We’ll need to do as Master Meira said, and channel the force out through the tunnel Tenorran described.
“Show me.”
The window shifted to display the Ramunnans digging a long, narrow passage. Well over a thousand feet out, they angled it up to the surface. At the top they made a broad, shallow pit and packed it with flammable materials, ready to catch the flames and transfer them under the building.
“They’ve been camped on top of that for weeks?” Josiah was both appalled and impressed. The Matriarch had ruthlessly risked her people’s lives, but her ploy had successfully prevented the Tevenarans from exploring the site and discovering the trap. Of course, her own tent had been set up far from the most dangerous spot.
This is now. The window switched to a moonlit scene of trampled grass and litter. The boards covering the pit had been torn up and thrown aside, leaving it gaping open.
Balls of fire streaked across the sky. One shattered on the cobbles of the street next to the abandoned park. Flames splashed everywhere. Josiah braced himself, his heart thundering, but the flames subsided to a dull glow, none of them close enough to ignite the kindling in the pit.
“That was close. Are you sure we can’t block them?”
It’s too far. Sar widened the window’s view, then swept it to focus on a ship in the river. Straining men were turning a capstan to draw the catapult’s long arm down. Others were piling jugs into a big metal cup. As Josiah watched, one poured the contents of a jug over the rest and thrust a torch into the jelly-like liquid. Flames leaped up, coating the surface of each jug, turning them into blazing balls like the one they’d seen hit. The motion of the water makes their aim uncertain, but it won’t be long before one of their shots finds its target.
“We’ll have to be ready.” Josiah gulped. He didn’t hear any footsteps or voices coming from the stairs. “You know what we have to do.”
You wish me to burn us out?
“If that’s the only way.” He wrapped his arms around Sar’s neck. “We’ll die anyway if we don’t.”
It might be possible to shield you from the blast without doing you permanent harm.
“But the Mother’s Hall would still be destroyed? Everyone else would be killed?”
Yes.
Smash it, he didn’t want to die! He had so much left to do. He wanted to go places, and see things, and invent stuff. He wanted to pour out the Mother’s power to heal people. He wanted to help establish the Wizards’ Guild in Ravanetha. He wanted to enjoy all the pleasures of life, eating and drinking, singing and dancing, joy and laughter, friendship and love. He wanted to marry and have children and grandchildren and watch them grow up. He wanted to return to the Mother many, many years from now, after his body had grown old and frail, rich with a lifetime of experiences and accomplishments. Not in the next few minutes, his life over just as it was getting started.
But if he saved himself, he’d lose most of those things anyway. He couldn’t sacrifice the future of the Wizards’ Guild to buy his own survival. And Nirel and Kevessa were both upstairs. He couldn’t let them be torn apart by the explosion or crushed by the Hall’s collapse.
He’d done more with his life already than most people ever did. He’d crossed the ocean and seen wonders he’d never imagined. He’d helped create the insulin that would save thousands of lives, and the blasting powder mill that would let Tevenar defend itself for years to come. He’d tasted love, at least, even if it had left him hungry for more.
He’d seen the Mother and spoken to her. It wouldn’t be so bad to go back to her now, if it let him save the people and things he cared about.
He tightened his arm around Sar and dropped his cheek to rest on the soft fur of the donkey’s neck. “Then do it. Burn me out. Save yourself if you can, but if not, burn us both out. Save the Mother’s Hall and the Wizards’ Guild.”
Understood. Affection flooded his mind, sturdy and warm and unafraid.
In the window, the ship rocked, a man shouted an order, and the catapult sprang free, hurling its burden at the shore. The fiery orbs flew in a blazing swarm.
One arched high and true. It crashed into the center of the pit and burst. Flames splattered, finding ample fuel. They leapt high, staining the night orange.
Sar let the window close. Get ready. He folded his legs and sank to the ground.
Josiah threw himself over Sar’s back and locked his arms around the donkey’s neck. Their contact should remain unbroken when he lost consciousness. He drew a deep breath, laid his head on Sar’s neck, and let his muscles relax. His heart thudded. Terror and exhilaration swirled in his gut. He should say something profound, fix his thoughts on something noble and exalted and glorious, but all he could think about was a sudden itch he didn’t dare release Sar to scratch. He squirmed. Smash it, he was going to die thinking about scratching his—
A distant boom told him the first barrel of blasting powder in the tunnel had exploded. Another followed an instant later.
Strength drained from his muscles as Sar sent a golden wave of the Mother’s power flowing toward the approaching blast. It shoved air against the violently expanding gasses. All around them more blasting powder lent its force to the swelling burst.
Josiah’s head swam as Sar sucked him dry. Everything went black. His body screamed as it was consumed from within, fat and muscle and organs burning, giving up the energy they contained. Sar, too, was being devoured, his pain blasting Josiah’s mind through their bond until nothing existed but the white-hot shriek of their agony.
Still his familiar drew relentlessly from them both, pouring out their lives to meet and match the massive force of the blast The fierce golden blaze of the Mother’s power surrounded and channeled it, driving it away from the stone walls and out the tunnel. More and more, deeper and deeper, wrenching the breath from their lungs and the blood from their brains. And still the explosion raged and Sar drew, until the last dregs of Josiah’s awareness went to feed the insatiable pull, and he knew no more.
Sixty-One
The road from their new home to the docks crossed one of the streets that led to the Mother’s Hall. Elkan craned to see as they emerged from between the buildings. It still stood, looming tall and dark against the stars. The Matriarch’s soldiers hustled the group of prisoners through the intersection and down the block. As they reached the next major street and Elkan sought another glimpse, a shower of blazing sparks fell from the sky, streaking through the darkness in lines of flame.
A tremendous BOOM! tore the world apart. Fire erupted into the night. Enormous billows of black smoke rolled across the city. A blast of heat and sound knocked Elkan to the ground.
A tawny shape leapt at him. He grabbed for Tobi and she sent a burst of golden light to shove aside his guard’s descending sword. Arrows flew. He strained to spot them so Tobi could knock them from the air.
One escaped them in the swirling smoke and grazed Tobi’s flank. A streak of pain across Elkan’s thigh marked another. He crouched behind Tobi and struggled to see. Meira. Ravid. We’ve got to find them.
Kill the soldiers?
If you can. Surging fear and rage made the fates of a few anonymous Ramunnans irrelevant.
Tobi sent the Mother’s power lancing at Elkan’s guard, who’d recovered and launched a new attack. Elkan tasted blood and heard high-pitched twangs as she ripped vessels in his brain. The man fell, his sword glancing off Elkan’s shoulder, his death sending a cold heavy wave into his chest.
He brushed it off and searched the clouded darkness surrounding them. Clear the smoke. Make some light. Find Meira!
Tobi complied. Diffuse light poured from Elkan’s hand, sending a brisk breeze into the smoke. Through the clear space it created he glimpsed struggling bodies. He ran toward them, Tobi keeping pace at his side, his hand clamped on her skin.
A soldier wrenched Ravid from Meira’s arms. He whirled to face Elkan. “No closer!” He twisted Ravid’s arm behind his back. Ravid shrieked. “Let go of the
beast or I swear I’ll kill him.”
Elkan froze, desperately calculating the odds of Tobi getting Ravid away from the soldier in time. Before either he or his familiar could act, Meira grabbed the man from behind. Her left arm went around his neck. Her hook drove into his eye. The soldier screamed and dropped Ravid.
Gold light caught Ravid before he hit the cobblestones. Tobi pulled him into Elkan’s arms. Ravid sobbed and clung to Elkan’s neck so tight he had to struggle for breath.
Meira gave her hook a vicious twist and the soldier collapsed. “Don’t touch my son,” she told him as she pulled her hook free and wiped it on his tunic. Then she ran to Elkan’s side, shaking and panting. “Thank the Mother.”
Ravid released Elkan and dove for his mother. She grabbed him and clutched him tight. “Now what?”
“Did you see Verinna?”
“She was behind us, with Adrenna.”
Tobi cleared the smoke in that direction. A knot of struggling bodies appeared. Elkan ran toward them, Tobi loping beside him. Meira raced at their heels.
Tenorran and Verinna were fighting. Soldiers hovered around them, weapons poised, but hesitating to strike. Tenorran had Adrenna’s shoulders, Verinna her hips, each striving to tear the baby from the other’s grasp. Adrenna’s screams rent the night.
Elkan flung up a hand. Golden light poured out and enveloped the combatants. Tobi stripped the swords from the soldier’s hands and hurled them out of reach.
Elkan strode into the midst of the frozen tableau. “Blast it, what do you think you’re doing?”
Tobi attempted to pry Adrenna free, but both her mother and her brother fought to hold on. Elkan reached for the baby, whose eyes were wide and terrified, her mouth open in an arrested cry. Tobi, dislocate the soldier’s hips so we don’t have to worry about them, then help me get Adrenna away from these two.
His familiar swiftly complied. She shoved the disabled soldiers away and focused their strength on dragging Verinna and Tenorran loose from Adrenna. Elkan took the child into his arms and Tobi released her. Adrenna thrashed and wailed, reaching for the two who’d put her at risk. They both stared at her in anger and longing and struggled against Tobi’s control.
Bring them with us. We’ll sort them out later. Out loud, he said, “We’ve got to get to the Hall.”
Meira gulped. “Is it…”
Elkan walked to the corner, careful not to break contact with Tobi, and peered down the street. The smoke was beginning to clear. Through the gloom he made out the big dark rectangle, huge and solid as ever, undamaged.
Meira’s arm went around his waist. “Josiah and Sar did it.”
Elkan dreaded what that might mean. He dragged in a shuddering breath and leaned on Meira, staring at the intact building.
“Maybe someone helped them,” Meira said, though her voice shook.
He didn’t want to know. He wanted to hope for a little while longer. But he swallowed hard and extended his hand, trying to keep it from trembling. Tobi, a window?
She kept it small to conserve their flagging strength. But it was enough to reveal Josiah’s emaciated body sprawled motionless across Sar’s skeletal frame, alone in the smoke-clogged basement.
Grief would come later. Cold, all-consuming purpose swept away every other emotion. He would not allow Josiah and Sar’s sacrifice to go to waste.
The Wizards’ Guild survived. The ones who’d tried to destroy it would pay. Tevenar would teach the rest of the world not to threaten those the Mother favored.
He disengaged from Meira. Tobi, close the window. Keep tight hold of Verinna and Tenorran and bring them with us. He shifted Adrenna to his shoulder and strode toward the Hall.
* * *
Gevan woke from a sound sleep with a jolt of terror, heart thundering, ears numb from the deafening burst of sound. His bed stopped shaking as the last rumbles of the explosion died away.
For a confused instant he couldn’t move. Then he struggled free of the covers and dragged on his breeches, grabbing his doublet as he ran for the door. Up and down the corridor wizards and familiars burst from their rooms, demanding to know what had happened. Golden radiance illuminated the darkness as windows popped open over hands. Gevan desperately wanted to know what they revealed, but he couldn’t stop to look until he knew Kevessa was safe.
He shoved through the increasingly crowded hallway to the stairs and fought his way up against the flow of bodies fleeing downward. An authoritative voice was shouting, “Out! Everyone out! Evacuate the building!” Gevan ignored it.
Kevessa was staying in an apprentice room on the fourth floor. Gevan burst from the stairwell and swung around the corner. A few rooms down, her door opened and Kevessa emerged, disheveled and frantic. Weak with relief, he called to her, but she didn’t respond. Instead of joining the throngs of excited apprentices and animals surging toward the stairs, she turned and headed in the opposite direction.
He raced to catch her and grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”
She fought to escape. “Josiah’s in his room, unconscious. We have to get him.”
“We don’t have time! This building could collapse at any moment.”
“That’s why we can’t leave him!”
She wrenched against his grip. He held on, afraid he was hurting her, but determined not to let her go. “Let someone else get him. He’s too heavy for you to carry.”
“Not with Nina’s help.” Golden light pried his fingers loose. She twisted free and bolted down the corridor. Gevan chased her, cursing.
Kevessa flung open a door and charged in. Gevan followed, pulling himself up short an instant before he collided with her. She gaped at the empty bed.
“See? Someone got him already. He’ll be fine. Now, come on!”
She let him take her arm and drag her along, but her other hand summoned a ball of light. She murmured to the squirrel on her shoulder as they joined the mass of bodies packing the stairs. They crept down at an agonizingly slow rate.
“What?” Kevessa exclaimed.
Gevan glanced at the window. Within, Josiah was creeping down a dark hallway. “The explosion must have roused him.”
“But this is before it happened.” Kevessa frowned at the window as it showed Josiah reach the same stairs they were descending.
Some bottleneck below must have cleared, because suddenly the crowd was moving much faster. Kevessa complained when she couldn’t hold the window steady enough to see clearly, but Gevan was far more concerned with getting her out of danger than with tracking Josiah’s movements. There would be plenty of time later to figure out where he’d gone.
Several master wizards were supervising the evacuation on the ground floor, directing people to each of the Hall’s exits. Gevan led Kevessa out the big double doors in the front, which were flung open to their full width. Only when they were clear of the building did his heart finally slow.
The dark plaza was choked with a milling crowd of frightened, confused wizards and familiars. On the far side, shouts and flashes of golden light retreated down the surrounding streets. Gevan stumbled over a broken bow. Arrows littered the ground, but no one was shooting at the moment. He guided Kevessa, whose eyes were locked on her window, to a relatively calm spot beneath a tree.
“Father, look.” Kevessa thrust the window into his face. Gevan grimaced, but the stunned, wonder-struck tone of her voice aroused his curiosity. He peered into the ring of sparkles.
Within, a shaft of moonlight streamed into a dark room. Two kneeling figures stared up at the shimmering beam. Incredulous, Gevan watched a woman’s shape coalesce from the light and walk down the silver path. She looked just the way Kevessa had described her, strong, beautiful, dressed in a white robe, with unbound hair and ageless, infinite eyes. “That’s—”
“The Mother,” Kevessa confirmed, meeting his shocked gaze with shining eyes. “See, Father? I told you she’s real.”
Gevan returned his attention to the window, his thoughts and emotions reeling. H
e’d never known one of the wizards’ windows to show anything but the absolute, objective truth. He was seeing exactly what he would have if he’d been standing in the room at the time.
He’d heard enough accounts from wizards of their face-to-face encounters with the Mother to begin to consider whether there might be some substance to their claim that she existed as a distinct, literal entity, not only formless, impersonal power. But he’d still doubted she was more than a hallucination created from fanciful desires.
Now he knew.
He listened to her issue her cryptic command and watched her fade from view. He shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why—?”
“Let’s find out.” Kevessa waved him to silence.
Together they watched events play out. Kevessa clutched his hand when Tenorran revealed the existence of the blasting powder beneath the Mother’s Hall. Her hand shook, making the window tremble, as it followed Josiah and Sar to the basement. Her breath caught in horror as the burst of brilliant fire filled the sphere and the sound of the explosion slammed their ears. She sagged against Gevan when the smoke cleared to reveal the two spent and lifeless bodies. After staring for a long, stunned moment, she dropped her hand and let the window wink out.
Gevan wrapped his arms around her and gathered her close. She buried her face in his shoulder, her body shaking. “Why, Father?” Her voice was high and childlike. “Why did he do that?”
He would have given anything to spare her this pain. But all he could do was hold her and try to offer what bleak comfort he could. “Josiah sacrificed himself to save us. You and I and everyone else in the Mother’s Hall would have died if he hadn’t.”
Kevessa shook her head against his chest, her breaths ragged. Gevan stroked her hair. “That’s why the Mother came. She warned him in time for him to stop the blast.”
Kevessa jerked back and pounded her fists into his chest. “Why didn’t she stop it herself? Then Josiah wouldn’t be… wouldn’t be…” She sagged back against him.
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