TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
You can also have Blights, which are related be distinct in nature.Undead-Spaceman said:
A Green Sun Illuminates The Void, Thread III (Fate Rending Narrative)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
I was under the impression the stuff the (now deceased) King of Albion was throwing around during the fall of Newcastle was Celestial Circle Sorcery. Thus why Myoz was able to countermagic it with her Sorcery Capturing Cord (hmm, wonder if she can recast spells into it somehow or if those are limited resources).
Basically, if my understanding is correct Halkegenia mages are roughly on par with Dragonblooded, but instead of having a way to jump up the ladder for Celestial Martial Arts they have a way to jump up the ladder to Celestial Sorcery, because Dragonblooded are soldiers but Mages are nobles.
Heck, even the invasion of the continent and the murdering of the Rhyme Dragons has a very Usurpationist vibe to it.
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Epsilon
And yes, if ES's take is anything close to canon, they have Social Magic, its just considered highly illegal and forbidden to practice.
Basically, if my understanding is correct Halkegenia mages are roughly on par with Dragonblooded, but instead of having a way to jump up the ladder for Celestial Martial Arts they have a way to jump up the ladder to Celestial Sorcery, because Dragonblooded are soldiers but Mages are nobles.
Heck, even the invasion of the continent and the murdering of the Rhyme Dragons has a very Usurpationist vibe to it.
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Epsilon
And yes, if ES's take is anything close to canon, they have Social Magic, its just considered highly illegal and forbidden to practice.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That'd be a bloody impressive trick if you're talking about Sacrifices, seeing how there are only three Circles of Sorcery.TheProffesor said:
No, that was Halkeginian mage magic. It was just equivalent, at the level he was using it, to Sapphire Sorcery. Hence, Sapphire Countermagic could negate it.Aaron Peori said:
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think Aleph is correct about the effect not being Sorcery, but I think Aaron has a good point in the spell being captured by an item, not negated by Countermagic... unless of course you know something which wasn't visible in the story, or which I missed.Aleph said:
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Unless Halkeginian mage magic is all tagged with the Sorcerous keyword it doesn't work like that.Aleph said:
It doesn't matter how many time you cast Adamant Countermagic, it will have no effect on a Dragonblooded using As In The Beginning to wreck up your shit, despite the fact that the Charm is clearly on the same scale as Sapphire or even Adamant Circle Sorcery. Countermagic will also have no effect on the Godspear (of the Five Metal Shrike or of All Searing Noon), the geomantic singularity of a Thousand Forged Dragon, a Soul Breaker Orb, the Sword of Creation, a high Essence Solar using World Carving Solar Glory to chop a mountain in half, a Lunar using behemoth emulating knacks to smash a city to pieces and so on and so forth.
Just because effects are on the same scale or have equivalent effects to Sorcery doesn't mean its actually sorcery. There is no magic threshold of area of effect or damage done that means your magic becomes vulnerable to Countermagic.
So either a: that was actually sorcery or b: they were using Sorcerous keyworded stuff which means that the King was using a keyword reserved only for Primordial Charms.
Further, if the effect is so equivalent that, for all intents and purpose they function the same then they are the same thing.
If its a huge giant ritual magic effect that requires high Essence to pull off and is susceptible to Countermagic then its Sorcery. ES may claim otherwise, but that is bullshit handwaving special pleading nonsense. If it looks, swims and quacks like a duck calling it a swan just needlessly multiplies entities.
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Epsilon
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hah hah, what. The difference between Sorcery and Halk Magic has been spelled out already. Halk magic is much more limited in range of effects available and those effects are further divided into elements, but within the limits it is much more freeform. Its fast enough to be actually viable to use in personal combat. Halk magic is inherited through blood, whereas the only requirements for sorcery are enlightenment and the required stats, trainer and xp. It doesn't have the trials, doesn't have the same degree of clarity between levels, and requires a prop/focus.Aaron Peori said:
And yes, it probably does all have the sorcerous keyword. Why? Because there have been very strong hints that it was a result of an attempt by Lyranvalis to produce something along the lines of dragon-blooded. And I am not aware of anything stating that Sorcerous is exclusive to Primordial charms. It not appearing on other Exalts can be just as easily taken as it not quite fitting their themes.
I'm sorry, are you seriously arguing that the form of magic which is canonically susceptible to being dispelled by slow-to-cast, expensive, large-scale-effect magic which requires someone to protect the caster while they pull off the extended castings ... are you arguing that such a form of magic should not be susceptible to be being dispelled by slow-to-cast, expensive, large-scale-effect magic which requires someone to protect the caster while they pull off the extended castings? And that to have it so is "special pleading"?Aaron Peori said:
I mean, come on. One of the major elements which led me to this crossover was how incredibly similar Void magic looks to Exalted sorcery.
All the King of Albion was pulling off was the same "royal magic" which exists in canon, which was used by Henrietta and zombie!Wales together to create a lacerating storm with more power and more elements combined than they could on their own. AGSITV just has its mages turned up a bit, because their power is calibrated so Triangles are TCS-ish level, and Squares are CCS-ish level.
Chapter 20: The Gathering Tempest
A Green Sun Illuminates the Void
Chapter 20: The Gathering Tempest
It was just before dawn when the Pale Tower met its end.
With a dreadful rumbling, the entire fortress gave way. The tower sunk down into the earth, as if it was a pebble thrown into quicksand. The seamless stone cracked and tore, and in its tearing vast bolts of lightning lashed out, licking the sky. A sharp, stinking wind blew from the sagging citadel, lashing through the streets of Londinium with cold and bitter teeth. It tore shutters from buildings and swept the layered detritus of human life from the streets, plastering it wheresoever it blew. Thunder shattered the air, and the ground rumbled and shuddered like the hide of a wounded beast.
This was the harbinger of what was to come.
From the lightning-crackling morass where once the tower had emerged from the earth, a vile greenish-brown light began to shine, painting the smog in bilious hues. Around the sinkhole, more land began to sag and succumb, buildings and roads alike crumbling as their foundations dissolved. Those who were awake at this early hour tried to flee on ground barely more stable than water , but too many were asleep and they were devoured by the maw of the earth.
Clouds hung heavy over the place the tower had stood, unnatural in their yellows and greens – the colour of a livid bruise. It began to rain, but the rain itself was tainted; blood fell from the skies, hissing as it ate into the roofs of the city below. The streets of ancient Londinium were scoured clean for the first time in centuries. All the filth and excreta was eaten away by the sleeting, corrosive gore which burned the cobbles and etched its way through slate roofs. Those who were outside trying to flee the sinkhole were exposed to the full, unnatural fury of the tainted elements.
When the sun rose, it rose over a plagued city, smeared with hissing ichor. Where once one of the great landmarks of the city had stood, a weeping architectural sore seeped corrosive pus. The ruins of the pale tower barely broke the surface of the bilious green liquid which half-filled the crater. And around the rim of the sinkhole, tiny green-black-brown crystals the size of a man's little fingernail grew.
The sun was still higher in the sky than Louise had expected by the time she reached the ancient bridge the dragon had told her about. She had made good time, she thought, as she looked across it. It had been abandoned long enough that the white stone which seemed to be a mark of the ancient dragon-cultists was covered in old growth. There was even a tree growing on the bridge over which had once been a river, but was now a standing lake.
She could barely contain her growing excitement at the sight of this landmark. If all went as planned tonight, then Marisalon would lead her through another beckoning ritual tonight, and she would have something which could get her off this stupid sodden flying island and heading back home. The dragon had – with some bemusement – managed to find a few of the ritual components the neomah had suggested might allow her to summon something called an agata, which was apparently a flying creature of the City , and that would be able to get her out of here.
Dismounting, she led her steed past the ruined walls, worn by the years. Time had not removed all signs that the walls had not fallen peacefully, though; she could still pick out the bits where the stone had run like molten wax, and where discarded golems stood, fused with the stone which they had been summoned with.
"We burned this city," she said to herself, softly. "Six hundred years ago. I wonder why no one settled here afterwards. I mean, Londinium seemed to be built around and over the ruins of another one of their cities. You'd think there might be at least… bandits, I guess. Or orcs, or something like that."
"You don't know there aren't such things living here," Marisalon pointed out, "quite apart from the creatures of that Mortlake place the dragon was so taciturn about. Oh, and it's quite possible he just ate bandits who set up camp here."
That was a good point, well made, Louise conceded, drawing her sword and opening the invisible third eye on her forehead to watch for spirits. There were several , she saw, skulking around the ruins and wandering aimlessly between the shattered walls, ignoring her as she walked among the fallen stones and layers of detritus which six hundred years of entropy had wrought on this city. And it had once been a great city; she could tell that. It was larger than the inner city of Bruxelles, built on the river-isle, though it was certainly smaller than the main city, let alone the sprawl outside its walls.
The creatures of Mortlake were akin to spirits, the dragon had said, driven mad by the spiritual pollution of the slaughter. They mostly avoided this place. Had they once been the guardians of such cities; had the Albionese, succumbing to the heresy of Protestantism, worshipped and entreated with them to lend them their magics?
She ran a hand over a moss-covered, weather-worn stump which had once been a statue. How had they made their stones like this, fitting so tightly together, without earth mages? True, it was still worse than what a mage might do, for mages who specialised in construction could make stone flow like honey to form seamless, solid structures, but it put the abodes of the peasantry to shame.
Visions and whispers haunted her way as she led her horse on foot, looking for a place for it to graze. So many ruined towns. So many burned cities.
"Get out of my head," she whispered. If she could banish these memories that were not hers, these sunlit ruins, then she would. But her own mind refused to obey her, and so she drowned in nostalgia that was not hers, déjà vu born of another.
There was a wide lake a little further past the shattered shells of broken buildings, the eastern corners of which had consumed parts of the ruins. Grass was the only carpet in these long-abandoned halls. Crumbling white stone covered in mosses stood forlornly in the water, barely distinguishable from the dead trees which stood around them. Dark shapes moved in the water, flashing silver in the low light.
Louise perked up. She had this sudden hunger for fish. Yes, maybe she could see if she could catch one – or more than one – once she had taken care of her horse. Catch some fish and get a fire going; that'd be something worth doing. And she could look towards drying out her clothes. Catching fish couldn't be that hard, if commoners managed it.
"The little things in life always help," Marisalon observed wryly, as she tied the horse to a sapling where it would have plenty of grass and water. Carefully, she unloaded the saddlebag filled with things that, on Marisalon's advice, she requested that the dragon give her, and put it somewhere safe. There was a mostly-intact structure close to the lake, where the plants had closed over to form a half-roof. That looked like a good place to camp.
Wearing just the mostly-unfastened buff jacket, Louise huddled close to the fire – such as it was. Periodically, green fire flared amongst the smoky orange as she bolstered its damp smouldering. "Come on, come on," she ordered it, "just dry out. Stay alight!" She had surrounded it with what wood she could find, so hopefully once it was alight it would dry out the other wood and it wouldn't require her constant attention, but for now, she was fighting this cursed dampness.
"I don't suppose you have the magical ability to make fire, sword?" she asked the weapon, resting against a wall. "Something useful like that?"
"Nope," it told her cheerfully. "Well, sort of. Maybe. I mean, when people hurl fire magic at me, I can eat it and catch on fire for a while, but not normally. I'm a sword, lady, and so what I do is stabbing, cutting..."
Its list was interrupted by its yelp, as Louise grabbed it and punched the flat of the old, corroded sword. Green flared around her fist, to be drawn into the blade which ignited in a brilliant green inferno. In one motion, the girl stabbed it deep into the wet soil of her firepit, through the centre of a smouldering log. There was a crackle and a rush as the log ignited.
"My dear princess, you always have such amusingly direct ways of approaching problems," Marisalon quipped. The girl could feel the bodiless neomah smiling.
"That felt odd," Louise said slowly as she leant back, working her fingers. "Like you were... sucking it in." She cocked her head. "I suppose it makes sense. I've heard of magic-eating swords before, but they're dreadfully rare."
"And your magic is strange, lady," her sword retorted, a pillar of green fire rising out of the smoky fire. "Give a chap a warning, would you? And I don't think this is a respectful use of me! I'm a sword, not a tinderbox."
"I stabbed that log, didn't I?"
"It's not alive! I mean, apart from the beetles living in it, who are definitely dead now, but they're not much. We should go find something better to cut up. Your magic is strange and even if I've had meals off you that even my old partner... you know, your lover-boy... couldn't give me, it tastes wrong!"
"You can stay there until the fire takes properly," Louise told it firmly, checking the positioning of her logs and moving where she had hung her underthings so they'd dry out quickly. She was not blushing bright-red at the mention of Viscount Wardes, and she was... she was just going out to find more wood. She certainly wasn't running away from that impudent sword. She was... yes, she was going to use the knife she'd acquired to go fishing in the lake. And if she couldn't do that, she could at least bathe in it because it looked fairly clean compared to most of the swamp. She needed a wash. She felt dirty. Unclean.
Admittedly, as she had spent most of the past few days trudging through swamps and had bled over herself quite a bit, she really was fairly filthy and the uncleanliness was not just a convoluted metaphor for some kind of inner discomfort. She was absolutely positive about that. Certainly.
She had all the inner discomfort she could ask for from her wounds, anyway.
The grasses were chill and damp beneath her bare feet and against her legs as she picked her way through them. Mud squelched between her toes. Despite that, she felt freer than she had in… well, since that last night in New Castle. She wasn't imprisoned, and for the first time since her escape she was not in too much pain. She had eaten a good meal last night, and a tolerable breakfast and lunch. When was the last time she had done that? Again, back in New Castle. Founder, that seemed like years ago, she thought, as she found a dry rock beside the water and sat on it, dangling her feet into the cold water.
Not that it felt very cold. She intellectually knew it was chilly, but that was just a thing about it, like the knowledge it was in Albion. It wasn't a fundamental property of the water, like… like its wetness.
The sesselja squirmed in her gut, and she winced at the noise. It wasn't a dignified noise. Though it did remind her she was hungry. Again. It was funny how the body started demanding food so quickly. Almost rather rude of it, really. It should just do what her mind told it to, not get uppity!
Louise giggled to herself, at her own ridiculousness, and lay back on the rock, basking in the warmth of the late afternoon sunlight. Sunlight. Real, actual, sunlight. She… hadn't realised how much she had missed it.
warm arms above her, warm arms at her side, and the heat of the sun itself pressed up against her, caressing, touching, feeling…
The girl sat straight up, blushing furiously. What had that daydream been about?
"Wha-?" Marisalon said groggily. "What did I miss? I was trying to make sure we had everything for the summoning tonight, making sure I remembered everything you need to do."
"Never you mind," Louise said, hands against her cheeks.
"Ah," the neomah said knowingly. "So it was sex."
"I told you not to mind! Why didn't you listen? You… you stupid perverted thing!"
"Mmm hmm. Of course, my princess. So you weren't thinking at all about the touch of a man's hand against you, his lips against yours, and how he carefully, gently…"
"I'm not listening! La la lah!"
Marisalon laughed, rich peals sounding out in her head. "Oh my. How very amusing. So you weren't thinking about the many pleasures of men, then. I believe you."
"Good," Louise said petulantly.
"Clearly, your amorous thoughts were directed towards a woman. That is why you are so embarrassed about them."
Louise spluttered. "I… it… no! Just no! It was a man! It wasn't a woman!" Birds lifted off from the trees, spiralling away from the noise.
"Fine. It wasn't a woman, it was a man," Marisalon said, sniggering. "I've had my fun anyway. You're making enough noise for both of us, and scaring all the animals. Do you want your yelps and screams to draw attention?"
Reluctantly, the girl accepted that the perverted thing in her head might have a point. "I wasn't yelping," she muttered, hugging her knees. Her eyes drifted to the water, and the shapes moving around in it, under the surface. "I'm going to see if I can catch a fish," she said. "Start being useful and tell me anything you know about fishing!"
With a splashing, one of the dark fish in the water leapt out, and landed in her lap. Louise shrieked, and threw it aside; it wriggled in futility, lying on the lakeside mud gasping.
Marisalon made an interested noise. "Dinner," she said.
It was some kind of… possibly it was mullet. Louise wasn't quite sure; fish usually made its way to her in an already prepared form, and though she had read several of the books of naturalism in her parents library, she hadn't paid much attention to the piscine pictures.
"Yes, that's mullet," the neomah informed her, "I had it when summoned by one of my cults. Not the nicest of fish – it has a rather strong flavour which I didn't like very much – but I don't think we're in a position to be picky." She paused. "Or maybe we are. See if any more fish feel like they wish to sacrifice their lives to feed your hunger, my fair princess. Something nicer."
"It's… it's just a fluke," Louise managed, trying to calm down from the shock. Breathing quickly hurt her chest. "It… it was probably trying to escape a predator or something. You… you think I can just stick my hand into… into the water and come out with food?" To demonstrate, she did just that, and felt something squirm in her hand. It was a frog.
The girl screamed again, and hurled the frog as far away as she could. That turned out to be far enough that it sailed all the way over the lake and hit a tree on the other side.
"What did you do that for?" Marisalon demanded of her. "Frog is nice, especially if it's one of the ones with the interesting drugs in it."
"I hate frogs," Louise said, scrubbing her hands in the water. "Really, really hate them." To her shame, she was on the edge of tears. "They're just… the worst. When… when I was younger, the thing I couldn't stand was when Henrietta wanted to… to fill ponds with frogs and I had to help her, but I hated it! They're… they're slimy and… and there's mucus and… and I'm fine with eating them, but they have to be dead first! Really!"
She wiped her eyes. "It's… it's not because it's a frog," she said weakly. "It's just… it's on top of everything and I wasn't expecting it and… and it's just everything. I'm filthy and I hurt and I had to cut my hair and… and my husband is dead and I might be pregnant and you were deliberately winding me up and I just want to be home. And then on top of everything, I had a frog in my hand when I didn't expect it!"
"There, there, my princess," Marisalon said soothingly. "It's only for a little while longer. Just a bit more. Even if the beckoning we will attempt tonight does not work, you will be out of these woods, and it will only be, what, perhaps a hundred or so of your kilometres before we get down to the ports on the south coast."
"I… I suppose that's something," Louise said weakly. She shuddered, shedding her buff jacket and hanging it up on a nearby tree. Mud squelching between her toes, she waded into the lake, uncaring of the sharp fallen masonry she stood on. The water was cold, but it somehow didn't feel as cold as cold water should have felt, though her scars ached. She began to paddle out into the deeper bits. She would swim a little, warm herself up – that was what her mother had always encouraged when in colder water.
It felt strange to be in the water without a cloud of hair following her. But stranger still was the sense of… strength she had here. She felt utterly tireless. As she swam she could have been resting for all the exertion she was putting in. She moved through the water like a knife; it was like she was swimming through air. And when she put her head underwater, she could see perfectly, her vision unblurred and clear.
Louise rolled over onto her back, and lay there, floating. So. Another one of her talents, these strange magics which were a mark that… that she wasn't a normal mage. They were all strange, but… she'd ceased to be surprised by them some time ago, if she were to be honest. There were better things to get upset about than powers which could help her. Idly, she breathed out, and sank, her whole body moving as if it belonged there when she swam down to the bottom of the lake. Looking around with clear eyes, she could see that this lake was not the natural formation she had thought it was. Emerging through the silt, she could see clear terraces of white rock, which might have been steps and might have been seats. Something glinted in a passing ray of sunlight which penetrated the depths, and she started out for it.
However, it did still appear that she needed to breathe, she thought, as she surfaced and gasped for air.
"By my reckoning," Marisalon said hesitantly, "though I am not entirely certain, I suspect that any gifts with the water and the oceans you possess might come from the Great Mother herself, the Sea Who Marched Against the Flame. She is terrible and beautiful, generous to those who pay her proper respects and unforgiving to those who fail to do so. Her indigo depths and brightly coloured surface stretch out over vast expanses and she dwells below each layer of the City. When a district of the City displease her, whether for lack of beauty, some grave insult or something only she knows, her vengeance is slow but ceaseless, like her tides."
"Well," Louise said, running her hands through her short hair, "it's only natural that I want such gifts, then." As she thought, she scrubbed at her skin, trying to avoid the scars but otherwise removing what removed of caked in blood and mud. After all the grime covering it had been removed, her skin looked very pale and vulnerable. "The Albionese rebels have been utterly dreadful to me, so I too will show them ceaseless vengeance. And… poor Prince Cearl, and poor Princess Henrietta, and poor Princess Sophia. I'll be getting revenge, vengeance for them too. And… and my hair will, will grow back and the scars won't… won't look so ugly and red and I'll be beautiful again."
"My princess, you are beautiful," Marisalon told her.
"You'd say that to a rock," Louise accused.
"If it was a very beautiful rock, yes, especially if it was a gemstone," the neomah agreed. "And you, my lady, are emerald."
Despite herself, the girl grinned. "Touché," she said. "There was a glint of something down there. I'm going to see what it was."
The sunset over Albion painted the western skyline a flaming orange. Dressed once again in her now-dry clothes, Louise huddled as close to the fire as she could tolerate, warming herself. On her plate sat an ornate silver plate, littered with fish bones and skin.
With a somewhat excessive sigh, she looked down at the dish and pouted. It was a very beautiful tray, she had to admit, made of intricately engraved silver. It was blackened somewhat, from where she had put it in the fire to burn off the muck, but it was still elegant and dignified. She certainly hadn't expected to be eating off something like this.
It was also a crushing disappointment.
"Why the long face?" asked her sword, from its position in the fire.
"I had hoped it was going be… some secret long lost magical weapon or armour or something," Louise said, slightly sulkily. "A plate is… well, it's useful and I managed to fry the fish on it – and hardly burned it at all that much, for your information, but it's hardly some… some ancient relic of the dragon cultists or something! Mysterious glints in lakes in ruined cities should… should have the decency to be more special!"
"Really? Could have fooled me, if it's not an Urkhanine thing," her sword said. "I mean, it looks like the stuff they made. You know, the same kind of decorations that they had on their armour, right before I stabbed right through and then came the screaming and the cutting and the spilling of the blood."
"Oh, look," Louise said, resorting to sarcasm, "you decided to remember something about your past, did you?"
"Yep," said the blade, countering with, "And I hope you weren't hoping to cheat on me with some slutty dragontooth dagger. Well, unless you dual-wield us. I used to know a darling spear; almost as attractive as your glaive. We should go rescue it! I bet it'd be very grateful to me!"
The girl was very glad she didn't fully understand what was going through her sword's head. The head which he did not have. His handle, possibly. Instead, she decided to finish eating her fish. She had washed her hands before eating, but she was still having to eat hot fish bare-handed. It was just as well her skin wasn't burning when, intellectually, she knew it really should have.
She was probably getting into bad habits. Not just the manner in which she was eating – which was completely inappropriate for a well-bred young lady – but also the casual disdain for minor pain and harm. She would need to train herself to remember that she really shouldn't be sitting a metal plate which had very recently been in the fire on her lap. Which… uh… she sniffed…
"Drat!" Louise said loudly, picking up the silver plate and putting it down.
"Something the matter? Something to kill?" asked her sword.
"No, not that." Her nose wrinkled. "I smelt the jacket was scorching." She sighed. "At least it's black; it won't show the burns."
"We could cut them out!"
"… shut up, stupid sword. Why are you so obsessed with cutting?"
As she curled up, next to the fire, she had the distinct impression that the sword was pulling a funny face at her. It must have been something to do with how the underlighting of the fire cast shadows across the hilt from the guard. "I am a sword," it said, patronisingly. "My existence is war. Well, war and other more minor conflicts. If I'm not being used to cut, maim, murder, mutilate or murder, I'm not much of a sword! And I'm bored. A bored sword."
"Such monomania is a common trait of the blades of the City," Marisalon interjected. "And, fair lady, much as I do not wish to hassle you, I might suggest that we get started on the beckoning circle as soon as possible."
Louise knew she really should, but she prevaricated. It was warm by the fire, and her stomach was full, and she had all night. After all, the beckoning of the sesselja had been incredibly hard going, and she would need to concentrate for six hours more for this. She could take a rest before beginning that. And given that her sword was being verbose…
"I wonder," she asked it, idly, "what kind of battles you fought in? What was the biggest thing you've ever killed?" That sounded like the most probable way to get it to remember things, given its obsessions. It was a talking, magic-eating sword and it no doubt had other abilities.
There was a groan from Marisalon. "Did you have to do that?" the neomah complained. "Now he won't shut up."
"Well," the sword said, drawing out the word, "the battle that landed me on that swamp… why, that was a glorious one! The Tristic banners amassed all along one side of the plain, the Gallian… or were they Romalian? Well, the second side also had banners, raised high over the village of Grandple! Oh, I got to cut down the flag-bearers and the way their men panicked when their banners fell… it was truly a sight to behold! My partner, hands soaked in blood, holding me high, and I was feeding off all the spells they were throwing at him!
"Now, of course, my partner's boss-guy had sent him and his mage-knights in to break the morale of the army, because we were pretty scary! And by pretty scary, I meant, me and partner made men run just at the sight of us! But once we'd killed the guy we had to kill, we pulled back, and the other guys were milling around like useless sheep! Still, they had the high ground and outnumbered us and… oh, come to think of it, they might have been another group of Tristic armies. I mean, I know I fought a lot of them because they didn't like what my partner and his boss-guy were doing. He was a real big guy at the time, my partner, you know. From the southlands. Never liked the weather this far north. Anyway, we pulled back, and they were going 'okay, we killed a lot of their mage-knights, but now they're running away, and we're still in the good position.
"But that was just what my partner wanted them to think. Because we'd rigged the entire village up with killing magic, and when it started raining it was too late for them. We turned pretty much the entire area into quicksand… no, that's not the word. The stuff that people sink into, that's not water? Actually, I didn't like that bit of the battle much, because we were only watching and not doing much, apart from riding down people who ran away.
"Oh! But then the elves showed up, and that's where things got interesting! Man, what a battle! So much magic to eat, and lots of spirits that I got to tear apart, too! And elves have all kinds of fun blades which I get to cross with, and their armour is far more enjoyable to stab than the iron and steel you people use. Though with my last partner, your loverboy, at least you've improved your armour. You have plate now, rather than just the mostly chain you used back then. Chain is boring, because I can just stab right through it, and it grates against me. But they couldn't stop my partner. Not until they made the land rise up and crushed him under mounds and mounds of earth.
"Now, that was cheating, and I was pretty full on magic, so of course I took over and clawed my way out and kept on killing, but partner was always better at it than me and then the elves went and cut off the arm his body had me in, so I fell into the swamp… oh, there was a swamp, by the way, and then I ended up stuck there, until someone found me hundreds of years later. And then your loverboy bought me. That's about it." The sword paused, making it even more obvious that it had no need to breathe. "What was the question again?"
Louise stretched, pulling herself into a half-sitting position and pushed a branch back onto the fire. "That about answered it," she said, thinking deeply. "So… hmm. The battle in which you were lost was near Grandple, was it? That's… near the Grand Duchy of Guldenhorf, as I recall. South-eastish." She frowned. "And you can… can c-control people?" she asked.
"Only if they're not all there," the sword said bluntly. "Dead, unconscious, things like that. I had to do that for you once already, but the other you was the one there and she was nearly dead and almost out of it, and… and oh! I need to have eaten lots of magic first. Takes it out me."
Louise shivered, and shook her head. "I don't like that," she said. "It doesn't feel right, a sword doing such things."
"You'd be dead," it replied. "You know, like all the people who used to live here. I think I know this place. This is Verlamion, right? Or was it Verramion?"
The girl sat bolt upright. "That was what the dragon said it was called," she said, warily. "Verlamion."
"Yes, that was it." The blade paused. "We killed everyone here. My partner at the time was laughing. So was I! Fighting all those dragons, ancient ones who had all these tasty magics… those were the days. And then she wrote a poem. I rather liked it. Of course, she was always very poetical." And then the sword began to declaim something, in a language which flickered half at the edge of awareness.
"Oh my," Marisalon said. "I did not expect that from that blade. That was actually rather beautiful."
'What did that mean?' Louise thought curiously. 'That was the First Tongue, yes?'
"A dialect thereof, and rather better spoken than that dragon managed," the neomah said. "Hmm. It's a fairly different dialect from the proper version we use in the City, but the grammar at least is recognisable, even if I don't get all the words. I can't translate the structure or the rhyme, so it's going to lose a lot, but I'll give it a go." She coughed.
"Night comes on cast-wide wings
and spreads its claws. White stands
alone and in its loneliness
it is unready. Thoughts guard
for traps of words and artifice;
so they are torn from foe's hands
and placed against their children's nests.
One hand holds down the neck
of dragon-lord; the other wields the
blade of the executioner.
The city burns, walls fall, towers tumble,
and hearts sing with joy
for monsters are slain and banners
raised to the night's sky."
Louise tilted her head, as she listened to the translation. Marisalon was clearly doing this on the fly, because sometimes she would pause to let a sentence finish before she continued, and the poetry she could hear in the original even without knowing it was lacking from the words she understood. But still. "You… were one of the blades carried by one who knew the Founder Brimir?" she asked, awe-struck.
"The name does ring a bell," the sword said.
"Oh my," Marisalon drawled. "Imagine that. The blade knows about the central figure of your religion. The name of your prophet rings a bell to him. Why, my fair princess, truly you have the holiest of weapons here. He is too holy to use, and so you must build a shrine to entomb him, for glory everlasting." The neomah paused. "That was not a suggestion," she added. "Even if entombing him would stop him blabbering on and on. Oh well. Fairest lady, it is growing dark, and I do believe that the nights are shorter now than when you summoned me. And it would be a good idea to get the basics done when it is still light, in preparation. If you would talk with your blade, it can be done later."
The girl groaned, but pulled herself to her feet. Marisalon was right, curse her, and even if it was nice and warm beside the fire and she was feeling full, she really should get this done now. It astonished her now in retrospect that she had managed to do this with a broken arm, on the edge of blacking out from the pain. She had to get this right, if she could. And with luck, tonight she'd be headed home. Even if she failed tonight, she could try again tomorrow. And she'd be able to see her family and eat properly and… she drew a deep, shuddering breath, and went to pick up the bag with the ritual components in.
"How's that?" Louise said, standing back up to admire her handiwork. Green fire had scorched away the turf and grasses, leaving her a nice clean white surface to work on, and soot from the fire had proven a very satisfactory material for sketching out the beckoning circle.
Compared to the one needed for the sesselja, this was rather more ornate. Her black charred circle was surrounded by words which Marisalon had laboriously worked her through, and within it, a smaller circle encased a shape which resembled a wasp seen from above. It felt much more proper this way, Louise had to admit; it just felt… wrong to be summoning – or beckoning in this case – without a little bit of ceremony.
And now, the finishing touches. Carefully, taking her utmost caution not to smudge anything, she took the bell she had asked from the dragon and laid it down beside the markings. She left the clapper bound, for now; it was not time to start it ringing. Digging through the bag, she withdrew the two small crystals and placed them on the soot-marked wasp-shape, where its eyes would go. The gold coin went on its head, in the centre. The last part was the sweet-smelling herbs, and those went outside the circle, a bundle at each of the cardinal directions and one more, pointing north-east.
"The south one is a little squint," Marisalon said critically.
Louise made the adjustment. "Better?" she asked.
"It'll do. Your dragon didn't have any sugar-beet, but I hope the herbs will do. Agatae love sugar-beet, but they're generally fond of sweet things." Marisalon made an annoyed noise. "Your selfish dragon refused to give up any of his honey," she huffed.
"He's not my dragon," the girl protested half-heartedly. With a sigh, she went to wash off her hands. When she returned, she took a deep breath, "Do you think I'm ready to start?" she said.
"I think so," the neomah said. "You're a fair ritualist; to manage to call the sesselja on your first try when you were so badly injured shows that. I think, perhaps, the study of your local magic and your familiar summoning might have helped you. As for the rest; show no doubt, show no fear, do not harbour the possibility that it might go wrong. And long to be home; the agatae live to carry riders to where they wish to go, and such is a little prayer to them."
Louise blushed faintly, at the praise. Picking up the bell, she pulled the muffler off the clapper, and holding it before her, she began to ring it. Then it fell to the long, slow, rote recitation of the phrases Marisalon prompted her to say, all the while trying to keep her desire to be home foremost in her mind.
The sky grew darker and darker, as the hours crept by. There was a glow in the south, a sort of murky dirty colour; no doubt it was Londinium. The red moon rose first, a waning shape lighting the glade in dim red light. Her right arm grew to ache, and she was thoroughly sick of the sound of the bell. In the second hour, the sword had spent some time complaining, but she had ignored it as she paced around the circle, stopping at the marked points to ring the bell and speak the words her head-familiar told her to. Sometimes she rang it in one hand; sometimes in the other. Sometimes out at arm's length; sometimes by her side; sometimes over her head. It all blended into a monotony of ache and noise.
A little part of her nagged that the springtime familiar summoning ritual was so much easier than this. But then again, she had managed to muck up that, while she had done the sesselja ritual first time. So clearly, it was her innate righteousness, determination, and hard work which made her good at this, and so she would keep on working hard because she would not fail again.
The light in the ruins dimmed, as high altitude clouds blocked the light of the red moon. And Louise became aware of the other light. It had been lost in the glow of Taksony, the red moon. It was a wan, pale blue-green.
And it was not coming from her, nor from her beckoning circle. All around her, she could see it reflected off the pale stone of this ruined city and the verdant greenery painted by it in sickly tones. But it was not the rocks which were glowing, and it was not the plant-life.
Her repetition of rote-learned phrases stumbled and stuttered, as her heart began to beat like a drum. Because she could see what glowed in the dark.
The figures were not men. Not any more, at least. Once they might have been. Once the pale faces smeared with mud and worse things might have loved and laughed and smiled. Once the things entangled in rotting swamp vegetation, punctuated with faintly glowing blue crystals, might have been human bodies. Once they might not have had wounds opened across their flesh which shone with pale green light, a washed-out mockery of her own magic.
But if that had ever been true, it was no longer so. Now, around her in the darkness of a long-dead city, the swamp-claimed corpses of men and women dead days waited, watching. They knew she was watching them, now. They started whispering, in mad, parched voices, or else they spoke words liquid with rot. She might not have been able to understand them through the decay and the filth, though she could catch odd Albionese or Brimiric words, but she could hear the tone.
She could hear the hate.
And she could see other things about them, a strange overlay in her senses which she could hardly explain. The pale faces of the fresher-looking ones still retained some individual features - snatches of their old sensibilities and faces - but elsewhere all that made them unique persons had seemingly begun to melt and dribble like wax, subsumed into concepts. They were not people, if that was what they had been; now they were Soldier and Hellfire and Blade and Terror and other abstractions. Some had their old swords or pistols in place of their hands, while others had skulls fused with the helmets of the Republicans. On some, hair burned with a corona of green fire, while the flayed faces of others wept silver tears. Those that still had eyes seemed perpetually shocked and horrified, lids absent, while those without them sniffed around with noses that snorted wisps of tarry black smoke.
And then there were the more ancient ones. She could not explain them, save to say that there was nothing personal, nothing human about them anymore. They hung more to the rear, sniffing and wailing and whispering.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard her horse scream and bolt.
Red-hot pain clawed its way across her back even as she went reaching for her blade, and the girl went down, rolling over her laboriously prepared circle. Stomach muscles screaming, she pushed herself up into a crouch, and sprang at the creature which had managed to get behind her. Her fist, wreathed in green flame, sunk into a torso made of river mud and dead plants and blew it apart from the inside, revealing the ancient cracked bones within.
The pale, battered freshly-dead face sunk into the shoulders of the monster screamed, fire spilling out of its mouth and from its eyes. It swung at her with an arm which ended on a bloodied human hand where the flesh had worn away from the claw-like fingerbones; Louise caught the attack on her forearm and grabbed the arm. A wrench and a twist, and it was torn free; she booted the creature in the chest and sent it sprawling to the ground.
The thing of clay and rotting flesh screamed through its jawless mouth, greenish white flames rolling from the gaping wound to drool down onto the floor. The harsh ululation had things which could have been words in it, but they were lost amidst the pain and the rage. Louise gagged as she unconsciously inhaled the smell of burning meat – oh, how it was familiar now – and rotting mud, and leapt back, scrambling up a fallen wall to higher ground.
"What are these things?" she screamed, managing to draw her blade. With a thought, the brand on her forehead pulsed to full burning life, lighting up the night around her like a torch. Now at least she could see where she was putting her feet, and without thinking she sprinted up a wall, climbing up the pockmarks to a partially intact second floor.
"I don't know!" Marisalon shouted back. "Elementals, Dead things, gods, something I don't know about! I don't know! They… they could be the Mortlake things that the… behind you!"
The squelch of a sodden foot had barely registered, but the warning was enough to have the girl spinning. The thing behind her looked… looked like a soldier of the New Model Army. But they were drowned, their flesh bloated. Pale green fire dripped from its opened-up ribcage, forcing its way out from between the marsh grasses which bound them in.
And in the glinting of her eyes, Louise could only see rot, taste decay, smell putrefaction. Nausea washed over her.
"Moardner!" it screamed. Fingers twisted into talons, it leapt at her.
Louise ran it through. Whipping her blade out, she kicked it down, and then stomped down upon its chest with her bare foot, caving in its chest. A scream forced its way out of the thing, and for good measure she cut its head off. And then she was back to a guarding position, just in time to hack down the first skull-faced monster which clawed its way up the same wall she had. But there was a second, and a third, and then another one was behind her and she was surrounded.
Blood trickled in a hot bead from a gash on her forehead. She could not spare the hand to wipe it away. Not when there was always another claw to deflect, another cut of earth or putrid flesh to make. These… these things did not fear, did not flee, did not even back off when she cut down another of their number. She had not realised how much she had relied on that simple fact when fighting humans. And constantly they screamed; cries of "Moardner" and "Sûnde" and "Fanwegen de Republyk" and a hundred other things she could not hear through the clamour and the beating of her own heart, a drum played far too quickly.
Ice-cold fear grabbed her. She was going to die. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She should just give up right now. She winced as something below screamed, and it echoed inside her head even when the noise had stopped. What did she care about home? About life? About…
"Snap out of it!" Marisalon ordered. "You're not going to die here! They're trying to get to you!"
White-hot fury burned away the cold, and the light of her soul unfolded from her body, spilling out to cascade across the floor in green and brazen flames. From the clawed-open tears in the back of her buff jacket, four delicate wings unfolded. Nearly translucent, gleaming with a monocoloured rainbow of shades of green, they were kin to that of the dragonfly. Her eyes were no longer even slightly human, and needle-like teeth gleamed brass in the illumination. Hacking and tearing, her terrible majesty burning the world around her, Louise cut her way towards the opening through which the monsters were coming, and threw herself out.
A green sun shot out into the night suspended on newborn wings, casting its light down upon the ruined city. Dead eyes below stared up at it, their own ghostly remembrances of the fire that had killed them muted compared to the real thing.
Louise circled, her mind caught up in the fearlessness of her burning soul. This was what she had missed for all these years, with her inability to grasp levitation spells? This freedom, this ability to float above the problems of the world? Even through the pain and the terror, it was glorious. She couldn't imagine what it would be like in better circumstances.
"So," Marisalon observed. "They're Dead things. Possibly the things you killed escaping from the Pale Tower. Possibly not, though some of the bodies which made up those things were fresh enough that you are the likely source. And of course, the pale mockery of your supernal fire spilling out of those old wounds on them was a clue."
"What do you know about… them?" the girl insisted. Her light allowed her to see the milling crowds below. There looked to be dozens of them, at least. Trying very hard not to think about how to fly and just letting her body do what was needed, she swooped in to crouch on top of the tallest ruined structure she could find.
"Hardly anything," the neomah said. " The only Dead in the City are slaves, and I never cared to find out more about them than I had to. They're… wrong. Unnatural. Please tell me you have some kind of myths about them here? All I know is that when humans die, sometimes you get normal ghosts which are like spirits of the dead person, and sometimes you get murderous angry things that eat people. And my cultists always used to worry about that, and you don't know about it, so something is different here and… oh, Unspeakable Blue!"
The reason for the outburst was made quite clear, for in the light of her burning soul Louise could see the bounding figures leaping between tumbled rocks, scrambling up fallen columns and sprinting down plant-choked roads.
They didn't move like men. They moved like beasts, and even when they were on two legs their gait was one of a predator. They might have spoken like men, but they were lesser, ruined, degenerate.
"So, my princess, ready to fly off and leave these things behind?" Marisalon suggested. "Like this, we should be able to reach safety, and the dragon said they don't go too far away from Mortlake."
"No," Louise whispered.
"… oh, no. No, no, my lady, you're injured and…"
Louise's knuckled whitened around the handle of her sword. "They're my responsibility," she said. "If they were traitors I killed, then I am bound to send them to the judgement of the Lord. To linger as a ghost or… or a thing of flesh and mud and plants is wickedness. And if they are spirits, using the bodies of men in their damned ways, than I am duty-bound as a daughter of the Church to drive them off if I can." She paused, breathing deeply. "A noble does not shirk her duty to the Crown and Faith. If she is able, she does what she should. She is a steel blade in the hand of righteousness. So I will kill them all, either way."
"What if you can't?" the neomah said harshly. "You're injured. Badly."
"They're my responsibility," Louise repeated, stubbornly, leaping off with her blade in hand.
In the remains of what had once been a mighty hall, she made her stand. Beneath the shattered ribcage of broken vaulting, she broke bones and burned flesh. The waters which pooled here were fouled by the congealed blood and ooze of the monstrous things, which screamed their words of hate at her.
One step, one splash. A creature was severed at the waist. A step back and an outstretched hand; sand poured forth to envelop and flay three foes. And then she was snatching up a fallen blade which had been carried by one of the fresher creatures, born in her off-hand, and she was a whirling dervish of fire and sand.
The memories which were not hers came again. But this time she was as steel, clear in her purpose, sharp and resolute yet flexible. She rode the wave, at the very peak, but she did not fall to the waves of otherness which surged and flowed. She could hear the songs of the not-hers in the back of her mind, and for the first time, she recognised the silent dances of the crimson lady of the storm in her motions.
As she killed, she sang out. It was one of the hymns of her childhood, a song of salvation, a song of thanks to the Founder for the freedom of men.
When dawn came, only one figure was standing in this fallen hallway. As the rosy light crept through the opened roof, Louise let herself sag, though she remained upright, alone in this charnel house.
She was bloodied. She was wounded. Her buff jacket was torn in many, many places from the clawing of the fiends, though her flesh had turned many of the blows which had got through. She had kept her wings this time, and they gleamed in the light, though she knew she could retract them any time she wished. Welts lined both hands, from where a creature of ancient bones and mud had ensnarled her in freezing, burning tendrils. She had reached into its chest, and torn out its crystal heart.
Thinking of that, she reached down, and picked up the crystal. It was a dark, murky blue-black. It looked a little like a windstone, but it did not have the brilliant radiance of one of those calcifications of the power of the wind. And – her eyes widened – there was a hand-print on it, of a greenish-umber hue, which even now seemed to be flaking away.
In the light of the morning sun, the whole crystal bubbled and boiled, hissing like chalk dropped into acid by Professor Colbert. It screamed, faintly, the same screams of the monster which it had once resided in. It was not the only one to do so. All across the ruined hall, the mounds of burned and dismembered corpses were hissing and bubbling and screaming.
Louise looked again in the one in her hand. It was literally shrinking as she watched, noxious black vapours escaping which seemed to be trying to form a vaguely humanoid shape. Even as she went for a blade, though, the morning's sunlight washed it away, dissolving it in light. And the entire thing tingled in her hand, feeling like nothing less than… than a windstone releasing its trapped energies. There was the same crackle of trapped lightning, the same chillness of fresh air.
"The… windstones?" she asked herself. "Or something like them?" She shook her head. This bore thought. She tossed the stone in her hand down into a puddle of light creeping in through the ruined door, and went to drag the bodies off each other, so each would be exposed to the light in turn. And… her horse was gone. Once she had cleared up here, she would have to fly until she was clear of this forest. Unless she could find the parts of the beckoning ritual – but no. That was not likely. She would have to try to get down to one of the ports on the south coast. She shook her head sadly, and began a prayer for the dead. Perhaps it would encourage them to go on to face their judgement for their sins in the eyes of the Lord.
Below the water, a fragment of the stone – half blue, half greenish-umber – remained.
The crowd before him had a terrified, hollow look in their eyes. Cromwell did not blame them. He could see the cloud which emanated from the pit where once the Pale Tower had stood, and he had – on touring the city – seen the masses scarred by its noxious fumes. When he looked out over the plaza, he could see the discoloured roofs which were still caked in the acidic blood which had rained down, see where it had etched through buildings and left them unfit for human habitation. His city, his triumph was sickened by the… the abomination which had occurred, and there was only one response he could give.
There was only one response that the populace could accept.
"My children," he said, his voice rising in the familiar cadence of the priest he had once been, "I come before you to speak of mourning. Mourning for the dead. Mourning for those whose lives have been ruined by this horrible, horrible deed. I have walked through the streets of the city, as I see in person how best to aid those who have lost limbs, loved ones, livelihoods. I have seen women weeping in Gardner Street and Ellismere Street, newly widowed because their brave, heroic husbands in the New Model Army gave their lives, saving others. I ask you, this very night and forever after, pray for those who suffer so that their suffering might be relieved. We cannot let this horrible tragedy pull us apart; we must bind together, like the handful of reeds which are weak on their own, but strong when taken together! My children, I feel for you! I feel for your pain! And I feel your anger!
"For after the mourning is done, why, then there is vengeance! Vengeance for scarred faces, ruined lives, murdered children! Yes, I say 'murder'! For this was no accident! No, it was not an accident! It was sabotage! Wilful, murderous, malevolent sabotage!"
Angry murmurs sounded through the crowd.
"We have undeniable evidence that agents of Tristain were responsible for the sabotage of the Pale Tower, perhaps in the misguided aim of freeing the traitors to the Holy Republic imprisoned there! Shame on them, we call out! Shame on a nation which would murder countless innocents for their goals! Shame on a nation which attacks without warning, without a declaration of war! Well, so be it!
"Yes, so be it," continued Cromwell. "If they wish for war, then they will have war! We will give them war! God is on the side of the Holy Republic, and the Holy Void itself frowns on such monstrosity as was carried out! The stars themselves predict our victory! Our ships shall darken their skies! Our ambassadors are already carrying message to Gallia and Germania, telling them of the vile deeds of the viper which nests between them and warning them to beware the kindly gaze of the Tristainian serpent! As we have seen, it is toxic, envenomed, wicked! Let us pray to the Lord God that our cousins in foreign lands do not fall prey to the same treachery that we did, but that they instead learn from our hard-learned example.
"For as all men know, we Albionese are a gentle and kindly nation, not given to rash action or warfare. We are gentle, but when we are pushed, oh! Then a mighty giant is awoken, and those foes who underestimated us learn to their folly that the nation they dismissed as mere 'shopkeepers' and 'bargemen' has mighty jaws hidden behind our kind smile. Well, the Tristainians have woken that giant, and I tell you this! We will not stop, until we have extracted the blood price of all the children and the women slain by treachery!
"As the Founder said; pay each man in kind. Love with love, respect with respect, kindness with kindness, affront with affront, death with death. Our foes have incurred a mighty debt, and they will ill-enjoy paying off the weight of their sins. But pay they will! Tristain will pay! For the Pale Tower, they will pay! For the weeping widows of Gardner Street and Ellismere Street and many, many more, they will pay! For the men blinded by the blood which fell from the heavens, they will pay! For the children choked by the toxic fumes of this malevolence, they will pay!"
The roar of the crowd was one of approval. Folding his hands before him, Cromwell bowed his head.
"My children," he said, "I go now to take command of our fleet. It is by our judgement that they are found wanting, and so! War they have asked for, war they have begged for, and it is war they will have!"
Chapter 20: The Gathering Tempest
{0}
It was just before dawn when the Pale Tower met its end.
With a dreadful rumbling, the entire fortress gave way. The tower sunk down into the earth, as if it was a pebble thrown into quicksand. The seamless stone cracked and tore, and in its tearing vast bolts of lightning lashed out, licking the sky. A sharp, stinking wind blew from the sagging citadel, lashing through the streets of Londinium with cold and bitter teeth. It tore shutters from buildings and swept the layered detritus of human life from the streets, plastering it wheresoever it blew. Thunder shattered the air, and the ground rumbled and shuddered like the hide of a wounded beast.
This was the harbinger of what was to come.
From the lightning-crackling morass where once the tower had emerged from the earth, a vile greenish-brown light began to shine, painting the smog in bilious hues. Around the sinkhole, more land began to sag and succumb, buildings and roads alike crumbling as their foundations dissolved. Those who were awake at this early hour tried to flee on ground barely more stable than water , but too many were asleep and they were devoured by the maw of the earth.
Clouds hung heavy over the place the tower had stood, unnatural in their yellows and greens – the colour of a livid bruise. It began to rain, but the rain itself was tainted; blood fell from the skies, hissing as it ate into the roofs of the city below. The streets of ancient Londinium were scoured clean for the first time in centuries. All the filth and excreta was eaten away by the sleeting, corrosive gore which burned the cobbles and etched its way through slate roofs. Those who were outside trying to flee the sinkhole were exposed to the full, unnatural fury of the tainted elements.
When the sun rose, it rose over a plagued city, smeared with hissing ichor. Where once one of the great landmarks of the city had stood, a weeping architectural sore seeped corrosive pus. The ruins of the pale tower barely broke the surface of the bilious green liquid which half-filled the crater. And around the rim of the sinkhole, tiny green-black-brown crystals the size of a man's little fingernail grew.
{0}
The sun was still higher in the sky than Louise had expected by the time she reached the ancient bridge the dragon had told her about. She had made good time, she thought, as she looked across it. It had been abandoned long enough that the white stone which seemed to be a mark of the ancient dragon-cultists was covered in old growth. There was even a tree growing on the bridge over which had once been a river, but was now a standing lake.
She could barely contain her growing excitement at the sight of this landmark. If all went as planned tonight, then Marisalon would lead her through another beckoning ritual tonight, and she would have something which could get her off this stupid sodden flying island and heading back home. The dragon had – with some bemusement – managed to find a few of the ritual components the neomah had suggested might allow her to summon something called an agata, which was apparently a flying creature of the City , and that would be able to get her out of here.
Dismounting, she led her steed past the ruined walls, worn by the years. Time had not removed all signs that the walls had not fallen peacefully, though; she could still pick out the bits where the stone had run like molten wax, and where discarded golems stood, fused with the stone which they had been summoned with.
"We burned this city," she said to herself, softly. "Six hundred years ago. I wonder why no one settled here afterwards. I mean, Londinium seemed to be built around and over the ruins of another one of their cities. You'd think there might be at least… bandits, I guess. Or orcs, or something like that."
"You don't know there aren't such things living here," Marisalon pointed out, "quite apart from the creatures of that Mortlake place the dragon was so taciturn about. Oh, and it's quite possible he just ate bandits who set up camp here."
That was a good point, well made, Louise conceded, drawing her sword and opening the invisible third eye on her forehead to watch for spirits. There were several , she saw, skulking around the ruins and wandering aimlessly between the shattered walls, ignoring her as she walked among the fallen stones and layers of detritus which six hundred years of entropy had wrought on this city. And it had once been a great city; she could tell that. It was larger than the inner city of Bruxelles, built on the river-isle, though it was certainly smaller than the main city, let alone the sprawl outside its walls.
The creatures of Mortlake were akin to spirits, the dragon had said, driven mad by the spiritual pollution of the slaughter. They mostly avoided this place. Had they once been the guardians of such cities; had the Albionese, succumbing to the heresy of Protestantism, worshipped and entreated with them to lend them their magics?
She ran a hand over a moss-covered, weather-worn stump which had once been a statue. How had they made their stones like this, fitting so tightly together, without earth mages? True, it was still worse than what a mage might do, for mages who specialised in construction could make stone flow like honey to form seamless, solid structures, but it put the abodes of the peasantry to shame.
Visions and whispers haunted her way as she led her horse on foot, looking for a place for it to graze. So many ruined towns. So many burned cities.
"Get out of my head," she whispered. If she could banish these memories that were not hers, these sunlit ruins, then she would. But her own mind refused to obey her, and so she drowned in nostalgia that was not hers, déjà vu born of another.
There was a wide lake a little further past the shattered shells of broken buildings, the eastern corners of which had consumed parts of the ruins. Grass was the only carpet in these long-abandoned halls. Crumbling white stone covered in mosses stood forlornly in the water, barely distinguishable from the dead trees which stood around them. Dark shapes moved in the water, flashing silver in the low light.
Louise perked up. She had this sudden hunger for fish. Yes, maybe she could see if she could catch one – or more than one – once she had taken care of her horse. Catch some fish and get a fire going; that'd be something worth doing. And she could look towards drying out her clothes. Catching fish couldn't be that hard, if commoners managed it.
"The little things in life always help," Marisalon observed wryly, as she tied the horse to a sapling where it would have plenty of grass and water. Carefully, she unloaded the saddlebag filled with things that, on Marisalon's advice, she requested that the dragon give her, and put it somewhere safe. There was a mostly-intact structure close to the lake, where the plants had closed over to form a half-roof. That looked like a good place to camp.
Wearing just the mostly-unfastened buff jacket, Louise huddled close to the fire – such as it was. Periodically, green fire flared amongst the smoky orange as she bolstered its damp smouldering. "Come on, come on," she ordered it, "just dry out. Stay alight!" She had surrounded it with what wood she could find, so hopefully once it was alight it would dry out the other wood and it wouldn't require her constant attention, but for now, she was fighting this cursed dampness.
"I don't suppose you have the magical ability to make fire, sword?" she asked the weapon, resting against a wall. "Something useful like that?"
"Nope," it told her cheerfully. "Well, sort of. Maybe. I mean, when people hurl fire magic at me, I can eat it and catch on fire for a while, but not normally. I'm a sword, lady, and so what I do is stabbing, cutting..."
Its list was interrupted by its yelp, as Louise grabbed it and punched the flat of the old, corroded sword. Green flared around her fist, to be drawn into the blade which ignited in a brilliant green inferno. In one motion, the girl stabbed it deep into the wet soil of her firepit, through the centre of a smouldering log. There was a crackle and a rush as the log ignited.
"My dear princess, you always have such amusingly direct ways of approaching problems," Marisalon quipped. The girl could feel the bodiless neomah smiling.
"That felt odd," Louise said slowly as she leant back, working her fingers. "Like you were... sucking it in." She cocked her head. "I suppose it makes sense. I've heard of magic-eating swords before, but they're dreadfully rare."
"And your magic is strange, lady," her sword retorted, a pillar of green fire rising out of the smoky fire. "Give a chap a warning, would you? And I don't think this is a respectful use of me! I'm a sword, not a tinderbox."
"I stabbed that log, didn't I?"
"It's not alive! I mean, apart from the beetles living in it, who are definitely dead now, but they're not much. We should go find something better to cut up. Your magic is strange and even if I've had meals off you that even my old partner... you know, your lover-boy... couldn't give me, it tastes wrong!"
"You can stay there until the fire takes properly," Louise told it firmly, checking the positioning of her logs and moving where she had hung her underthings so they'd dry out quickly. She was not blushing bright-red at the mention of Viscount Wardes, and she was... she was just going out to find more wood. She certainly wasn't running away from that impudent sword. She was... yes, she was going to use the knife she'd acquired to go fishing in the lake. And if she couldn't do that, she could at least bathe in it because it looked fairly clean compared to most of the swamp. She needed a wash. She felt dirty. Unclean.
Admittedly, as she had spent most of the past few days trudging through swamps and had bled over herself quite a bit, she really was fairly filthy and the uncleanliness was not just a convoluted metaphor for some kind of inner discomfort. She was absolutely positive about that. Certainly.
She had all the inner discomfort she could ask for from her wounds, anyway.
{0}
The grasses were chill and damp beneath her bare feet and against her legs as she picked her way through them. Mud squelched between her toes. Despite that, she felt freer than she had in… well, since that last night in New Castle. She wasn't imprisoned, and for the first time since her escape she was not in too much pain. She had eaten a good meal last night, and a tolerable breakfast and lunch. When was the last time she had done that? Again, back in New Castle. Founder, that seemed like years ago, she thought, as she found a dry rock beside the water and sat on it, dangling her feet into the cold water.
Not that it felt very cold. She intellectually knew it was chilly, but that was just a thing about it, like the knowledge it was in Albion. It wasn't a fundamental property of the water, like… like its wetness.
The sesselja squirmed in her gut, and she winced at the noise. It wasn't a dignified noise. Though it did remind her she was hungry. Again. It was funny how the body started demanding food so quickly. Almost rather rude of it, really. It should just do what her mind told it to, not get uppity!
Louise giggled to herself, at her own ridiculousness, and lay back on the rock, basking in the warmth of the late afternoon sunlight. Sunlight. Real, actual, sunlight. She… hadn't realised how much she had missed it.
warm arms above her, warm arms at her side, and the heat of the sun itself pressed up against her, caressing, touching, feeling…
The girl sat straight up, blushing furiously. What had that daydream been about?
"Wha-?" Marisalon said groggily. "What did I miss? I was trying to make sure we had everything for the summoning tonight, making sure I remembered everything you need to do."
"Never you mind," Louise said, hands against her cheeks.
"Ah," the neomah said knowingly. "So it was sex."
"I told you not to mind! Why didn't you listen? You… you stupid perverted thing!"
"Mmm hmm. Of course, my princess. So you weren't thinking at all about the touch of a man's hand against you, his lips against yours, and how he carefully, gently…"
"I'm not listening! La la lah!"
Marisalon laughed, rich peals sounding out in her head. "Oh my. How very amusing. So you weren't thinking about the many pleasures of men, then. I believe you."
"Good," Louise said petulantly.
"Clearly, your amorous thoughts were directed towards a woman. That is why you are so embarrassed about them."
Louise spluttered. "I… it… no! Just no! It was a man! It wasn't a woman!" Birds lifted off from the trees, spiralling away from the noise.
"Fine. It wasn't a woman, it was a man," Marisalon said, sniggering. "I've had my fun anyway. You're making enough noise for both of us, and scaring all the animals. Do you want your yelps and screams to draw attention?"
Reluctantly, the girl accepted that the perverted thing in her head might have a point. "I wasn't yelping," she muttered, hugging her knees. Her eyes drifted to the water, and the shapes moving around in it, under the surface. "I'm going to see if I can catch a fish," she said. "Start being useful and tell me anything you know about fishing!"
With a splashing, one of the dark fish in the water leapt out, and landed in her lap. Louise shrieked, and threw it aside; it wriggled in futility, lying on the lakeside mud gasping.
Marisalon made an interested noise. "Dinner," she said.
It was some kind of… possibly it was mullet. Louise wasn't quite sure; fish usually made its way to her in an already prepared form, and though she had read several of the books of naturalism in her parents library, she hadn't paid much attention to the piscine pictures.
"Yes, that's mullet," the neomah informed her, "I had it when summoned by one of my cults. Not the nicest of fish – it has a rather strong flavour which I didn't like very much – but I don't think we're in a position to be picky." She paused. "Or maybe we are. See if any more fish feel like they wish to sacrifice their lives to feed your hunger, my fair princess. Something nicer."
"It's… it's just a fluke," Louise managed, trying to calm down from the shock. Breathing quickly hurt her chest. "It… it was probably trying to escape a predator or something. You… you think I can just stick my hand into… into the water and come out with food?" To demonstrate, she did just that, and felt something squirm in her hand. It was a frog.
The girl screamed again, and hurled the frog as far away as she could. That turned out to be far enough that it sailed all the way over the lake and hit a tree on the other side.
"What did you do that for?" Marisalon demanded of her. "Frog is nice, especially if it's one of the ones with the interesting drugs in it."
"I hate frogs," Louise said, scrubbing her hands in the water. "Really, really hate them." To her shame, she was on the edge of tears. "They're just… the worst. When… when I was younger, the thing I couldn't stand was when Henrietta wanted to… to fill ponds with frogs and I had to help her, but I hated it! They're… they're slimy and… and there's mucus and… and I'm fine with eating them, but they have to be dead first! Really!"
She wiped her eyes. "It's… it's not because it's a frog," she said weakly. "It's just… it's on top of everything and I wasn't expecting it and… and it's just everything. I'm filthy and I hurt and I had to cut my hair and… and my husband is dead and I might be pregnant and you were deliberately winding me up and I just want to be home. And then on top of everything, I had a frog in my hand when I didn't expect it!"
"There, there, my princess," Marisalon said soothingly. "It's only for a little while longer. Just a bit more. Even if the beckoning we will attempt tonight does not work, you will be out of these woods, and it will only be, what, perhaps a hundred or so of your kilometres before we get down to the ports on the south coast."
"I… I suppose that's something," Louise said weakly. She shuddered, shedding her buff jacket and hanging it up on a nearby tree. Mud squelching between her toes, she waded into the lake, uncaring of the sharp fallen masonry she stood on. The water was cold, but it somehow didn't feel as cold as cold water should have felt, though her scars ached. She began to paddle out into the deeper bits. She would swim a little, warm herself up – that was what her mother had always encouraged when in colder water.
It felt strange to be in the water without a cloud of hair following her. But stranger still was the sense of… strength she had here. She felt utterly tireless. As she swam she could have been resting for all the exertion she was putting in. She moved through the water like a knife; it was like she was swimming through air. And when she put her head underwater, she could see perfectly, her vision unblurred and clear.
Louise rolled over onto her back, and lay there, floating. So. Another one of her talents, these strange magics which were a mark that… that she wasn't a normal mage. They were all strange, but… she'd ceased to be surprised by them some time ago, if she were to be honest. There were better things to get upset about than powers which could help her. Idly, she breathed out, and sank, her whole body moving as if it belonged there when she swam down to the bottom of the lake. Looking around with clear eyes, she could see that this lake was not the natural formation she had thought it was. Emerging through the silt, she could see clear terraces of white rock, which might have been steps and might have been seats. Something glinted in a passing ray of sunlight which penetrated the depths, and she started out for it.
However, it did still appear that she needed to breathe, she thought, as she surfaced and gasped for air.
"By my reckoning," Marisalon said hesitantly, "though I am not entirely certain, I suspect that any gifts with the water and the oceans you possess might come from the Great Mother herself, the Sea Who Marched Against the Flame. She is terrible and beautiful, generous to those who pay her proper respects and unforgiving to those who fail to do so. Her indigo depths and brightly coloured surface stretch out over vast expanses and she dwells below each layer of the City. When a district of the City displease her, whether for lack of beauty, some grave insult or something only she knows, her vengeance is slow but ceaseless, like her tides."
"Well," Louise said, running her hands through her short hair, "it's only natural that I want such gifts, then." As she thought, she scrubbed at her skin, trying to avoid the scars but otherwise removing what removed of caked in blood and mud. After all the grime covering it had been removed, her skin looked very pale and vulnerable. "The Albionese rebels have been utterly dreadful to me, so I too will show them ceaseless vengeance. And… poor Prince Cearl, and poor Princess Henrietta, and poor Princess Sophia. I'll be getting revenge, vengeance for them too. And… and my hair will, will grow back and the scars won't… won't look so ugly and red and I'll be beautiful again."
"My princess, you are beautiful," Marisalon told her.
"You'd say that to a rock," Louise accused.
"If it was a very beautiful rock, yes, especially if it was a gemstone," the neomah agreed. "And you, my lady, are emerald."
Despite herself, the girl grinned. "Touché," she said. "There was a glint of something down there. I'm going to see what it was."
{0}
The sunset over Albion painted the western skyline a flaming orange. Dressed once again in her now-dry clothes, Louise huddled as close to the fire as she could tolerate, warming herself. On her plate sat an ornate silver plate, littered with fish bones and skin.
With a somewhat excessive sigh, she looked down at the dish and pouted. It was a very beautiful tray, she had to admit, made of intricately engraved silver. It was blackened somewhat, from where she had put it in the fire to burn off the muck, but it was still elegant and dignified. She certainly hadn't expected to be eating off something like this.
It was also a crushing disappointment.
"Why the long face?" asked her sword, from its position in the fire.
"I had hoped it was going be… some secret long lost magical weapon or armour or something," Louise said, slightly sulkily. "A plate is… well, it's useful and I managed to fry the fish on it – and hardly burned it at all that much, for your information, but it's hardly some… some ancient relic of the dragon cultists or something! Mysterious glints in lakes in ruined cities should… should have the decency to be more special!"
"Really? Could have fooled me, if it's not an Urkhanine thing," her sword said. "I mean, it looks like the stuff they made. You know, the same kind of decorations that they had on their armour, right before I stabbed right through and then came the screaming and the cutting and the spilling of the blood."
"Oh, look," Louise said, resorting to sarcasm, "you decided to remember something about your past, did you?"
"Yep," said the blade, countering with, "And I hope you weren't hoping to cheat on me with some slutty dragontooth dagger. Well, unless you dual-wield us. I used to know a darling spear; almost as attractive as your glaive. We should go rescue it! I bet it'd be very grateful to me!"
The girl was very glad she didn't fully understand what was going through her sword's head. The head which he did not have. His handle, possibly. Instead, she decided to finish eating her fish. She had washed her hands before eating, but she was still having to eat hot fish bare-handed. It was just as well her skin wasn't burning when, intellectually, she knew it really should have.
She was probably getting into bad habits. Not just the manner in which she was eating – which was completely inappropriate for a well-bred young lady – but also the casual disdain for minor pain and harm. She would need to train herself to remember that she really shouldn't be sitting a metal plate which had very recently been in the fire on her lap. Which… uh… she sniffed…
"Drat!" Louise said loudly, picking up the silver plate and putting it down.
"Something the matter? Something to kill?" asked her sword.
"No, not that." Her nose wrinkled. "I smelt the jacket was scorching." She sighed. "At least it's black; it won't show the burns."
"We could cut them out!"
"… shut up, stupid sword. Why are you so obsessed with cutting?"
As she curled up, next to the fire, she had the distinct impression that the sword was pulling a funny face at her. It must have been something to do with how the underlighting of the fire cast shadows across the hilt from the guard. "I am a sword," it said, patronisingly. "My existence is war. Well, war and other more minor conflicts. If I'm not being used to cut, maim, murder, mutilate or murder, I'm not much of a sword! And I'm bored. A bored sword."
"Such monomania is a common trait of the blades of the City," Marisalon interjected. "And, fair lady, much as I do not wish to hassle you, I might suggest that we get started on the beckoning circle as soon as possible."
Louise knew she really should, but she prevaricated. It was warm by the fire, and her stomach was full, and she had all night. After all, the beckoning of the sesselja had been incredibly hard going, and she would need to concentrate for six hours more for this. She could take a rest before beginning that. And given that her sword was being verbose…
"I wonder," she asked it, idly, "what kind of battles you fought in? What was the biggest thing you've ever killed?" That sounded like the most probable way to get it to remember things, given its obsessions. It was a talking, magic-eating sword and it no doubt had other abilities.
There was a groan from Marisalon. "Did you have to do that?" the neomah complained. "Now he won't shut up."
"Well," the sword said, drawing out the word, "the battle that landed me on that swamp… why, that was a glorious one! The Tristic banners amassed all along one side of the plain, the Gallian… or were they Romalian? Well, the second side also had banners, raised high over the village of Grandple! Oh, I got to cut down the flag-bearers and the way their men panicked when their banners fell… it was truly a sight to behold! My partner, hands soaked in blood, holding me high, and I was feeding off all the spells they were throwing at him!
"Now, of course, my partner's boss-guy had sent him and his mage-knights in to break the morale of the army, because we were pretty scary! And by pretty scary, I meant, me and partner made men run just at the sight of us! But once we'd killed the guy we had to kill, we pulled back, and the other guys were milling around like useless sheep! Still, they had the high ground and outnumbered us and… oh, come to think of it, they might have been another group of Tristic armies. I mean, I know I fought a lot of them because they didn't like what my partner and his boss-guy were doing. He was a real big guy at the time, my partner, you know. From the southlands. Never liked the weather this far north. Anyway, we pulled back, and they were going 'okay, we killed a lot of their mage-knights, but now they're running away, and we're still in the good position.
"But that was just what my partner wanted them to think. Because we'd rigged the entire village up with killing magic, and when it started raining it was too late for them. We turned pretty much the entire area into quicksand… no, that's not the word. The stuff that people sink into, that's not water? Actually, I didn't like that bit of the battle much, because we were only watching and not doing much, apart from riding down people who ran away.
"Oh! But then the elves showed up, and that's where things got interesting! Man, what a battle! So much magic to eat, and lots of spirits that I got to tear apart, too! And elves have all kinds of fun blades which I get to cross with, and their armour is far more enjoyable to stab than the iron and steel you people use. Though with my last partner, your loverboy, at least you've improved your armour. You have plate now, rather than just the mostly chain you used back then. Chain is boring, because I can just stab right through it, and it grates against me. But they couldn't stop my partner. Not until they made the land rise up and crushed him under mounds and mounds of earth.
"Now, that was cheating, and I was pretty full on magic, so of course I took over and clawed my way out and kept on killing, but partner was always better at it than me and then the elves went and cut off the arm his body had me in, so I fell into the swamp… oh, there was a swamp, by the way, and then I ended up stuck there, until someone found me hundreds of years later. And then your loverboy bought me. That's about it." The sword paused, making it even more obvious that it had no need to breathe. "What was the question again?"
Louise stretched, pulling herself into a half-sitting position and pushed a branch back onto the fire. "That about answered it," she said, thinking deeply. "So… hmm. The battle in which you were lost was near Grandple, was it? That's… near the Grand Duchy of Guldenhorf, as I recall. South-eastish." She frowned. "And you can… can c-control people?" she asked.
"Only if they're not all there," the sword said bluntly. "Dead, unconscious, things like that. I had to do that for you once already, but the other you was the one there and she was nearly dead and almost out of it, and… and oh! I need to have eaten lots of magic first. Takes it out me."
Louise shivered, and shook her head. "I don't like that," she said. "It doesn't feel right, a sword doing such things."
"You'd be dead," it replied. "You know, like all the people who used to live here. I think I know this place. This is Verlamion, right? Or was it Verramion?"
The girl sat bolt upright. "That was what the dragon said it was called," she said, warily. "Verlamion."
"Yes, that was it." The blade paused. "We killed everyone here. My partner at the time was laughing. So was I! Fighting all those dragons, ancient ones who had all these tasty magics… those were the days. And then she wrote a poem. I rather liked it. Of course, she was always very poetical." And then the sword began to declaim something, in a language which flickered half at the edge of awareness.
"Oh my," Marisalon said. "I did not expect that from that blade. That was actually rather beautiful."
'What did that mean?' Louise thought curiously. 'That was the First Tongue, yes?'
"A dialect thereof, and rather better spoken than that dragon managed," the neomah said. "Hmm. It's a fairly different dialect from the proper version we use in the City, but the grammar at least is recognisable, even if I don't get all the words. I can't translate the structure or the rhyme, so it's going to lose a lot, but I'll give it a go." She coughed.
"Night comes on cast-wide wings
and spreads its claws. White stands
alone and in its loneliness
it is unready. Thoughts guard
for traps of words and artifice;
so they are torn from foe's hands
and placed against their children's nests.
One hand holds down the neck
of dragon-lord; the other wields the
blade of the executioner.
The city burns, walls fall, towers tumble,
and hearts sing with joy
for monsters are slain and banners
raised to the night's sky."
Louise tilted her head, as she listened to the translation. Marisalon was clearly doing this on the fly, because sometimes she would pause to let a sentence finish before she continued, and the poetry she could hear in the original even without knowing it was lacking from the words she understood. But still. "You… were one of the blades carried by one who knew the Founder Brimir?" she asked, awe-struck.
"The name does ring a bell," the sword said.
"Oh my," Marisalon drawled. "Imagine that. The blade knows about the central figure of your religion. The name of your prophet rings a bell to him. Why, my fair princess, truly you have the holiest of weapons here. He is too holy to use, and so you must build a shrine to entomb him, for glory everlasting." The neomah paused. "That was not a suggestion," she added. "Even if entombing him would stop him blabbering on and on. Oh well. Fairest lady, it is growing dark, and I do believe that the nights are shorter now than when you summoned me. And it would be a good idea to get the basics done when it is still light, in preparation. If you would talk with your blade, it can be done later."
The girl groaned, but pulled herself to her feet. Marisalon was right, curse her, and even if it was nice and warm beside the fire and she was feeling full, she really should get this done now. It astonished her now in retrospect that she had managed to do this with a broken arm, on the edge of blacking out from the pain. She had to get this right, if she could. And with luck, tonight she'd be headed home. Even if she failed tonight, she could try again tomorrow. And she'd be able to see her family and eat properly and… she drew a deep, shuddering breath, and went to pick up the bag with the ritual components in.
{0}
"How's that?" Louise said, standing back up to admire her handiwork. Green fire had scorched away the turf and grasses, leaving her a nice clean white surface to work on, and soot from the fire had proven a very satisfactory material for sketching out the beckoning circle.
Compared to the one needed for the sesselja, this was rather more ornate. Her black charred circle was surrounded by words which Marisalon had laboriously worked her through, and within it, a smaller circle encased a shape which resembled a wasp seen from above. It felt much more proper this way, Louise had to admit; it just felt… wrong to be summoning – or beckoning in this case – without a little bit of ceremony.
And now, the finishing touches. Carefully, taking her utmost caution not to smudge anything, she took the bell she had asked from the dragon and laid it down beside the markings. She left the clapper bound, for now; it was not time to start it ringing. Digging through the bag, she withdrew the two small crystals and placed them on the soot-marked wasp-shape, where its eyes would go. The gold coin went on its head, in the centre. The last part was the sweet-smelling herbs, and those went outside the circle, a bundle at each of the cardinal directions and one more, pointing north-east.
"The south one is a little squint," Marisalon said critically.
Louise made the adjustment. "Better?" she asked.
"It'll do. Your dragon didn't have any sugar-beet, but I hope the herbs will do. Agatae love sugar-beet, but they're generally fond of sweet things." Marisalon made an annoyed noise. "Your selfish dragon refused to give up any of his honey," she huffed.
"He's not my dragon," the girl protested half-heartedly. With a sigh, she went to wash off her hands. When she returned, she took a deep breath, "Do you think I'm ready to start?" she said.
"I think so," the neomah said. "You're a fair ritualist; to manage to call the sesselja on your first try when you were so badly injured shows that. I think, perhaps, the study of your local magic and your familiar summoning might have helped you. As for the rest; show no doubt, show no fear, do not harbour the possibility that it might go wrong. And long to be home; the agatae live to carry riders to where they wish to go, and such is a little prayer to them."
Louise blushed faintly, at the praise. Picking up the bell, she pulled the muffler off the clapper, and holding it before her, she began to ring it. Then it fell to the long, slow, rote recitation of the phrases Marisalon prompted her to say, all the while trying to keep her desire to be home foremost in her mind.
The sky grew darker and darker, as the hours crept by. There was a glow in the south, a sort of murky dirty colour; no doubt it was Londinium. The red moon rose first, a waning shape lighting the glade in dim red light. Her right arm grew to ache, and she was thoroughly sick of the sound of the bell. In the second hour, the sword had spent some time complaining, but she had ignored it as she paced around the circle, stopping at the marked points to ring the bell and speak the words her head-familiar told her to. Sometimes she rang it in one hand; sometimes in the other. Sometimes out at arm's length; sometimes by her side; sometimes over her head. It all blended into a monotony of ache and noise.
A little part of her nagged that the springtime familiar summoning ritual was so much easier than this. But then again, she had managed to muck up that, while she had done the sesselja ritual first time. So clearly, it was her innate righteousness, determination, and hard work which made her good at this, and so she would keep on working hard because she would not fail again.
The light in the ruins dimmed, as high altitude clouds blocked the light of the red moon. And Louise became aware of the other light. It had been lost in the glow of Taksony, the red moon. It was a wan, pale blue-green.
And it was not coming from her, nor from her beckoning circle. All around her, she could see it reflected off the pale stone of this ruined city and the verdant greenery painted by it in sickly tones. But it was not the rocks which were glowing, and it was not the plant-life.
Her repetition of rote-learned phrases stumbled and stuttered, as her heart began to beat like a drum. Because she could see what glowed in the dark.
The figures were not men. Not any more, at least. Once they might have been. Once the pale faces smeared with mud and worse things might have loved and laughed and smiled. Once the things entangled in rotting swamp vegetation, punctuated with faintly glowing blue crystals, might have been human bodies. Once they might not have had wounds opened across their flesh which shone with pale green light, a washed-out mockery of her own magic.
But if that had ever been true, it was no longer so. Now, around her in the darkness of a long-dead city, the swamp-claimed corpses of men and women dead days waited, watching. They knew she was watching them, now. They started whispering, in mad, parched voices, or else they spoke words liquid with rot. She might not have been able to understand them through the decay and the filth, though she could catch odd Albionese or Brimiric words, but she could hear the tone.
She could hear the hate.
And she could see other things about them, a strange overlay in her senses which she could hardly explain. The pale faces of the fresher-looking ones still retained some individual features - snatches of their old sensibilities and faces - but elsewhere all that made them unique persons had seemingly begun to melt and dribble like wax, subsumed into concepts. They were not people, if that was what they had been; now they were Soldier and Hellfire and Blade and Terror and other abstractions. Some had their old swords or pistols in place of their hands, while others had skulls fused with the helmets of the Republicans. On some, hair burned with a corona of green fire, while the flayed faces of others wept silver tears. Those that still had eyes seemed perpetually shocked and horrified, lids absent, while those without them sniffed around with noses that snorted wisps of tarry black smoke.
And then there were the more ancient ones. She could not explain them, save to say that there was nothing personal, nothing human about them anymore. They hung more to the rear, sniffing and wailing and whispering.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard her horse scream and bolt.
Red-hot pain clawed its way across her back even as she went reaching for her blade, and the girl went down, rolling over her laboriously prepared circle. Stomach muscles screaming, she pushed herself up into a crouch, and sprang at the creature which had managed to get behind her. Her fist, wreathed in green flame, sunk into a torso made of river mud and dead plants and blew it apart from the inside, revealing the ancient cracked bones within.
The pale, battered freshly-dead face sunk into the shoulders of the monster screamed, fire spilling out of its mouth and from its eyes. It swung at her with an arm which ended on a bloodied human hand where the flesh had worn away from the claw-like fingerbones; Louise caught the attack on her forearm and grabbed the arm. A wrench and a twist, and it was torn free; she booted the creature in the chest and sent it sprawling to the ground.
The thing of clay and rotting flesh screamed through its jawless mouth, greenish white flames rolling from the gaping wound to drool down onto the floor. The harsh ululation had things which could have been words in it, but they were lost amidst the pain and the rage. Louise gagged as she unconsciously inhaled the smell of burning meat – oh, how it was familiar now – and rotting mud, and leapt back, scrambling up a fallen wall to higher ground.
"What are these things?" she screamed, managing to draw her blade. With a thought, the brand on her forehead pulsed to full burning life, lighting up the night around her like a torch. Now at least she could see where she was putting her feet, and without thinking she sprinted up a wall, climbing up the pockmarks to a partially intact second floor.
"I don't know!" Marisalon shouted back. "Elementals, Dead things, gods, something I don't know about! I don't know! They… they could be the Mortlake things that the… behind you!"
The squelch of a sodden foot had barely registered, but the warning was enough to have the girl spinning. The thing behind her looked… looked like a soldier of the New Model Army. But they were drowned, their flesh bloated. Pale green fire dripped from its opened-up ribcage, forcing its way out from between the marsh grasses which bound them in.
And in the glinting of her eyes, Louise could only see rot, taste decay, smell putrefaction. Nausea washed over her.
"Moardner!" it screamed. Fingers twisted into talons, it leapt at her.
Louise ran it through. Whipping her blade out, she kicked it down, and then stomped down upon its chest with her bare foot, caving in its chest. A scream forced its way out of the thing, and for good measure she cut its head off. And then she was back to a guarding position, just in time to hack down the first skull-faced monster which clawed its way up the same wall she had. But there was a second, and a third, and then another one was behind her and she was surrounded.
Blood trickled in a hot bead from a gash on her forehead. She could not spare the hand to wipe it away. Not when there was always another claw to deflect, another cut of earth or putrid flesh to make. These… these things did not fear, did not flee, did not even back off when she cut down another of their number. She had not realised how much she had relied on that simple fact when fighting humans. And constantly they screamed; cries of "Moardner" and "Sûnde" and "Fanwegen de Republyk" and a hundred other things she could not hear through the clamour and the beating of her own heart, a drum played far too quickly.
Ice-cold fear grabbed her. She was going to die. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She should just give up right now. She winced as something below screamed, and it echoed inside her head even when the noise had stopped. What did she care about home? About life? About…
"Snap out of it!" Marisalon ordered. "You're not going to die here! They're trying to get to you!"
White-hot fury burned away the cold, and the light of her soul unfolded from her body, spilling out to cascade across the floor in green and brazen flames. From the clawed-open tears in the back of her buff jacket, four delicate wings unfolded. Nearly translucent, gleaming with a monocoloured rainbow of shades of green, they were kin to that of the dragonfly. Her eyes were no longer even slightly human, and needle-like teeth gleamed brass in the illumination. Hacking and tearing, her terrible majesty burning the world around her, Louise cut her way towards the opening through which the monsters were coming, and threw herself out.
A green sun shot out into the night suspended on newborn wings, casting its light down upon the ruined city. Dead eyes below stared up at it, their own ghostly remembrances of the fire that had killed them muted compared to the real thing.
Louise circled, her mind caught up in the fearlessness of her burning soul. This was what she had missed for all these years, with her inability to grasp levitation spells? This freedom, this ability to float above the problems of the world? Even through the pain and the terror, it was glorious. She couldn't imagine what it would be like in better circumstances.
"So," Marisalon observed. "They're Dead things. Possibly the things you killed escaping from the Pale Tower. Possibly not, though some of the bodies which made up those things were fresh enough that you are the likely source. And of course, the pale mockery of your supernal fire spilling out of those old wounds on them was a clue."
"What do you know about… them?" the girl insisted. Her light allowed her to see the milling crowds below. There looked to be dozens of them, at least. Trying very hard not to think about how to fly and just letting her body do what was needed, she swooped in to crouch on top of the tallest ruined structure she could find.
"Hardly anything," the neomah said. " The only Dead in the City are slaves, and I never cared to find out more about them than I had to. They're… wrong. Unnatural. Please tell me you have some kind of myths about them here? All I know is that when humans die, sometimes you get normal ghosts which are like spirits of the dead person, and sometimes you get murderous angry things that eat people. And my cultists always used to worry about that, and you don't know about it, so something is different here and… oh, Unspeakable Blue!"
The reason for the outburst was made quite clear, for in the light of her burning soul Louise could see the bounding figures leaping between tumbled rocks, scrambling up fallen columns and sprinting down plant-choked roads.
They didn't move like men. They moved like beasts, and even when they were on two legs their gait was one of a predator. They might have spoken like men, but they were lesser, ruined, degenerate.
"So, my princess, ready to fly off and leave these things behind?" Marisalon suggested. "Like this, we should be able to reach safety, and the dragon said they don't go too far away from Mortlake."
"No," Louise whispered.
"… oh, no. No, no, my lady, you're injured and…"
Louise's knuckled whitened around the handle of her sword. "They're my responsibility," she said. "If they were traitors I killed, then I am bound to send them to the judgement of the Lord. To linger as a ghost or… or a thing of flesh and mud and plants is wickedness. And if they are spirits, using the bodies of men in their damned ways, than I am duty-bound as a daughter of the Church to drive them off if I can." She paused, breathing deeply. "A noble does not shirk her duty to the Crown and Faith. If she is able, she does what she should. She is a steel blade in the hand of righteousness. So I will kill them all, either way."
"What if you can't?" the neomah said harshly. "You're injured. Badly."
"They're my responsibility," Louise repeated, stubbornly, leaping off with her blade in hand.
In the remains of what had once been a mighty hall, she made her stand. Beneath the shattered ribcage of broken vaulting, she broke bones and burned flesh. The waters which pooled here were fouled by the congealed blood and ooze of the monstrous things, which screamed their words of hate at her.
One step, one splash. A creature was severed at the waist. A step back and an outstretched hand; sand poured forth to envelop and flay three foes. And then she was snatching up a fallen blade which had been carried by one of the fresher creatures, born in her off-hand, and she was a whirling dervish of fire and sand.
The memories which were not hers came again. But this time she was as steel, clear in her purpose, sharp and resolute yet flexible. She rode the wave, at the very peak, but she did not fall to the waves of otherness which surged and flowed. She could hear the songs of the not-hers in the back of her mind, and for the first time, she recognised the silent dances of the crimson lady of the storm in her motions.
As she killed, she sang out. It was one of the hymns of her childhood, a song of salvation, a song of thanks to the Founder for the freedom of men.
When dawn came, only one figure was standing in this fallen hallway. As the rosy light crept through the opened roof, Louise let herself sag, though she remained upright, alone in this charnel house.
She was bloodied. She was wounded. Her buff jacket was torn in many, many places from the clawing of the fiends, though her flesh had turned many of the blows which had got through. She had kept her wings this time, and they gleamed in the light, though she knew she could retract them any time she wished. Welts lined both hands, from where a creature of ancient bones and mud had ensnarled her in freezing, burning tendrils. She had reached into its chest, and torn out its crystal heart.
Thinking of that, she reached down, and picked up the crystal. It was a dark, murky blue-black. It looked a little like a windstone, but it did not have the brilliant radiance of one of those calcifications of the power of the wind. And – her eyes widened – there was a hand-print on it, of a greenish-umber hue, which even now seemed to be flaking away.
In the light of the morning sun, the whole crystal bubbled and boiled, hissing like chalk dropped into acid by Professor Colbert. It screamed, faintly, the same screams of the monster which it had once resided in. It was not the only one to do so. All across the ruined hall, the mounds of burned and dismembered corpses were hissing and bubbling and screaming.
Louise looked again in the one in her hand. It was literally shrinking as she watched, noxious black vapours escaping which seemed to be trying to form a vaguely humanoid shape. Even as she went for a blade, though, the morning's sunlight washed it away, dissolving it in light. And the entire thing tingled in her hand, feeling like nothing less than… than a windstone releasing its trapped energies. There was the same crackle of trapped lightning, the same chillness of fresh air.
"The… windstones?" she asked herself. "Or something like them?" She shook her head. This bore thought. She tossed the stone in her hand down into a puddle of light creeping in through the ruined door, and went to drag the bodies off each other, so each would be exposed to the light in turn. And… her horse was gone. Once she had cleared up here, she would have to fly until she was clear of this forest. Unless she could find the parts of the beckoning ritual – but no. That was not likely. She would have to try to get down to one of the ports on the south coast. She shook her head sadly, and began a prayer for the dead. Perhaps it would encourage them to go on to face their judgement for their sins in the eyes of the Lord.
Below the water, a fragment of the stone – half blue, half greenish-umber – remained.
{0}
The crowd before him had a terrified, hollow look in their eyes. Cromwell did not blame them. He could see the cloud which emanated from the pit where once the Pale Tower had stood, and he had – on touring the city – seen the masses scarred by its noxious fumes. When he looked out over the plaza, he could see the discoloured roofs which were still caked in the acidic blood which had rained down, see where it had etched through buildings and left them unfit for human habitation. His city, his triumph was sickened by the… the abomination which had occurred, and there was only one response he could give.
There was only one response that the populace could accept.
"My children," he said, his voice rising in the familiar cadence of the priest he had once been, "I come before you to speak of mourning. Mourning for the dead. Mourning for those whose lives have been ruined by this horrible, horrible deed. I have walked through the streets of the city, as I see in person how best to aid those who have lost limbs, loved ones, livelihoods. I have seen women weeping in Gardner Street and Ellismere Street, newly widowed because their brave, heroic husbands in the New Model Army gave their lives, saving others. I ask you, this very night and forever after, pray for those who suffer so that their suffering might be relieved. We cannot let this horrible tragedy pull us apart; we must bind together, like the handful of reeds which are weak on their own, but strong when taken together! My children, I feel for you! I feel for your pain! And I feel your anger!
"For after the mourning is done, why, then there is vengeance! Vengeance for scarred faces, ruined lives, murdered children! Yes, I say 'murder'! For this was no accident! No, it was not an accident! It was sabotage! Wilful, murderous, malevolent sabotage!"
Angry murmurs sounded through the crowd.
"We have undeniable evidence that agents of Tristain were responsible for the sabotage of the Pale Tower, perhaps in the misguided aim of freeing the traitors to the Holy Republic imprisoned there! Shame on them, we call out! Shame on a nation which would murder countless innocents for their goals! Shame on a nation which attacks without warning, without a declaration of war! Well, so be it!
"Yes, so be it," continued Cromwell. "If they wish for war, then they will have war! We will give them war! God is on the side of the Holy Republic, and the Holy Void itself frowns on such monstrosity as was carried out! The stars themselves predict our victory! Our ships shall darken their skies! Our ambassadors are already carrying message to Gallia and Germania, telling them of the vile deeds of the viper which nests between them and warning them to beware the kindly gaze of the Tristainian serpent! As we have seen, it is toxic, envenomed, wicked! Let us pray to the Lord God that our cousins in foreign lands do not fall prey to the same treachery that we did, but that they instead learn from our hard-learned example.
"For as all men know, we Albionese are a gentle and kindly nation, not given to rash action or warfare. We are gentle, but when we are pushed, oh! Then a mighty giant is awoken, and those foes who underestimated us learn to their folly that the nation they dismissed as mere 'shopkeepers' and 'bargemen' has mighty jaws hidden behind our kind smile. Well, the Tristainians have woken that giant, and I tell you this! We will not stop, until we have extracted the blood price of all the children and the women slain by treachery!
"As the Founder said; pay each man in kind. Love with love, respect with respect, kindness with kindness, affront with affront, death with death. Our foes have incurred a mighty debt, and they will ill-enjoy paying off the weight of their sins. But pay they will! Tristain will pay! For the Pale Tower, they will pay! For the weeping widows of Gardner Street and Ellismere Street and many, many more, they will pay! For the men blinded by the blood which fell from the heavens, they will pay! For the children choked by the toxic fumes of this malevolence, they will pay!"
The roar of the crowd was one of approval. Folding his hands before him, Cromwell bowed his head.
"My children," he said, "I go now to take command of our fleet. It is by our judgement that they are found wanting, and so! War they have asked for, war they have begged for, and it is war they will have!"
{0}
- Location
- West Michigan
So the agatae is that set of wings? Definitely more unique in-setting than the mount I (and Louise too, probably) was expecting.
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
Well. War comes again to Halkeginia.
And it's almost not Louise's fault.
And it's almost not Louise's fault.
An agata is a gigantic, intelligent wasp. They have rather nasty tempers, if I remember correctly.SwiftRosenthal said:
No, that's just her By Rage Recast mutation package. You've probably noticed already that she has a distinctly insect theme running through it; specifically, it's dragonfly-like. Beautiful, and also really scary predators (if you're a small insect). And Louise does know about dragonflies; in the Secret Garden at home, when she used to hide there she watched them eating flies.SwiftRosenthal said:
A hypothetical dragonfly-like thing the size of a dragon with a human face and arms in place of its legs would be a pretty scary one-winged angel form, huh?
(Also, BRR going "classic demon"? Predictable and not very Malfean, actually. Dragonflies are rather more Malfean in "weird and beautiful" sense than "bat wings and horns")
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's a difference between flying twenty yards in the air to get to the top of a ruined house, and flying however many hundred miles it is from Albion to Tristain.
Undead-Spaceman
Skeleton Supreme
- Location
- Somewhere in Orbit
Called it.Undead-Spaceman said:
I just want to say, the image of a fish randomly jumping into Louise's lap and her tossing a frog into a tree hard enough to probably pulp it was too funny.
So the creatures of Mortlake are empowered by some kind of corrupted windstone. Maybe some kind of corpse element version of it? Ash instead of wind and all that? The sunlight did melt away the corpse-y bits of it.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They are.
*grins*
*grins*
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
Speaking as an Englishman? Bullshit.EarthScorpion said:
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
By Rage Recast only applies when her anima is flaring, unless she chooses to retain it past that point. So when she's glowing with unearthly emerald fire, she's got a bunch of weird demon traits (specifically, at the moment, she's got four dragonfly wings, sharp brass teeth, and inhuman eyes), but those can fade once the fire dies down.TheProffesor said:
Undead-Spaceman
Skeleton Supreme
- Location
- Somewhere in Orbit
Of course she still looks human. Aside from the brass fingernails, there's nothing to suggest she isn't anymore other than the freakish amount of scars that indicate wounds she survived.TheProffesor said:
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I hate you all.
Partially though, it's just that I'm too shitty of a writer to get an invitation to those kinds of games, leaving me with shitty games that die young or jump the shark... Which in turn, keeps me from writing better.
It's a vicious cycle it is.
Partially though, it's just that I'm too shitty of a writer to get an invitation to those kinds of games, leaving me with shitty games that die young or jump the shark... Which in turn, keeps me from writing better.
It's a vicious cycle it is.
I was under the impression that Albion floated above land, so it would just be a matter of dropping off the island and catching yourself at the bottom. Looks like I was mistaken about that.Aleph said:
Matsci
Grash itsh griah! Rwar arr rawrrawrarar!
Blue is the Sacred Color of Ceceline, who has forbidden lesser demons from looking upon that color, on pain of death.Endymion said:
Incidentally, all of Cecylene's Laws must be written in blue, and failing to read them is also punished by death.Matsci said:
This is the sort of thing that makes Devil-Tiger seem like a good idea, in the same way that a lifeboat on the Titanic seems like a good idea.Matsci said: