“Nothing milady,” answered the ex-prisoner, a look of embarrassment on his face.
Irritation bloomed suddenly, a product of her fatigue. “Just ask me. Standing there making stupid faces is just going to annoy me. Whatever it is, I’ll answer.”
Wat’s face blanched, and he began to fiddle with his hands, but after a moment he spoke, “Is he your betrothed?”
“What? No!” The question startled her. “Why would you think that?”
“You seem to care a lot for him—and he’s a nobleman, and you’re a lady…”
Moira stifled a laugh as her irritation faded away, “I care for a lot of people. I hardly know this one. Anyway, the nobility aren’t like cats and dogs. You don’t just throw a male and a female together and expect them to pair up. Besides, how do you know I’m a noblewoman?”
Now it was Wat’s turn to look amused. “I may be slow, but I ain’t daft. You certainly ain’t common.”
She pursed her lips, uncertain how to respond, finally she said, “I guess I can’t argue with that. Since you aren’t daft, what do you propose we do from here?”
The lanky man shrugged, “We can’t stay here too long. If they find us here, it’ll mean trouble for my mam. Don’t you have a castle or someplace we can escape to?”
If only it were that simple, she thought. “I wish I did, but my home is far away. In any case, I cannot leave until I find my father. The King has him locked away somewhere.”
“Then he is doomed,” pronounced Wat.
Moira gave him a determined look, “I got us out of the King’s dungeon.”
“Once maybe, but the whole palace will be stirring like a nest of mad ants,” said Wat. “It’ll take more than some magic tricks and strange animals to go against the King.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but after a second she closed it again. Wat hadn’t seen most of what occurred. Part of it he had been forced to forget, and the rest had been mostly invisible to his eyes. Other than summoning Stretch, most of the escape had just been strange behavior on the part of the guards, at least from Wat’s viewpoint.
“I’ll see you safely out of the city, Wat, you and the Baron both. Maybe he has some place to keep you both safe, but that’s as far as I go. I have unfinished business with the King here,” she told him.
A fire was building in her heart. The deaths and the fighting she had seen and caused, at the palace had left her uncertain, but now her resolve was returning. Moira hadn’t asked for this fight, but now that she knew her father was near, and now that she had seen the monster lurking at the heart of Halam, she could not turn aside.
“You’ll die, milady.”
Moira blinked, “A lot of innocent people will die, Wat, but I won’t be among them, and I’ll hold the King accountable for their deaths. There is an evil lurking in this city. Even if my father weren’t here, I couldn’t turn back. What they are doing to these people is unforgivable.”
What about what you’ve done to some of these people? Wat for example..., suggested her silent observer.
Shut up.
Needing a distraction from that uncomfortable thought, she glanced at Lenny. The dead man had been sitting quietly in a corner since they arrived. “I need some time to think,” she told Wat since he hadn’t spoken after her last remark. “And I need to work on Lenny here.”
“What will you do with him?” asked Wat. “He’s one of the King’s guards after all, he shouldn’t even be here.”
“Just leave me be,” she sighed.
Wat stared at her for a moment and then bowed his head before backing out of the room. Moira let the ensuing silence soak into her bones for a moment and then let her magesight roam outward, exploring the neighborhood around their new hideout. She found nothing out of the ordinary, no guards or watchers studying the house. Perhaps things will be quiet for a while, she thought.
Turning her attention to Lenny, she moved closer to the living corpse that was occupied by one of her spellbeasts. The logical thing to do would be to let the body die and repurpose the spellbeast as a creature of pure aythar. She could use a guardian. I could use several guardians.
But she had other needs. The thing lodged in the guard’s throat was a mystery, one that lay at the heart of what was going on in Halam. Being a thing of dead metal, she doubted she could get any information from it, but she might be able to learn how to remove it. And who better to practice on than someone who is already technically dead?
Steeling herself, she focused her senses on his neck, examining the strange metal thing that was lodged within him. In structure it was like a bizarre metal centipede, with the notable exception that it had fewer legs, and they were much longer than a centipede’s would be in comparison with the length of its body. The main body was close to two inches long and over half an inch in diameter, and it had burrowed into the soft tissue at the back of the throat, using its claws to anchor itself beside the spine.
From what she thought of as the creature’s head issued a long metal filament that followed the spine upward before entering the base of the skull and branching out. The ends of the branches all terminated in the apple-like structure at the base of the skull.
Dad would be disappointed in me for not remembering the name of it, she thought. It started with a ‘c’ I think.
That didn’t matter at this point, though. She did remember what it did. It was the part of the brain responsible for coordinating movement.
Moira spent several minutes formulating a plan. Once she was ready she created a fine shield around each of the tiny filaments that penetrated the skull. Carefully, she then began easing them out, pulling them back and simultaneously protecting the soft brain tissue around them. They were tiny and had inserted themselves in such a way that removing them was unlikely to damage anything.
Things went smoothly at first, but once they were removed, the main body of the creature did something unexpected. Several razor sharp legs moved sideways and before she could react they cut cleanly through the poor man’s carotid artery.
“Shit!” she exclaimed, panicking. She clamped a shield around the thing, preventing further damage, but the worst had already been done. Blood was gushing from the artery, and Lenny’s mouth was full of it. His body died while she feverishly tried to seal the blood vessel.
Moira had seen plenty of blood before, that didn’t unnerve her, but watching the metal abomination with her magesight as it began trying to work its way out of the dead man’s throat nearly caused her to lose the contents of her stomach. Clamping a powerful shield around the thing, she crushed it before it could finish escaping.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to run screaming from the room. She was tired and disgusted and horrified all at once. None of it was right, none of it was fair. She was too young for this. No one should be forced to deal with what she had seen and experienced over the last twenty-four hours.
But she didn’t.
Instead she closed her eyes and thought about her father. He needs me. Taking several deep breaths she tried to slow her heart and unclench her stomach. Then she felt her spellbeast, whom she still thought of as ‘Lenny’ despite the unfortunate man’s death. It was still there, attached to the dead corpse.
Focus on what you can do. That’s what her father would have said. Moira ignored the gore and drew the spellmind from the dead body and began working on it, reshaping it. Speech was definitely a necessity, as well as a slightly more complex set of decision making abilities. Once that was accomplished, she began channeling her aythar into it, strengthening it, and giving it a powerful body constructed of pure magic. A lion would be nice.
A half hour passed while she worked on it, and then she created a second one. Lenny and Larry, she decided, naming her guardians. She gave Lenny the form of a great cat, while Larry was shaped as a massive ape. Hands could be useful. Once the details were accomplished, she channeled all of her remaining energy into them. She hadn’t sensed any danger nearby, and once she had rested she wou
ld recover most of her own power and have two powerful companions as well.
Exhaustion granted her the gift that had been denied her until then. Sleep came quickly as she leaned into the corner and made a pillow out of her arm. The fact that she slept in a room with a nearly dead man and an actual corpse didn’t even cross her mind.
She awoke to chaos, “Moira! Milady! Help!” She blinked and sat upright in alarm.
Well, she attempted to do so. She quickly discovered that she was no longer propped against the wall. At some point she had slid down to the dirty floor, and when she tried to use her left arm to push herself upward, it refused to respond. It had gone completely numb from the shoulder joint down.
“Wargle!?” she shouted, both a question and a reassurance to whomever was calling for her aid. A moment later her brain had identified the voice that had spoken as belonging to Wat, and immediately after that her eyes focused on him, cowering by the door that led into the room.
Her new guardians were glowering at him menacingly.
“Don’t let them kill me!” cried Wat.
“Relax, you’re perfectly safe,” she replied, but the movement alerted her to the fact that something was stuck to her face. Raising one arm, she wiped a large amount of dust and wet lint from the side of her cheek. Looking down, she saw a small pool of drool where she had been lying. Spitting, she realized that some of the detritus was clinging to her lips. “Oh! That’s just…”
Moira paused then, struck by the ridiculousness of her complaint. Across the room lay a cold body, complete with a disturbingly large pool of blood around it. Somehow that still didn’t make her feel better about the unidentified dirt on her lips.
And her arm still didn’t work, although it was beginning to awaken and send increasingly powerful signals of pain back to let the rest of her body know it was still alive. This just keeps getting better.
She ordered her guardians to relax and took a minute to settle Wat down. Apparently, they had taken exception to him when he tried to awaken her by shaking her shoulder. Once she was sure that no one was about to commit violence, she was finally able to ask Wat the truly important question, “What’s going on?”
“There are men outside. I’ve looked out all the windows. I think they’re in the back too. We’re trapped,” moaned the ex-prisoner.
Moira expanded her awareness, letting her magesight explore the area around the house. She didn’t like what she found. Not only was Wat correct, but there were more coming, filtering into the neighborhood in ones and twos. Possibly, the only reason they hadn’t attacked yet was the simple fact that they hadn’t all arrived. There were already more than a hundred people outside, and that number seemed likely to double in a few minutes.
Worse, it wasn’t just men, as Wat had said, it was a wide variety of people. A few were guardsmen, but they were outnumbered by the plain citizens in the crowd. Men, women, and even a few children were gathering outside. Careful inspection of them revealed that they all bore the strange metal parasites within them, at least the four or five she took time to examine did.
“I think we have overstayed our welcome,” noted Moira. Oddly enough, she felt no fear. She wondered if she had used up her capacity for it. She merely felt tired, and sore. Her arm had begun working once more, but it ached terribly.
The sound of the front door caught her ears then, followed by Mrs. Perkins’ strident voice, “I had nothing to do with it! They said they’d kill me if I talked! Please don’t hurt me.”
Moira looked at Wat sadly, “Your mother is very devoted to you.” It was hard for her to fathom a parent that would abandon her child so easily. It ran counter to her own life experience thus far.
Wat merely shrugged, “I’d have done the same in the past. Can’t really blame her. Don’t worry, though. I won’t leave your side, no matter what happens.” His face wrinkled in thought as though he was trying to figure something out. “I’ve been different lately—since I met you.”
She avoided meeting his gaze as a feeling of guilt passed over her. She knew she had broken the rules when she had begun changing people, but she hadn’t really had much of a choice. I made him better. Can that be so wrong? She was distracted from that thought when her magesight noticed something unusual outside.
The mob was ignoring Wat’s mother.
The old woman was still begging and crying, but the people paid no heed to her. They let her pass through them without trying to stop her.
This isn’t a human guard detail, acting on the orders of a ruler. This is a collection of monsters, and all they want is me, she realized. For some reason, that brought a sense of relief to her. “Wat, you can go. They don’t want you. Just walk out, and you’ll be fine.”
The skinny man frowned, “I won’t abandon you.”
For the first time, she regretted instilling so much loyalty in him. Now it would likely get him killed, adding another death to her conscience. “You can’t help me in a fight like this, and you’ll just get yourself killed. Escape now, and if you absolutely must, you can follow me after I leave. It may be that you’ll find some opportunity to help me later. Trying to protect me, you will only make things more difficult for me.”
Wat stared at her, conflicting emotions warring within him, but eventually he nodded, “If that’s what you want, milady.”
“Good,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Go now, while there’s time.”
Once he had left, she looked at what remained to her. She had the Baron to worry about. He was still unconscious, otherwise she might have had Wat try to help him leave. As things stood now he would have to be carried by Stretch once more. If she left him behind he might not survive unattended. I should have given my helpers wings, she realized, but there was no time for that now.
She loaded Gerold onto Stretch and prepared to leave. Moira couldn’t see any other options, they would have to walk out one of the doors, and neither one seemed to offer any particular advantage. They’re just people, even if they’re being controlled. They can’t stop me. Her energy reserves had recovered significantly during her nap, although she was definitely not fully herself yet.
Speaking softly to herself, she used her will to summon a heavy mist, covering the area around the house in a thick fog, and then she opened the door. No one moved as she and her companions exited.
Belatedly she realized there was one important question she should have asked Wat. Which way is the shortest route to the city gate? “Shit.”
Moira took a deep breath. She would just have to stick to a straight course and trust that eventually she would find the city wall. If necessary, I’ll just go through the damn thing. That thought made her chuckle, although it came out as a shrill almost hysterical sound when it exited her mouth. “Lenny, you take the left and Larry, you take the right. Stay behind me and keep an eye on Stretch and Gerold. Match my speed, and try not to hurt anyone unless it’s necessary.”
“How will we know what is necessary?” asked Lenny.
“Anything that threatens to stop me from getting the Baron out of the city. That’s our goal. Got it?”
“Got it,” answered the spellbeast.
Moira began walking forward with Stretch and the others following close behind. She kept a powerful shield around herself and another over Gerold where he lay cradled on Stretch’s back. As she walked she could sense the people in the fog moving. Those on the other side of the house moved forward and those to the sides moved inward. Somehow they could sense her movement despite being unable to see through the fog.
They can tell where I am, noted Moira clinically. That shouldn’t be possible. The parasitically controlled crowd showed no signs of exceptional aythar or special ability. She doubted any of them had magesight, and if they did, certainly not all of them. How are they doing that?
The crowd was moving, drawing inward to enclose them.
Moira released the fog since it didn’t seem to be helping anyway. Immediately after, she began quick stepping and resor
ted to one of her father’s favorite tricks—the flashbang, “Lyet Bierek!” The air in front of her was torn by a massive crack and a blinding flash of light, neither of which passed through her shield.
She repeated the words and sent her aythar outward in rapid order, ripping the night into a chaos of noise and searing light. It was a display that would have sent most armies into rout, and it clearly had an effect here, but it was not nearly what she had expected. Men and women flinched and closed their eyes, and some covered their ears, but none of them ran or fell back. Blind and deaf, they showed no sign of fear.
She pushed forward nonetheless, expanding her shield into a wedge-like shape as she forced a path through the crowd. The weight of their bodies against it was considerable, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. The difficulty lay in trying not to injure them. It was tempting to use her power to throw them violently backward. It would have been far easier, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that to so many innocents.
Her magesight showed her a clear vision of her spellbeasts behind her as they struggled with those who closed in from behind. It was a weird slow contest, as normal humans grappled with them, trying to pull them down or just separate them. As strong as her guardians were it was impossible to ignore so many hands pulling at them, and eventually they were forced to violence to free themselves from the mob.
Moira dipped her head, letting her hair fall over her face as she continued onward. She pushed the press of bodies aside by sheer force of will, but their weight kept increasing. In the back of her mind desperation loomed, warning her of failure. She wasn’t strong enough to keep it up indefinitely. Her choices lay between continuing until she was exhausted or destroying those who sought to stop her.
There has to be a better way. What would father do?
He would have made a “circle” and evacuated everyone long before coming to this. How many times did he try to get me to memorize the circle keys? She cursed herself for ignoring that advice. She had often chided her brother for his lackadaisical attitude toward learning some of the things their father had tried to drill into them, most notably healing, but she knew he had memorized the location keys for all of the circles.