. A table was blocking my view of him and I was glad enough to have it there. Crockery, cutlery, candlesticks were flying about. So were tables and chairs. No one was on their feet anymore, not even the Reanists.

  Would they stop screaming?

  The roof could go any time. Please. Now would be good. Or the cure would kill us all.

  Instead, the windows shattered, glass flying out into the night with sharp loud cracks. At least they went out. My mind flashed me an image of huge shards of glass showering down on us and impaling us, blood spurting everywhere.

  Stop that.

  And then the wind stopped. Karish’s shields fell back into place. I withdrew mine. I raised my head.

  The roof was still firmly in place. Had he given up? Was it too hard?

  We’d failed. Damn. What were we going to do now?

  People were crying. Like that would accomplish anything. But it seemed that no one had resumed killing yet. That was a plus. But it was so dark in the room, only the moonlight offering any illumination.

  I climbed to my feet, wincing at the sharp pain jolting through my left knee. It had been the first part of my body to make contact with the wall. “Taro?” I looked over the room. What a mess.

  I heard whistling. The high unnatural piercing whistling used by the Runners to call all the members to the site of a crime. Oh, thank Zaire, the Runners were coming. The windows must have done it. We weren’t going to die. Who could I hug?

  Someone was laughing. It was a chilling sound, under the circumstances. And familiar. I followed the laughter to its source.

  “Blow off the roof,” Karish chuckled from where he lay prone on the floor. He had a cut on his forehead. It was bleeding, adding to the blood from the guard that had dried on his face. “Like the kind of force that would require wouldn’t kill everyone in the room first. It’s made of stone!”

  I knelt beside him, looking for other injuries. “Oh, shut up!” It wasn’t as though he’d thought of it at the time, either. And the effort had accomplished something, hadn’t it? That was all that mattered.

  But perhaps I was congratulating myself too soon. “Keep going!” Lord Yellows shouted, having found his feet. “It wasn’t the gods! It was just—” He cut himself off, because he didn’t know what it had been. “Continue the ritual! We have to finish what we’ve started or they’ll be even angrier!”

  Temperamental creatures, these gods of his. I stood again, so I could run, if I had to.

  “Yellows, have you gone mad?” Prince Gifford demanded. He was back on his feet, too, crouched in a fighting stance, his knife still in his hand. His fine clothes torn, blood trickling from his lip, something having sliced open his left cheek, he was alive and furious. “This is treason!”

  “It is our duty!” Lord Yellows kicked away some debris cluttering up his feet. “We are the rulers of this world, we are the vanguard,” he announced, the power of the rhetoric diluted by the fact that he appeared to be looking for something on the floor. “It is our duty to pacify the gods for the safety of our people. Where’s that damn stake?”

  Very noble and all, but I didn’t remember seeing anyone trying to stake him.

  Prince Gifford was staring at him, stunned. “You are mad,” he breathed, the words echoing through the stone room.

  “No!” Lord Yellows exclaimed, giving up on his quest for the stake. “No! I have seen the truth. And it is a hard truth. I didn’t want to believe it, either. I don’t deny that. But the gods resent our being on this world. They resent the damage we have done to it.”

  Damage? What damage?

  “That’s why they punish us by destroying our cities, our homes. They are angry with us. We have abused their gifts.”

  “Forgive us, Pillars of Might!” one Reanist cried. Her words were echoed by several of the others.

  “But we can appease them,” Yellows ranted on. “We can purchase their favor. With the blood of the High Landed. That’s all they ask. Please, sire.” Lord Yellows implored the Prince, hands outstretched, as though he actually believed he could convince his prince to agree to die. “There are so few of you, and with your lives we can purchase peace and prosperity for all people in this world.” Ugh, alliteration. Someone kill him. “Isn’t your life worth that?”

  I heard shouting from outside. The Runners were dividing up the entrances. Hurry people.

  Lord Yellows heard them too. He started speaking faster. “I know what you believe,” he said to the prince. “You believe it is merely the way the world is, all this chaos and destruction, and that all you need are the Sources to keep it quiet. But the Sources are an abomination.”

  “Hey!” Karish protested, but weakly. He was still sitting on the floor. I looked down at him with concern.

  “They interfere with the work of the gods. They only make the gods more angry. And their effects are only temporary. There will be no lasting tranquility until the High Landed do our duty and give ourselves to the gods.”

  Oh. So Lord Yellows was planning to sacrifice himself, too. For some reason that made it all the more disturbing. Offering to throw away your life for something so vague and improbable, something so fantastic with no proof of its actual reality. How could one put so little value on one’s own life?

  Prince Gifford appeared disgusted. Imagine that. No matter what else anyone had to say about him, there was no denying that the man was sane. “Superstitious nonsense,” he spat.

  Doors were slamming open somewhere in the building. Hurry hurry hurry. Or were they indulging in a summer stroll?

  Lord Yellows looked right at Karish. “You know it is truth,” he said to my Source. “Since we started giving High Landed blood to the gods, the world has been at peace. Hasn’t it?”

  Karish didn’t respond. I don’t think he quite got the significance of the question. I did, though, and I felt my own eyes widening in shock.

  Pairs that were doing their jobs properly dealt with disasters long before regulars could perceive the threat of a disturbance. We should be able to be threatened daily, hourly, without the regulars of High Scape having a clue anything was going on. And none of us had the habit of telling regulars whether there had been any events that day, or none. The regulars were not supposed to know what was going on.

  So how come Lord Yellows did? How did he know, why did he feel certain, that there had been no events in months? How could he know that?

  “Continue the ritual!” the lord ordered.

  And he actually stamped his foot, like a child.

  My attention was caught by something behind him. It made me grin. Hah! Sucker! “The fire’s out!” I shouted loudly, both to point out that the wind had indeed put out the fire, and to attract the attention of any nearby Runners.

  Lord Yellows spun towards the empty fireplace. “Light the fire!” He looked for something with which to start the fire again, but all the candles in t
he room had been blown out. Some of the Reanists, perhaps believing a completed ritual space was not so essential, raised their stakes again. Others appeared to be losing heart altogether.

  The doors to the dining room swung open, hitting the walls with a bang. The first group of Runners ran in, lead by Captain Wong. The captain mother had found so charming at Risa’s party. I wondered if it would be terribly inappropriate to run up and hug him.

  “Arrest them!” the Prince shouted.

  “Who, Your Highness?” a Runner shouted back.

  “All of them!”

  Well, I hadn’t been expecting that.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Our arrest was only temporary, just long enough to sort out who were the raving Reanists and who were the victims.

  Doran came out of the experience with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. Lydia, we were told, was badly injured but would probably survive. Her Grace walked out under her own power. Mother and son made no attempt to speak to each other.

  And the Prince, before sweeping out of the ballroom, informed my Source that the both of us were expected to attend upon him the next morning.

  So that’s where we were. Sitting in the front room of the suite in the Imperial, to which the Prince had moved from Lord Yellows’ manor. I was dressed in my morning best. Karish was sitting beside me. He had flattened my hand on his leg, laid his own over the top of it. He was soberly dressed in black, every lace tied. He sat so correctly on his chair, spine straight with a good handspan of air between it and the chair. Expressionless mask firmly in place, but his eyes were blank, as though his mind were a million miles away.

  Under my hand, his thigh was hard with tension.

  “You are not going to be Doran’s assistant,” he said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Lydia is unlikely to be in form to play Doran’s assistant for the Hallin Festival. You will not take her place. You are mine.”