SANITY LINE
XVI. Enter Mr Sands
Nothing he had read to date – whether it was Edward’s outdated governmental memos or the highly inaccurate reporting the press managed to print once it had been filtered by Agency – had prepared Niles for the sight of Occupied Tererra. He stood, with his companions, on a bluff that overlooked the city itself, enraptured. While Alexis and what was left of her officers made contact with a GSDF unit that had been lying in wait for them – a paltry dozen or so infantrymen - Edward and Francis had mustered what was left of their little “Tournament Club” with paramilitary discipline. With Banker gone it had mostly fallen to Scion and Prodigal to make plans for the Grey Angels, many of whom were beyond contact and transportation anyway.
It left him little else to do but to study the spectacular transformation that the city in the Terrwald had undergone. The woods around the city center had been felled, the surrounding lands of mounded ash, with the half-ruined towers of the city’s core stretching ever and ever more skyward, transitioning from steel and glass to ornately-worked white stone, to the scaffolding and rigging of ongoing construction. A ring of rolled cloud had formed, circumscribing the rebuilding and presumably most firmly-held part of the city, within which the sky was revealed to be a dazzling white field of black stars. Through that sky flitted dark shapes, beyond his skill, at this distance, to resolve as much more than dots, and the impossible height of the towers had stolen even his ability to estimate their size. In the face of such a phenomenal sight, even someone without his condition could be excused for refusing to believe their lying eyes. The unreality buzzed at the back of his mind, and though the sight seemed more and more like set-dressing and trompe d’oilel as he studied it, a threatening idea asserted itself in the back of his mind – that the sudden discovery of some clueful detail would cause the scene to become entirely real, and where would that leave his world-view then?
He heard a pair of footsteps behind him, and didn’t need to be told they were Scion’s. He addressed the other without turning, instead adjusting the fit of his mask slightly. “What do you see?”
Scion folded his arms, taking a moment to study the city. He spoke in uncertain terms, as though he knew he was being tested. “I see a city. It’s overrun by an enemy, perhaps too. The fighting was extensive. My brain tells me where the university campus and the General Hospital were and yet as I look there I see only ash and splintered trees. I see rain forming in the offing. The high towers of the financial district are broken, shadows of their former selves.”
Some aspect of the facade Niles was facing faded, and the detective forced his gaze away, back to his partner. “… How are we situated?”
“In total, a little over a hundred men, sixty of which are Crimson Knights, and the remainder being GSDF rangers, with the exception of you, me, Prodigal, Driver, and Diana.”
Prince frowned, unreadable behind his mask except by dint of Scion’s special talents. “Diana made it across the pond without Locuna?”
“Locuna is under detention in Galba Dea. They have him on a visa violation and don’t realize he is one of our number. They’ll deport him sooner than later.”
“If there’s a union left to deport him to,” a harsh voice quipped, its owner emerging from the scree.
Scion must not have been as surprised and dumbfounded by Archangel’s presence as Prince was, as he answered in as calm a manner as possible in these trying manners. “Have a little faith, Archangel. We’ve been in tighter spots.”
“We have?” The necromancer chuckled slightly.
Scion shrugged slightly. “I have, anyway. I trust your errand was productive?”
“In the extreme.”
Archangel strode into the makeshift camp the ragtag band had created for themselves, taking in the sight of all the men and women gathered to attempt the impossible. He was nodding, slowly, in silent approval, as his gaze turned back toward the city. “Scion, you will lead what Angels remain in our host into the city. It is of the essence that you deal with the faction you will find in the old Zaxtoniche Landesbanke building. They are shrewd and it is a job for those of our particular talents.”
“Got it,” Scion said, gesturing vaguely. Niles would later realize he had shown Archangel the Shakti Mudra of yogic lore. Why, he couldn’t say.
“Edward,” Archangel continued, raising his voice in a calculatedly martial way, both to get the man’s attention and to inspire the right sort of attitude. “Duke Adron still leads a host of the Gladfen Unseelie. I have no doubt you would like an opportunity to conclude your business with him. Lead your knights through the south of the city.”
Edward saluted with his sword, and turned to give his own orders.
Archangel’s pacing had brought him near to Alexis, to whom he spoke more softly. “If you would be so kind, Major, travel north, north-west. You will connect with a force of would-be allies that will give you the force you need to penetrate the heart of the city.”
“And just what will you be doing?”
Archangel chuckled, behind his mask. “What a necromancer does best, my dear. There is a ghost to wrangle.”
---
Banker was no stranger to the feeling of being balanced on a knife’s edge. He’d made a career of it, and not merely the lucrative and high-stakes relationship he had with the Grey Angels. Before he’d worked in black-collar and white-collar, he had been as true-blue as they came – a chef. A good one, some said. Others of course discounted any merit he had by virtue of the fact he’d turned away. Before that, he’d worked his way through university on state sponsorship as a ZASDF reservist, drilling in the cockpit of interceptors on the weekends to relax.
But being poised to fly into combat was a whole new thing. Every sortie carried a risk that the pilot wasn’t making it back, even in an aircraft as powerful as the Damascus. The sense of danger had mixed with the thrill of a childhood dream fulfilled and the onerous duty of being the cavalry, and having a whole damn plan of attack balanced on your shoulders.
Magnussun had built Damascus, here in the Infernal City, whose abyssal sky she plied as her captain, unmasked, waited for the proper time and place to order her into combat. She was no mere interceptor, and indeed would dwarf anything the ZASDF had yet to field. A modern ironclad airship like her was a force projection weapon, useless in a defensive force, by all modern conventions. However, like much the rest of what was good and known, these trying times were throwing out the military rulebook as well.
Magnussun may have built her, but Banker was not content to let them crew her. The crisp half-martial, half-formal uniforms of the crew were light and dark blue-greys, blazoned on the breast with the lipan-motifed wing-and-spear of Dynamo SEG. Banker now wore a similar such overcoat, open over a pressurizing flight suit, as he lounged, unmasked, in his command chair.
At his side, a video monitor showed a live feed from Michael Scamwell himself, in his office at Magnussun Tower. The Great Justice looked agitated, nervous. “… Be careful, Locke.”
A close friendship had existed between the Scamwell and LeCruset families ever since the Union had been established, with the latter’s powerful trade connections making a Scamwell political endeavor a tricky thing to uproot, to the point where Michael’s family had almost been a dynasty in its own right. As long as there had been Great Justices and a Union for them to lead, there had been at least one Scamwell in every generation elected to the office, and the backing of a Le Cruset to put them there.
“I’m always careful,” the lipan countered. In truth, Locke was famously anything but. He’d almost turned his back on the family’s powerful trade connections, preferring to dabble in his military and labour pursuits before circumstance dragged him back into merchantilism. Michael was quietly thankful that Locke’s overall disdain for tradition had given him a lack of political ambition. He’d have been a popular choice, and the last election had been close enough to begin with.
“Captain,” someone ahead of them said. “All stations report ready for transit, and clearance has been granted from Ormolu Tower.”
Locke stood, silencing what he was sure would have been a very stirring speech from Michael with a gesture. Whether the College of Judges would survive as a union or not, the incumbents woeful need for so much outside intervention to save his country had rendered him a lame duck, at least in Locke LeCruset’s eyes. “Commence transit. When we’re clear of the threshold, I want the escort wing deployed in a gradient screen formation, dense point toward the city center. Reserve power should be redirected to the cap bank as soon as transit falloff draw allows. Communications, I will need to speak with the Lord General of the ZASDF and the senior military officer on the ground as soon as possible.”
A round of acknowledgements went up. The sky before the ship tore open, the retreating blackness edged in regular and geometric squares and angles of luminous blue. Passing this threshold proved no barrier. Buoyed along on cushions of repulsive field, it experienced no turbulence, but exhibited no stealth, arriving in silence beyond the fanfare on the ground and the sudden whine of hundreds of sets of quadcopter rotors, as the slow-moving drones which made up its escort formation leaped from their racks into the air around them.
The unmasked banker embraced the rush of power and nerve that flowed through him in this moment, experiencing a brief but familiar clarity before a voice pushed in, unbidden. Scion could be persistent, when he wanted to. You look good up there.
You haven’t seen anything yet, Locke thought, and then his mind turned to the pressing business of command.
---
The Phantom wasn’t entirely sure what had captured his attention, but whatever it was, it had shaken him out of hours of stillness, standing in his appointed place in the living diorama that was the Carcosan Court at Tererra, and summoned him to the edge of the high building on which the court had been erected. From here, he commanded a view of the entire city, which keen eyes made keener by the blessings of the Living God, whose mad tatters swirled at the periphery of the descending curtain of cloud.
There was something wrong, just there, at the north-west edge of the city, where it faded into the Terrwald. Smoke had been on the horizon from more or less the same direction for several hours now. Byakhee-riders sent to Fen Ridge had found the city partially demolished and actively burning, with no sign of a military force that could possibly have been responsible for such wonton destruction.
The Phantom had been impressed. Now, he was disappointed. A force – one of adequate size, from a first-blush approximation, was surging from the wood in that same direction, precisely where they should have emerged if they were proceeding from Fen Ridge. Precisely where the Duke had massed his force of Unseelie warriors, which were already moving to respond.
The phantom moved too, with his massive Byakhee swinging down from the overhead formation, which had teemed and swarmed in response to the unexpected threat of the Infernal-wrought Airship. He strode to meet his mount, and ride it down to the battle, to take command for himself.
The beast’s insectoid droning became a startlingly shrill and human shriek, as steel rung out and the creature fell, bisected at the synapse between thorax and abdomen. The scythe that slew it spiraled about its own point of equilibrium, pivoting on the back of a slender and pallid hand. It was an unnecessary flourish, a challenge in terms as dramatic, as Carcosan as could be managed.
The Phantom and the Lich met each other’s gaze behind their respective non-masks, and Eli felt his lips curl in involuntary smirk before the beat had passed and the frenzied conflict could begin.
Behind him, Cassilda had risen her voice in song.
---
Edward had to hand it to Cassilda’s forces – they moved quickly. They moved quickly at Fen Ridge and they moved quickly here in the broken streets of the interim capital. The Crimson Knights were equal to that task, at least – with less equipment than modern soldiers, and a universally-athletic bent, they were suited to maneuver. It was fortunate, that most of the forces they encountered were busy moving toward the corridor-avenues that would funnel them quickest to the northwest, where Alexis and the Seelie Host were pushing their way into the city. Still and all, with two days of this task behind them, he and Francis were starting to feel as though they had been born on the run, swords in hand, and it was not unreasonable to them to believe they were fated to die in the same manner.
For Edward, anyway, this wasn’t the first time he’d experienced that sort of baptism in fire. It felt as though every few years some new conflict swirled up the ash-pit of his soul and rekindled it, burning yet more and more of the impurity out. Each new phoenix rising from the ashes of the old the purer, the older, the wiser.
How many more of these, he wondered, before he would feel as though he lived up to the promise of his public persona?
It was in rounding a corner that would put them on an arterial road moving from the suburbs to the city’s downtown core that they encountered the Unseelie. Most of the legion were cat-headed pookah, the odd boggan or redcap pressed into service. The fae had some advantage for the distance and the lack of cover. There were archers in their number, and mages too, though the latter were less lethal. Though magic was rare before the war, and limited to a few key individuals, Edward’s experiences had lead him to the belief that magic was by far the most dangerous weapon available. Undetectable and unpredictable, the only logical course of action was a solid defense against it. It was a discipline unique to the Crimson Knights as a school of martial arts, at least among the extant tournament clubs. So when a volley of fireballs was flung from the rearmost line as the foot-soldiers continued to charge, it was Francis and a small coterie of the senior knights who formed a line in response, not merely dispelling the attack but actively parrying it. Their elegant swords-dance was precisely timed. The fireballs were not merely sundered and robbed of their power, nor tossed inartfully aside, but actively thrown back into the throng. The resulting explosion killed many Unseelie Fae, no doubt including many of the mages responsible for having called their ignus fatuus into being in the first place.
The meeting of steel was more bloody. No amount of training could have prepared the paramilitary club of combat athletes for an encounter with actual soldiers, not that the Duke’s men were a professional force. It was in this respect that Francis and Edward were indispensable, pushing up to the front of the line, exercising their particular partnership and intuitive understanding of one another’s tells to fight in far closer proximity to one another than was typically advisable. Their students followed in their wake, mopping up the wounded, fighting off their own foes. Sharing in the common delusion of heroic invulnerability, the throng pressed deep into the Unseelie column.
The black banner fell between Francis and Edward like a lightning bolt, its landing like a clap of thunder that threw both men apart and to the ground. Edward saw Francis rolling even before he himself had met the asphalt, absorbed into a melee of Knights and footmen where he was likely to be trampled or worse. Edward hit the ground, and the figure of the banner resolved itself.
Adron, caped and mailed in sable, the two blades well-remembered held ready in his hands. Edward rolled too, arresting his momentum with a flex of elbow and knee, throwing himself up and to his feet. His own scarlet cape fanned out behind him, briefly, before settling as it often did, over his left arm.
He saluted Adron with his blade, issuing silent challenge, and paying the duke his proper respect by the right hand, while his left subtly eased crucea mors from its scabbard. The deadly left hand – le main gauche – that underhanded signature on his soul, unlikely to fade.
---
It was difficult to follow the battle between Archangel and the Phantom, even with the benefit of Dagonogvic’s Second Sight, or Vidcund’s Kirilian Lenses. The two were fast, unbounded by the typical rules of movement, their bodies too light and demi-corporeal to impede their own movement, which was formed through will over muscle.
Death had dulled none of Archangel’s martial reflex. He moved in a whirlwind, his Scythe dancing around him as though it had a mind of its own, switching freely from one- or un-handed grips on the defensive to mighty double-handed cleaves. The blackened steel hewed sections of floor or wall as easily as it would no doubt rend the Phantom if it could ever catch him, but like most large weapons, it was relatively slow and ponderous in comparison to its flighty target, or the Phantom’s edge. More than once, the sword pierced through the gaps in the wall of steel that Archangel’s left arm and weapon formed, plunging deep in the emptiness of the man’s coat. Such wounds burned in a way the lich would later find difficult to articulate, but they were far from fatal. Glancing blows against a soul enraged. Like whipping a bull, it did little to abate his advance, merely spurring him on.
Along the shore, the cloud-waves break,
​
Cassilda’s lilting voice somehow carried above the spew of vinyl, plywood, steel, and assorted elements of plumbing and cabling as Archangel sundered the floor beneath the two of them once again. As they fell to the story below, he slashed across himself, and for the first time heard the chime of steel. That blow had been close enough the mark that the Phantom had needed to block it, but it was unlikely such a trick would work again. The two parted a little, regaining their footing on the rubble that had only just beaten them to the floor below, sparing a fraction of a heartbeat to make themselves aware of their surroundings.
The building shuddered. Masked or otherwise, the Phantom seemed to frown. His uncertainty gave Archangel pause, but only for a moment, before he pressed his attack again, and, unbidden, the floor gave out beneath the both of them.
​
The twin suns sink beneath the lake.
From their own vantage point in a neighboring tower, Dagonovic, Valkoinen, and Vidcund watched, wincing, as the facade of the Zaxtoniche Landesbanke building collapsed into the once-vibrant square below. The grey-suited Vidcund looked meaningfully to Valkoinen, as two of his enforcement-armoured clones busied themselves with trying to raise Zephyr and Asmodeus on the radio.
“Go,” she said. “They’ll need you.”
Strange is the night that black stars rise.
The crumbling facade had barely settled, and the collapse-crushed automobiles were barely silenced, when the great cheer went up from the surround. The terraced city teemed with the masquerading denizens of Carcosa, Hali, and Hastur, who sent up the familiar refrain in celebratory solemnity. The strange winds stirred, bringing a fresh flurry of brandy-ash snow from the off-colour canopy, which mingled with the shredded confetti and petals and whatever other detritus they feted the victorious champion with. The Phantom had emerged from the rubble unscathed, and was in fact scarcely-dusted with the crumbs of the building.
Truth stretched his arms out to the sides in rare celebratory flare, stirring the crowd to a greater vigor, and he saw from their terraced point the watching Queen. Even from this vast distance, Truth could sense the Queen was troubled. Something conflicted her, and stretching out with his own senses, the Phantom could see that the Duke had lost control of his men. His queen would need him to lead their combined forces to victory, and quickly, before the more organized enemy could route them.
Truth took his first step toward joining the greater battle, when a scratching amongst the ground called his attention back toward him. He turned, and a section near the top of the rubble was thrown clear – with force and accuracy enough that the Phantom had to sidestep it. Smaller rubble, of dust and pebbled-concrete, fell around Archangel as he regained his full footing, unharmed, save for a few more tatters in his coat, which now hung open, revealing the shadow of a figure inside. His body, what was left of it, was lost somewhere below, but armed and armoured as he was, what need had he for that?
​
Song of my soul, my voice is dead.
Archangel moved with speed that betrayed the lightness of his demi-corporeal form. He was a sable blur, a corvine impression of presence that was simply now just behind Truth. His movement was marred by a clash of steel, as the Phantom, just, deflected the blow of the man's scythe with his own sword.
Archangel's posture, along with his body, solidified, and he interjected into the silence that now oppressed the impromptu arena. “Shall I not punish these people?” The biblical refrain came quickly to his lips. Often, the Sharonas had used the trappings of religion to their dramatic advantage, to confuse their enemies attempts to pinpoint their precise locus of faith and power. Archangel had a special penchant for fire-and-brimstone preaching.
The two turned to face each other, with Archangel slowly seizing and discarding his mask, revealing the wax-skinned, sunken-eyed corpse he wielded for his body, which even now was reforming out of the shadows of his coat. “On a nation such as this, shall I not avenge myself?”
​
The twin suns sink beneath the lake, the shadows lengthen in Carcosa.
---
Greta had a difficult time denying she was taking no small amount of pleasure in seeing the Seelie drive out the Unseelie before themselves. Valerian had, in exchange for the services of “her” ghoul, ordered Sir Reighleh to take her out onto the battlefield and see it for herself, having judged the Troll’s protection adequate. Equipped with a pair of binoculars and an obsidian bowl of water, Greta was happy to have the troll’s company as she moved from building to building, spying down on the crawling city below, looking for any sign of any of the fae who had wronged her.
There was a catharsis in that, a catharsis that relieved even the cerebral itch of the Yellow Sign, which flew from nearby towers in oppressive beckoning. It had left her entirely unprepared for what was to follow.
Reighleh wasn’t. He moved with surprising grace for a bull shrouded in steel, moving on the attack before Greta had even realized there was an enemy to hand. The Slaugh had emerged from the shadows of the car-park all at once, a blurring hand conjuring a swarm of steel, dozens of needles thrown with horrific abandon at the pair in the hope that one, even one, would sneak its way through the gaps in the troll’s armour.
One had. The troll roared, taking two gargantuan steps back, even as he stumbled down to a kneel. What neither he nor his assailant had been prepared for was the hot, stinging whine of lead as it sailed past the downed knight, impacting the cement wall behind Holly after passing a scant fraction of a degree above her shoulder. The second and third shots were even closer to the mark, missing only because Holly was even now reacting, seizing Greta, holding the witchling close.
The new assailant paused, shifting his weapon into a two-handed grip. To Holly he was like a screech owl, flowing tan coat and passive white mask, but this was no Pookah, Unseelie or otherwise. Nor was it a fae of any type with which the slaugh was familiar, nor, mask aside, a member of the Carcosan host. This was something else.
There was a pregnant pause. No doubt the shooter was looking for an open angle, in Holly’s mind. In Prince’s mind, hostage situation training he’d never had to use was being brought up rapidly from the back of his mind. Not rapidly enough. The creature and her victim were moving, running. She vaulted the railing, escaping out onto the terrace beyond it, and Prince was fast in pursuit. Or he was, until some invisible force seized him, throwing him to the ground just short.
“What the fuck, Scion,” Prince barked, fighting for his footing again, as the senior angel hurried along behind him, to catch up.
“Look again,” the psychic panted, turning at the hip to call out to Prodigal. “Help the other one, he was some kind of body guard.”
As Prince looked, his vision wavered, as flowing tears, or rain on the lens of his vision. Once he had blinked behind his mask, the terrace, the Moth, and the girl were gone, replaced by what his logical mind knew was meant to have been there all along – a sheer drop of several stories to the concrete below. Away, across the square, their target shuddered, a huge section of its front facade collapsing down into the square below, throwing rubble every which way.
“Well,” Scion said to him, “I guess we need a new plan.”
---
The Phantom came on Archangel like a bat out of hell, a blaze of steel against which Archangel could only defend himself, though, in that respect, he did very well. His scythe became a halo, a fell sun-glow which surrounded him with such constancy you could be forgiven for thinking some magic or other had been involved. The Phantom couldn’t land a hit, no matter how he moved, whether he took the high ground or the low. Throughout it all, Archangel was cackling, laughing like a madman at his own joke, as though he were somehow convinced the Phantom would tire any quicker than he would.
Then came a moment of mushin – the legendary Terrik no-mindedness. All that existed, in that brief glorious moment, was action. The advance of the Phantom’s blade, the balanced spin of the Scythe, that was all. It was a simple matter, then, to nudge the scythe just slightly, to let the blade pass through the hingeplate, where it duly became well and truly stuck, wedged in by a twist caused by the spinning mass of the Scythe’s heavy blade. Both men released their weapons – the Phantom having little other recourse, and that momentum carried them away, far to the right.
Archangel was determined not to let the Phantom recover from having the playing field so decidedly leveled, stepping into the gap at once. In this clarity, he could see the battlefield for what it was – a stage in the round, upon which only he and his target truly existed. Archangel’s martial prowess was not limited to his talent at spinning his peculiar choice of weapon. His fists, what was left of them, and his feet, his knees and elbows, all were deadly. There were many traditions of combat in the Terrwald, and the Sharonas had a better claim than most at having known them all.
Still the Phantom could resist. He was no fool, more ancient, perhaps, than the arts that Archangel practiced. But the moment of mushin remained. With no mind, Archangel could see the bad setwork on the stage. The cheap plywood facades, the rigging in the high rafters that supported the false sky. As his blows continued to fall, and more and more of them fell true, he could see the bad stitching in the Phantom, the cotton made to look like silk, the cheap appliqué disguised as good embroidery.
A heartbeat would have passed, had he a heart. The Phantom was no longer moving, instead just a convenient dummy upon which Eli’s blows could rain. In such an environment, it was easy to fall into the familiar old drills, the half-danced, half-intentional patterns of combat used to teach not just effective following-up, but precisely how to move to do it. For Archangel, this was just reflex. He moved into and around the Phantom until even Truth moved from his mind, and then there was only the moments themselves.
A brilliant moment of clarity. A single punch was all that existed. No stage, no phantom, no Archangel. Just this one blow.
The Phantom fell, but it wasn’t fair to say he hit the ground. Mind, and all its trappings, flooded in to fill the gap. The Phantom was undone. The set-pieces fell, scattering a mountain worth of the brandied ash all across the town. The eye in the sky blinked, and closed.
The explosion of the falling mote of Truth was deafening, and blinding, though when the dust settled, it would turn out very little had changed.
---
The drama in the downtown core Sunglade District had gone unnoticed on the Summerside overpass. The Duke had commanded all of Edward’s attention, so that even the melee around them seemed to fade into the background. In fairness, such a lapse in combat discipline couldn’t be helped. The Duke was a powerful enemy – faster than any human could have been, elegant, and careful in both his footwork and bladework. Edward was pressed, and hard, to keep up, especially if he wanted to keep his little main gauche a secret.
Still, if there was a human alive equal the task, Edward was a safe bet. He’d been a champion in the Youth Circuit for a few years in a row, until the accidents of age shifted his category and the accidents of fate took him far from the tournament scene. He’d been a strong-arm for Slipher for years, one of the best, briefly in Richard Cluny’s inner circle. A few years of administration may have dulled him, but a few years of training the younger recruits had kept him sharp.
Not that he was unwounded, if you could call the razor-nicks Adron occasionally scored as wounds. The Duke was not going to win by a finesse game. But his armour was thicker, his blade heavier, and he could win on strength, if he had a mind to it. The most recent hits were jarring, sending vibrations down Edward’s blade that forced him to grip it more firmly less he lost control completely. He felt each blow in his forearm, in his shoulder. That, he realized, he could withstand little of.
Adron rose his blade up for a high, crashing blow. Edward was too close to attack with his right hand, and so, had little choice but to betray the secret of his main gauche. There was no flourish and less artistry to it. He simply plunged the weapon out from under the weighted fringe of his cape, into the soft part of the Duke’s inner thigh, where no metal protected it, compounding the offense by sucker-punching the Sidhe with his handguard.
The Duke stumbled back, and there was a great, blinding flash. For an instant, Edward thought he’d been slain, along with everyone else, by some terrible explosion the likes of which had undoubtedly spelled the end of Kraterburg.
To his surprise, the glare passed, and his eyes regained their colour quickly enough to see the Duke, writhing on his feet a small distance away. The Sidhe was clutching the side of his head, as though locked in some struggle with his ornamental helm. For a moment, Edward allowed himself to believe he had won. He relaxed his white-knuckle grip on his sword, and watched the Sidhe tear of his mask-like visor in clumps. Watched him twist and stumble every time he put weight on his wounded leg, in which Edward’s knife was still embedded, still fulfilling the promise of the sword that killed some ancient foe or other.
It was not long before the Duke emerged from behind his pallid mask, whatever parts of it he didn’t tear away seeming to melt and fall to the ground – a mystery for another time, in Edward’s mind. His eyes were full of hate, and malice. He had doubtless waited a long time for this moment, this victory. He probably couldn’t believe he had lost to a mere mortal such as the Lord Protector of Figaro.
A deep, feral yell, and the Duke charged him again, lunging forward in a last-ditch attack, no doubt meant to take the fencer unaware and off guard. But Edward was used to fighting dirty, and he was crafty. A lifetime of being a little on the shorter side had given him an excellent understanding of his own profile. He shifted, slightly, throwing out his right arm and right foot into a textbook epee thrust, feeling the air move across his shoulders and the back of his neck as he passed just under the Duke’s blade. He watched, almost in slow motion, as the point of his weapon met the chain mail under his enemy’s arm. The links parted like butter against the harder steel, and it was Adron’s own speed and weight that impaled him quite so firmly on Edward’s weapon. The fencer could only roll with the momentum of the moment and unhand his sword, letting it fall with the Duke to the ground, where it was unlikely he would retrieve it from the man’s corpse without considerable effort.
Edward breathed. He always did, after he had killed. The battle had not been kind. He was bloodied, and sore, and unsure which wounds were real, which were imagined, or whose blood was whose. He turned on a heel, taking in the scene, a ring of his own people standing seemingly idle, with nothing better to do than to watch him. There was a little trace left of their enemy, a dissolving dust that mingled in the air with the brandy-ash, giving it a shimmer it didn’t quite deserve.
He reached down, rolling the Duke onto his back, and dragged his sword out of Adron’s side with both of his hands and a backward step to absorb the sudden loss of resistance. Adron, too, began to fade in the breeze, like this was all just a dream, as though him and his men had merely been the set-dressing of some illusion of a war.
Edward looked to Francis, who had stepped to his side, bearing the man’s familiar look of concern with a tired, if not half-pleased, stare. “… Get Alex on the damn radio, already. Find out what’s next.”
---
Maria wasn’t sure how long she spent slumped in the throne that had once been hers. Being masked, and subsequently unmasked, had taken its toll. She was young, and relatively inexperienced as a summoner, channeler, or mage of any other kind. But she was young, and tenacious, and had the spirit of her people alive inside her. The Lipan had survived much, she reminded herself. Maybe she would survive this.
The sun was low in the sky, now. The sky burned orange, gold, where the clouds gathered low over the trees of the encroaching Terrwald. It was here, in the cold light of what was left of the day, with the scales fallen from her eyes, that she could see the damage the Carcosan host had wrought.
That she had wrought, she supposed.
And yet, the damage didn’t look so bad from here. This building was badly damaged, and probably the rubble had ruined a few cars below. A section of the city on the north west was on fire in a few places. But it was nothing like Kraterburg.
Beat you again, Gloria, she thought, and turned her gaze skyward. The sky was right. A single moon. Stars, few that there were, white. She was free, and dared to laugh for it, to shout and breathe and celebrate her first free air in god only knew how long.
The door to the stairwell opened, and she turned, incredulous, to watch who emerged. A part of her, still childish, frightful, and afraid, rebelled at the thought of anyone coming through that door. She expected the Phantom, or Crowe, or some new unknown hell.
She hadn’t expected quite so motley a crew as these three men. One had stepped out of a catalog for a men’s suit wholesaler. One was close-shorn and preferred a bulletproof vest to a proper shirt. The other, rainbow-haired, was a walking ad for the emo music scene.
The thought brought Maria pause. Was punk rock even a thing anymore?
Mr. Big and Tall, the blonde who wore his sunglasses at night, reached up to remove them, holding them gently in his two hands. He didn’t smile. Vidcund knew that would be the wrong move. Maria had been taken in by a smile, after all. Time and time again. If he was going to lead her down the garden path, he’d have to be more subtle.
“I’m afraid, Miss Frost, I need to ask you to come with us.”
Maria peered at them from under the hood of her faded, dirty, yellow sweater, two sizes too small. It had been a long time since she’d seen the inside of a clothing store. “… Yeah? Who’s us?”
Vidcund looked to the man standing at either shoulder. “I’m Special Agent Vidcund Därk, these are Agents Zephyr and Asmodeus. We’re with Agency division.”
Maria seemed to consider that for a long while. “… Are you here to arrest me, Mr. Därk?”
“Agency Division can’t arrest people, ma’am.” Here, Vidcund smiled. “We’re here to escort you somewhere safe, and get you some help adjusting to your new reality.”
Maria considered that for a while. She considered the too-soft tar of the rooftop and the painted-on texture of the sky. “… I’m not well, am I?”
Vidcund knelt, offering her his hand. “These days, so very few of us are.”