And so spoke Brimir, saying "Fear not, my student, for this holy power is forever beyond the wickedness of demons. This is something I have seen to. Yet men should remember that evil still lurks within their own hearts. For no demon can ever lay their hands on the primal power of the Void, but wickedness might still find a way".
— The 2nd Romalian Conspectus
The midnight candlelight drew long shadows over Louise's face. She stared at herself in the little mirror she had found in this abandoned manor house on the southern coast of Albion. The glow in her eyes was bright tonight. Or maybe it was just the bags under her eyes that accentuated the light. So pale, so haggard from worry; she might as well have been a just-dead corpse herself.
By tomorrow, it would be all over. One way or another.
When you put it like that, it was almost reassur-
"Oh Lord," Louise managed, and barely made it to the washbowl before she emptied out her stomach from nerves. But at least now that her stomach was empty, she wouldn't be sick again.
No. As it turned out, she could attempt to throw up more. It was just bile, and it hurt.
So much planning, so much hammering on the golems, so much waiting, working and wanting. Reading everything she could find in Tifa's eclectic library on the peculiar interactions between demonkind and past overlords. All for this time of decision, and now she was terrified.
It was so easy to plan something like this, where if everything went as she intended her victory would be certain. But at times like this, in the black hours of the night when you were getting ready to try to board a sky island and fight your way past whatever horrors the King of Gallia had prepared, the certainty of having everything laid out was a weak consolation. And a weak consolation was not what you wanted to ward off the fact that nothing wanted to stay in your stomach.
Glancing over at Izah'belya's sigil, she swallowed, brushing her thumb over the paper. Maybe she should invoke her. Just to speak to someone who wasn't involved in this. Maybe… no. No getting distracted. No giving away information to a pretty girl no matter how much she'd like to talk it over and make sure she hadn't missed something.
If she failed, she would be dead. If she succeeded too well, she might well be worse than dead. She needed just the right degree of success.
Before the sun had risen, the overlady's plan was already in motion.
The town of South Hampton was woken by the massive detonation of the powder kegs stored in the Bar Gate. As the night lit up with smoky red flame and frantic burghers tried to stop the spread of the flames through the densely packed houses around the western quay market, two small children and a red skinned horned goblinoid slipped away into the night, committing only a few incidental acts of arson out of boredom.
To the east was Dour, one of the major ports supporting the invasion of the Continent. But the night before, a cute blond boy with a fondness for gathering flowers and herbs had with the help of some friends added an extract of certain mushrooms to the flour supplies in the docks. William had needed to wear protective equipment made by Jessica for that, because the psychoactive fungi were so potent that even the blessings of the Heart of God were not proof against them. By the time they left, the screams of vision-wracked men were already echoing through the cloud-choked city.
In Londinium itself, the alarms at the Tower were screaming. But there was nothing that could be done, because Emerald the elf had set them off as she left with a substantial amount of treasure. This treasure, less a finder's fee, would surely help Tiffania. This was clearly and obviously why the overlady had sent Emerald to do this at the heart of the enemy's power and coincidentally a long way away from her main thrust.
But all of those were some way away from the Isle of Wights, and so news of this sabotage had not yet reached the guards stationed around one of the great chains that secured the island to the mainland.
The clouds curled around the watchtower that protruded from the side of the lesser sky-island. The mist wreathed the torches in rainbow halos, and the heated braziers sizzled with moisture. The chains clanked as the islands shifted, ringing out like dour bells.
This was not a station that called for keen wits, sharp minds, or indeed much other than the capability to stare at fog for extended periods and a complete lack of a fear of heights when the weather was clear.
"Hey, does anyone smell rotten eggs?" asked one of the guards.
"It was probably John," one of the older ones snickered. He had practised that laugh. The 'hurr hurr hurr' was a work of art. Gnarl would have been impressed by the minion-esque stupidity involved in it.
"Shut up, old man," snapped the unlucky John, who was the subject of frequent unpleasant mockery for reasons which were overall unfair, but would probably have not gotten started if he hadn't been in the habit of bringing boiled eggs to work despite them causing him stomach problems.
Naturally, that just prompted some more mockery, and more than a few farting sounds made with the mouth. Of such mean-spirited ribbing are work relationships made.
Arguably, what happened next might have qualified as justice. However, given what occurred was that they were all murdered by a number of demonically-possessed dolls, a ten-year old with a glowing red katana which ate souls, and a number of foul-smelling goblinoids that argument was a bad argument. Anyone making it should feel ashamed. It didn't qualify as just even in a bad light.
Louise leapt down from her flying steed, one of Madga's 'horsies', and made a mental note that next time she'd see if Jessica could provide her with some kind of mask that meant she didn't have to smell the sulphurous stink of the demonic mount. Surely she'd have something useful if she ever had to ride one of those wretched bat-winged things herself.
But that was just a distraction. Here she was, on the Isle of Wights, beside one of great anchor-chains that tied it to Albion. They were fortified by-
"Magda, please stop playing with the bodies," she begged the small child. "Just toss them over the edge."
"But I want the blood for my circles," Magda reasonably retorted, open flask in one hand as she bled a cut throat into it.
"Magda!"
"Urgh! But Hannah's mutilating the corpses!" Magda whined. "Why are you picking on me?"
"Hannah, please, stop that! They're already dead!"
"Feed me more blood," hissed the ten-year old, her eyes glowing red. Once again, she had been possessed by her sword.
"Hannah, stop hacking at the dead bodies, you'll blunt your edge," wheedled Louise. "And Alice, don't think I didn't notice… actually, no, you actually have a reason. You can bring them back from the dead as your soldiers, but only — and I mean only — if you stop everyone else from meddling with them."
The impromptu deputisation of a prepubescent necromancer was relatively successful, at least in that it got the children arguing with each other rather than all finding ways to desecrate the dead. Louise deliberately turned away. Holy sugar, she was not going to have children if this was what being a mother was like.
Where was she? Yes. Great anchor-chains. Tying the island to the main body of Albion. The only way that the chains could hold was with long-reinforced castings of earth magic to strengthen both the chains themselves, each link as large as she was, and the rock that the chains were anchored into. The isle-chains of Albion were a magical marvel, and they did not date back to antiquity. Or, rather, for a long time as one part wore through or their enchantments weakened, they were replaced. Generation after generation of work had gone into them.
"It would be such a pity if someone were to wreck them," Louise mused to herself, patting the metal of the nearest link.
"Weren't that the plan?" Fettid asked. She was one of the few minions accompanying her, and given what the children were like she wasn't the most violent short person around.
"... yes, but…"
"'Coz I thought that were the plan."
"Yes, I-"
"Did you change the plan? I weren't listening if you did."
"I was being coy!" Louise snapped.
"But you no is a fishie."
"Shut up, Fettid." Honestly. She should know that the minions would ruin every attempt she had to be somewhat stylish. "No, I didn't change the plan. Just everyone! Get back! Away from the chain mounts!"
Once everyone was safely away from the edge and on solid ground, Louise leant on her staff, looking up at the three chains. Right now she felt very small in the face of such massive feats of architecture.
Black lightning tinged with pink crackled over the surface of her armoured left hand. It sank into the gauntlet. The light shone strangely on the metal, picking it out from the world around it.
Yes. Louise exhaled. The touch of the void, the touch of Evil in her hand was warm and comforting. It reminded her that regardless of size, all things came from nothing.
And all things could be returned to nothing.
Into her spell, Louise poured all her hate for a man who would take her Henrietta away from her. She poured in her resentment and shame that Henrietta did not love her back, her fury at how much nonsense she'd been through here on Albion, and her fear at what she was about to have to do. The incredible amounts of annoyance that having to run herd on a force composed of minions, small children and dark elves was only the cream atop the rich broth of dark malice and spite that was her repast.
She spoke a word in the dark tongue, tasting hot metal and the tingle of a singed tongue.
Darkness rushed out from Louise's outstretched hand, tearing away the clouds, smothering the sunlight and quenching the warmth in the world. It spread like ink through water, blooming and flowing.
And all around the Isle of Wights, the sun went out.
The nearby ships dropped from the sky like puppets with their strings cut. The mages onboard could not do a thing; not to save their ships and not to save themselves, for the wicked magic clung to them like tar and quenched any attempt for them to gather their wills. The dragons on the second-rate ship of the line Dunbar launched themselves from the falling ship, and fell too, plummeting to their deaths in the dark water far, far below. For dragons were no more able to fly without the aid of their magic than men could launch fire from their hands, and the primordial void quenched all.
The wave rushed on. Every ship in the docks of Port's Mouth lost all lift as windstones dissolved in the darkness. Loaded convoys of golems would never start up, their calcified magic hearts gone in an instant. Even Albion lurched, because its lift came from the windstones that suffused it.
As the light slowly supplanted the lingering, oozing darkness, Louise clutched her staff and laughed and laughed. Such power! All at her fingertips! There was nothing she couldn't do! Not with...
Ooooh. Louise gasped for breath. Light-headed. Feeling like she was two glasses of wine in. Tired. And yet not as tired as she should have been. She could feel the ache of her muscles and the weariness in her mind, but it was less than she expected. Less than it should have been. As she moved her left hand through the air, darkness clung to it, trailing behind her.
"Ahh," she exhaled. The warmth she had felt ever since she got here. This place was saturated with an ancient, stagnant old evil. It had been here an awfully long time, maybe ever since the First Overlord had torn Albion from the ground. It wanted to flow. It wanted to be used.
There was power here, for her taking. Or for her enemy's.
But any monologuing would have to wait, because the wind gusted and the stones all around them groaned. Louder still was the creak of the metal chains, now mere iron. No longer untarnishable, imperishable, harder than steel. They grated against each other with a sound that could deafen dragons, and they moaned like the pits of the Abyss.
"That sounds bad," said Alice.
"That is exactly what was planned," Louise said, trying to catch her breath. "But. Um. We need to move away from this area. Just in case the stone breaks away too when the elves do their thing. Move!"
Back on the mainland, the terrible, cloying wave of evil had rushed across the coastline. Plants had died. Birds had died. Small mammals had died. And the dark elves did not need their make-up to look unnaturally pale, because they could hear the screams of the spirits.
"I'm not sure I'll ever feel warm again," one of them whispered, skinny arms wrapped around himself.
Apostrophe pulled himself up from the ground, rubbing his trembling thighs. "We are doing this for our dark queen," he said, trying to sound confident. "Having to deal with this… human is just part of freeing her."
"But she's scary. Do you feel what she did to the world?"
"Yes! Yes, I did! And trust me, I don't like it any more than you do!" Apostrophe snapped. "This is fucked! Really, really fucked! We're a long way from home, watching humans kill each other because of their stupid political reasons and everyone is throwing raw Evil around against each other. Our queen uses it, the overlady uses it, and the one who captured our queen used it!"
"Then why are we even here?"
"Because the overlady will crush our wills and make us serve her if we don't do what she wants," he said darkly.
"... I think Lilly got the best side of the bargain, going off to work for that succubus as her PA," one of the female elves muttered.
"And now she's a slave to the Man!"
"No, her boss is a succubus."
"A succubus can still be the Man. They're agents of the same over-sexualised, consumerist ethos that has ruined our society. We wouldn't have to be dark elves if there was any way to reform elven society from within - but there isn't one! The only way to reform society is to tear it down and build a better world from the ashes! The world has had enough of elven unipolarity, and that means accepting the cultural peculiarities of these humans! So fucking well quit bitching and get your act together to get the island blown away, before the overlady decides we'd be better off as mind-controlled husks!"
They coaxed the scared wind-spirits into blowing, and though it was not easy, when they explained to the spirits that those winds would bear the source of darkness away they were more than willing.
The gale snatched up the Isle of Wights like a child's toy, and carried it away to the south.
Dawn sunlight shone down on the Isle of Wights, the clouds torn away by the sudden winds. Louise's hands were hurting from holding on too tight to the rockface, and she felt air-sick from the buffeting.
"Oooh," Magda said, looking back with wide eyes. "I liked that. 'Specially the boomy bangs when the chains broke."
No, the Albionese children were entirely used to the feeling of being on a rocking sky-island. At least Fettid had thrown up so it wasn't just Louise who had problems with the land rocking below her - and better yet, Fettid had managed to do it over the side, rather than getting it somewhere where it could be trodden upon.
The Isle of Wights was now free, floating away from Albion borne on the elf-called wind - and the Albionese had no ships with which to pursue it in the docks of Port's Mouth. Their wind-stone supplies had been ruined. They could bring new vessels up in time, but that would take hours of sailing and the effort of the mages to work against the unnatural aerial currents that had been called up.
Over the sound of rushing air the sound of bells could be heard. Some of them were from the churches on the top of the sky island, but some were coming from within the island.
"Oo-er," said Hannah. "Sounds like those wee bastards know we're here."
"Language!" Louise snapped reflexively.
"Sorry, Tifa," Hannah said out of habit. "Uh. Wait, no! You're shorter than me! And you're not Tifa! So where d'you think you get off?"
"Hannah, clear out the area ahead, and take Fettid and Alice and her zombies," Louise said, before the hothead could work herself up into a temper. "We need more space for the next spell."
"Blood," was the happy response she got from the ten-year old, or more accurately from her cursed sword.
"Yes, yes. But I'll tell Tifa if you hurt anyone on our side. Alice, tell me if she goes out of control."
"'Kay!" the little necromancer said, beaming with borrowed authority.
"Go. And hurry!"
One massacre of sleepy guards later, Louise made her way into the blade-scarred, blood-stained hallway. She could recognise the architecture here, under the later additions. It looked like her tower.
"Stop anyone else following us in here," she ordered, already drawing on the power within her to build up the will she would need to reach beyond existence. "No interruptions."
The power flowed so easily here. Maybe this was like what Louise had heard regular mages felt. That fire mages could draw on more powerful fire spells when around a forest fire, or water mages could work wonders with water when walking beside a storm-wracked ocean. What did that say that she found that the evil forces flowed more powerfully here than they had in the literal Abyss, where all wretched and wicked things went?
But she had a spell to focus on, and though her lips were chapped and bleeding and her body ached, she spoke the word in the Dark Tongue she had learned from Tiffania's music box. And the power inside her answered.
With a word, she tore open the world like waterlogged paper. Darkness bled from the gaps in existence. And from the rift emerged a face of horror.
"Captain Maggat, reporting for duty," Maggat said, head cheerfully poking out of the top of his repurposed golem shell. It was clearly his golem, because he'd been sure to decorate its pauldrons with skulls. The fact that they were deer skulls didn't actually make it any less intimidating. Deer skulls looked horrifying. "I gots a bunch of lads, laddettes…"
"Thank you for ack-no-ledging the way the fairer sex do all the work 'round here," Fettid called out, rummaging through the cut up bodies that Hannah had manufactured.
"... an' some very bad girls and boys in here, just rarin' and ready to start breaking stuff," Maggat continued doggedly.
"Very good," Louise said.
"You done all your dispelly stuff and it ain't gonna wreck all the magic stones in my shiny boy?"
"Indeed." Louise considered who she was talking to. "That means yes."
"Gotcha." Maggat raised his voice. "Alright you horrible lot of minions an' small children. Tally-ho! Hup hup hup! Secure the area! Protect the overlady!"
With a terrible clanking and the hiss of steam, armoured suit after suit emerged from the dark rift. At knee height, minions and small children surged around the armour.
Louise sidled up to Maggat. "I notice you're using more complicated words than usual," she observed. "And have been doing so since we recovered the bodies of the fallen minions from Port's Mouth."
"Yep! Stole 'em. Just like I stole bein' a captain."
"From who?"
"Some Albion guy." Maggat tapped his chest, where a surprising number of already tarnishing medals were pinned. They were already corroding from the smell, though the fact that they looked like they were barely more pure gold or silver than your average pot couldn't have helped matters. "Also got his shiny things, so whatever he did to get them were now done by me."
Louise would have said that this was not how it worked, but she had more useful things to spend her breath on. And, frankly, she was concerned that she couldn't prove that, given that it was by all indications maybe how it worked for minions. Yes! Sure! Fine! Maybe Maggat could plunder the command talents and vocabulary of an Albionese officer along with his medals!
Lord, the first overlord must have been a genius to design the minions. A sick, twisted, warped genius with a high tolerance for other people's stupidity.
"All right," she called out, once her troops were out of the rift and lined up in something that almost approached order. "I'm going to close it now! Is anyone still inside? Because you'll be trapped inside and-"
Maxy ambled out and threw a sloppy salute at something in her vicinity. "It are all empty, overlady," he reported. "Done my checks like you ordered, Maggat, boss!"
"... very good," Louise said, slightly flustered by the fact that the idiots she was surrounded by were not requiring her to hold their hands to stop them getting trapped outside of reality. She cleared her throat and composed herself, looking over her forces with something in the same neighbourhood as pride.
Heavily armoured teams of minions in the repaired golems, chosen for being slightly less stupid. The extremely rank and file around them, armoured up with the basic equipment that Jessica had thrown together from salvage from the golems she hadn't been able to get working. And around them, a gaggle of extremely evil small children who were up and raring to take their abandonment issues out on anything they met.
She… she almost felt like a proper dark lady.
"You got something in your eye?" Scyl asked.
"Shut up," she said reflexively.
"Shuttin' up right now, overlady!"
Louise cleared her throat, and tried to put on an expression of portentous vision. "Minions! Ladies and gentlemen!" Some of the children looked like they were about to correct her that they were in fact 'boys and girls' so she pushed on regardless. "We are here! We have boarded the Isle of Wights, and more than that, we have broken its ancient chains! It is now floating loose above the Great Northern Ocean. Our allies in Albion have ensured that the southern ports will not be able to easily set sail after us, and my magic has ruined the ships of Port's Mouth!"
"We looted a whole island! We ain't done that in years!" Fettid squealed, to general acclaim.
"But the battle is not over! We may have the most vicious, wicked, and downright evil small children in the whole world; we might have soldiers in armoured golems; we might have a veritable hoard of foul-smelling minions - but this will not be easy. This will not be simple. We are facing the King of Gallia himself, a dark magician who is nearly - nearly - as powerful as me.
"But that merely means we must bring calamity! We must bring havoc, born upon furious wings, for all of us have lost things to his iniquitous action! So rise up! Lay waste to his men, destroy his confounding machination, bring fire and fury to his conspiracies! I-" Louise's flow was broken by Maxy's frantic downwards hand gestures. He was telling her to… bring things… down?
Oh. Right. Odds were that the minions and the small children wouldn't understand her. And confusion because her vocabulary was greater than a six-year old's would not serve her goal.
"- which is to say," she continued, "we are going to win because we can break his things and kill his soldiers. And take his prized poss… the things he likes. We will free my necromancer and Tifa. But just remember - when it comes down to the fight against King Joseph, leave him to me. Only my magic can defeat him. No one else's. Understood?"
And from the rousing cheer, yes, they did understand. She began to give orders to have them spread out through the corridors, taking key check points. The minions respected the gross cruelty and wickedness of the children, so they could lead small groups of them and provide the punch needed to win fights - or at least hold off until Louise and her reserves could arrive to break a line that held them off.
The sounds of violence and screams quickly filled the interior of the Isle of Wights.
Maggat was enjoying himself greatly. The overlady had many virtues, but in his minionly brain - which admittedly was unused to being used for thought over a timescale of greater than a few seconds - he couldn't help but feel that small, sneaky actions of the overlady and a few minions was an overly green way of handling things. He remembered the old days where overlords swept across the land with giant armies of angry underlings looking to kill and plunder. And maybe this wasn't quite a giant horde of minions, but he was liking these armoured golems the forgemistress had made. They were something new. Something better than even a minion-wave of browns thrown endlessly at the walls of a castle.
Oh yes, he thought, as he picked up an Albionese soldier and dashed the man against the wall until he broke, this was the most fun he'd had in centuries.
"Captain Maggat! Captain Maggat!"
"What?" he hollered back at the on-foot minion runner
"We has found a place what have spinny wheels and are crackling with evil power!"
"What is you talking about, Stench?"
"Well, we was fighting the humies what are metal on the inside and they killed a bunch of us but then Hannah chopped them to lotsa little bits and then on the other side there was a big place what had nothin' in it except it also had spinny wheels and glowy evil crystals and they was going zap at each other."
Maggat considered this report. "That sounds like something that the overlady will wanna know about," he decided. "Maxy, hold down this place and keep on killin' the humies."
"Got it, Maggat!" Maxy said cheerfully, whooping as the firestone cannon bolted onto his golem's arm discharged and burned a barricade to the ground. "Where is you goin'?"
"The overlady really likes stuff what is complicated and has glowy energy so I is gonna take some of the lads and lasses and smash in the heads of anything what doesn't want to let her near."
"Gotcha!"
Maggat was as good as his word. Another set of golems who weren't piloted by minions were making an attempt to recapture the location of interest, but between minionly violence, armoured stompy suits, and hellfire they were swiftly liquidated.
And what he found on the other side was…
"Well," Maggat said thoughtfully. "That sure are a hollow place what have spinny wheels and what are crackling with evil power indeed."
"What d'we do now, Maggat?" Scyl asked.
"Send for the overlady!"
The runner scampered off, and Maggat shook his head, looking over the scene before him.
"What are the matter, boss?" asked Scyl.
"Ain't you meant to be bringin' people back from the dead place?"
"Don't got much to do," Scyl said affably, flicking his cloak back over his shoulder. "The stompy armour like what you got is doin' a real wicked job at keepin' the lads and ladettes all alive and not dead. It are almost like a holiday."
"It no are like what it used to be," Maggat said thoughtfully. "Which I is a big fan of. We's old, ain't we, Scyl?"
"Dunno. You're the one who likes all the numbers and stuff." Scyl paused. "Dyin' too much is a young minion's game, though."
"Aye," Maggat said, accepting the shapes of those thoughts. "There ain't many ways to die that I ain't done. Poor Igni. He double-died. He'd have liked these stompy boys."
"Oh yeah, he'd have loved it! He'd have laughed and laughed when he burned stuff."
Maggat nodded firmly. "Urgh. I no like the in-true-specks-ton. Ain't natural. I are gonna make sure that no one are hiding and about to jump up and hurt the overlady. Give my stompy boy more of a go."
The overlady was called to see the strange thing the minions had found. And while Louise would have died rather than concede that it was in fact a hollow place which had big glowy crystals in it surrounded with spinning things, arcing lightning between each other, she did indeed think it.
Louise blinked. "Well, um. Fascinating. Those are clearly similar in nature to the Tower Heart, though cut differently. Perhaps that is why those rotating - oh, they look like some of the prayer wheels I saw in the Mystic East. How peculiar. But this is certainly the same style as the Tower. And minions, keep well back from the magical energies that are being discharged. You'll make a mess if you die from that and I can taste the evil in the air. It may be able to kill you permanently."
"Yep, that are what I thought, and we defin'tly didn't throw minions who I didn't like into the glowy bits to see what happened," Maggat said loyally.
"But you did."
"Of course! We was testin' it for you! An' I are pleased to announce that Scyl can fix up one of the lads if he gets fried with only a bit o' screamin' and trauma."
"Interesting," Louise said, considering that new information and trying to ignore the smears on the wall. "Maggat, secure this chamber."
"Right-o, overlady! Already done it 'coz I were anti-sea-pating your orders, but I can make sure it are more secure!"
Holding her place, Louise looked up at the strange, arcane machinery that had to have originally been built by the First Overlord. Which meant it was ancient beyond belief, yet it looked in far too good a condition for that to be true. She held her hand out, feeling the evil radiating from it. Feeling the new life within. Someone had been maintaining it. But why would they be paying attention to this little break-away fraction of the greater Albion? It couldn't be that it was providing arcane power to the systems in the greater part of the floating island. Maybe she should use those explosive charges that Jessica had provided here — except she didn't know exactly what it would do. But it had to be important to something, right?
"Somethin' are the matter, cruel and wicked oppressor of the masses?" asked Char, smoking his roll-up with a bitter fury that he wasn't allowed to pilot a golem.
"Just thinking," she said, placing the little box Jessica had provided by the base of one of the pillars. She touched the demonic sigil on the box, and it started to pulse a dull red, on and off. Blowing things up hadn't served her poorly to date, though she'd want to be well-clear before she did that. "About this place."
"Sounds like a bour-shwa-zee thing to do."
"The Isle of Wights. It doesn't look like the southern coastline of Albion."
"Huh?"
"It isn't the same. The rocks are different. Geographically… I don't think it is a chunk of Albion that crumbled away."
Maxy perked up. "Ah! It are a mystery! You is thinkin' someone else dragged it here before they put on those big chains that was holding it before you broke them?"
"Yes. And no," Louise said, frowning. When Maxy put it like that - what would be the reason to do that? After all, vast sums over the years must have been spent to keep the Isle of Wights here. And yes, now it might have been the traditional burial ground of the Albionese kings, but it surely couldn't have always been that.
But there had been smaller sky islands up there in that ancient war against the First Overlord that she had seen in the past.
"That means that this isn't just part of the greater structure of Albion which has broken away," Louise said slowly, horror and wonder fighting against each other. "This was a floating war fortress in its own right. And it has recognised a new master."
She bit back her rage at being denied this, unsure how much the feelings were hers and how much they belonged to the power within her. The next step might leave her looking silly. But it might also leave her looking like a genius. Assume this island had been built by the First Overlord as a sky-warship. Assume it had the functionality of her tower, which had also been built by the First Overlord. Assume that as a place of war, it would be desirable for the captain of this to be able to see the invaders and track their progress through the passages.
"Isn't that right, your majesty? You've been watching us ever since we came ashore."
Then, a laugh, high and gleeful. "Wonderful! Marvellous! I had wondered how long it would take you to catch on, but then again you are the most irritating, annoying bee in my pretty little bonnet!" said the Gallian king, his voice coming out of the very walls of the chamber.
"Show yourself!" Louise ordered.
"In good time, in good time, my mademoiselle. But I thought I would just be sure to congratulate you!"
Louise decided she hated men like this. So patronising! So awful! She held her tongue and waited to see what nonsense he had for her.
"After all, it was your magic that brought this sky fortress back to life."
"Why didn't you do it?"
A high pitched laugh echoed through the chamber. "Because then I would have exhausted myself! Now you are tired and I am fresh, and the time for our duel is fast-approaching!"
Acid churned in her gut. She clenched the fingers of her left hand, imagining the screams he would make if she burned him. "Who says we have a duel?"
"Because," and there was dark glee in his voice that had not been there before, "the only chance you have to win back your necromancer and claim the Heart of God from me is if you duel me. We will face each other, and this power will go to the better of us. Who is me. I am the better one. But you might disagree, even if you are wrong. But oh, such a duel! We will fight, and the winner will take the power, the artefact of the First Overlord that both of us bear, and take control of this war fortress! Such a prize!"
The temptation was great; her rage was greater. "I will stop you! If I have to, I can blow this chamber and send the island crashing down into the Great Northern Ocean!"
"Oh, do not pretend you are a heroine!"
"What's he saying?" Maggat growled, taking a clanking step forwards as if he could find something to punch. "Him goin' and callin you good like that!"
"You are not going to blow this island. Because you want my power. And you want the power of my prisoners. And you want this flying fortress. But most importantly, if you ruin this sky-island, I kill them here and now, rather than them being the prizes for our little wager."
Leaning on her staff, Louise forced herself to breathe. Inhale, exhale, and think of how good it would feel to outwit him. "So show yourself."
"No!" He cackled with laughter. "You have to hunt me down, and butcher these Albionese fools who think they are fighting for the good of Albigone! Ha! They will die to defend something which only makes them suffer! Kill them, my rival! Let them die in the name of their cause! And when they are dead and their blood stains the chalk of this island, maybe then you will find me! And then we will have our festival of war!"
"A war festival?" She had heard that the King of Gallia was crazed, and his rambling seemed to confirm it.
"All war is something to celebrate! Yes, my dear rival; our festival on this Isle of Wights will determine the fate of the world!"
Why wasn't he shutting up? "I will find you. And kill you," Louise vowed.
"Now that's the spirit, my dear! Toodle-loo! Be seeing you soon, mon ami!"
The presence departed, though Louise knew he was still watching her. Well, let him watch.
"Maggat!"
"Yes, overlady!"
"There is no change to the plans! We are taking this island, and killing anyone who gets in our way! He wants a spectacle! We will give him one to lure him out of his cowardly hiding-place!"
The minions cheered at that order, and Louise barely avoided retching in front of them. She was playing with Henrietta's life. Her friend, her love was in the hands of this madman and the only way to get a chance to save her was to be caught up in his game. Her mother wouldn't do this. Her mother's Rule of Steel was quite clear; one life was nothing in the face of the safety of the world. And this was the safety of the world. The power of Brimir, twisted and corrupted as it was, thrust into the hands of the mad King Joseph would do terrible things.
But Louise couldn't let Henrietta die. Her mother would think of the safety of the whole world, but Louise wouldn't do that. That was one little evil deed she would embrace. Leaning on her staff, she clutched it until the shaking in her knees went away. She was getting Henrietta back, alive and intact, and she didn't care how many people she had to kill to do it.
