Mage's Blood

37

Beneath the Surface

General Leroi Robler

Leroi Robler was already old in 909 when his country summoned him to war, but he was a veteran of the First Crusade, and he had the respect of his men. That respect became adoration after victory upon victory against the much larger armies of Rondelmar in the Noros Revolt. Unbeaten in the field, General Robler was the banner of Noros, and only when he laid down his blade did his country surrender.

MAGNUS GRAYNE, THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION, 915

Norostein, Noros, on the continent of Yuros

Junesse 928

1 month until the Moontide

Alaron bellowed in fright as Muhren lurched out of the torrent of fire, his shields flickering, Ramon convulsing in his arms. Langstrit raised his hands and shouted, and chains of emerald light flared around him, then shattered with a deafening roar that any mage would have felt ten miles away. Alaron staggered from the force of it, but he stumbled forward to try and reach Ramon, Cym beside him. Muhren sealed off the hatch with a warding of blue light, even as it started to shake from the blasts striking it.

Cym pulled Ramon, choking for breath, from Muhren’s arms and shouted at him to lie still, to just hold on. Alaron offered up his own gnosis-energy to Cym, to to aid her healing-gnosis, trying to let his power flow cleanly. Desperation lent him clarity, and he cradled Ramon, trying not to gag on the seared meat smell as he stared at the feathered bolt jutting from his best friend’s belly, and the charred skin around it. Breathe, Ramon, just breathe. He felt Ramon convulsing faintly, his heartbeat erratic.

Muhren stood over them, straining to keep his barrier on the hatch intact. The pulsing light and flaring about the warding showed the forces he was fighting, but his strength was buying them precious seconds. Jarius Langstrit eased Alaron to one side. ‘Lad, let me.’ The old man gently laid Ramon on the stone and raised his hands, which began to drip pearls of liquid energy: Ascendant power, unchained: he’d broken from the Chain-rune that bound him. The bloody crossbow bolt disintegrated and liquid light poured into the wounds, soothing the seared skin. At last Ramon went limp, groaning, and Langstrit cocooned him in a web of gnosis, shields and wards.

The general turned to Alaron. ‘Lad, we have to go.’

‘Ramon’s still alive – we have to take him!’

Langstrit’s gaze was patient, despite the urgency. Behind him, Muhren was pulling Cym to her feet, his eyes on the warded hatch. ‘You can’t help him now. He will live, if he suffers no further harm, but I can do no more. But he cannot be moved, and we must go, or Vult will have us all. You can stay if you want, or you can come with us and fight. I’m sorry.’

Alaron flinched from that intense stare, looked helplessly at Ramon. ‘But we can’t leave him for Vult—’

‘If we all move, Vult will follow us. If we triumph, we will return for him. But if even one of us stays, both will be taken.’

‘My father said that you would never leave a wounded man on the field!’

Langstrit winced. ‘That’s just ballads and poetry, boy. In war, all choices are evil.’

Above them the ground shook and dust and small pebbles fell from the ceiling. ‘Sir, we must go,’ Muhren shouted from beneath the hatch. His voice was strained as his hands wove new shields. Coruscating light boiled above, casting garish hues about the cellar. ‘There are at least four magi up there.’

Cym grasped his hand. ‘Alaron, come on.’ Her face was as hard as diamonds. ‘Ramon is out. Are you with us or not?’

He snatched his hand away, feeling torn in two. A true hero would know what to do: he would stay with his friend, if that was right – or he would see out this quest to the bitter end, if that was right. But he would know. ‘I don’t know—’ he started.

‘Rukka mio, Alaron – decide,’ Cym shouted.

The floor shook again and Muhren cried out. Langstrit put a hand on Cym and Alaron’s shoulders. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to use Earth-gnosis to get out of here. I’ll draw Vult away to the south – he’ll believe that I’m making a break for where I’ve hidden the Scytale, and he’ll follow. You two stay with Jens and retrieve the Scytale. We’ll meet in Bossis next week, at the Blackwater Chapel. Don’t wait longer than a week, understood?’

Cym nodded, her eyes boring into Alaron. ‘Yes!’ she snapped, then to Alaron, ‘Let’s go!’

Alaron looked at the cocoons of light about Ramon and then met her ferocious gaze. ‘Okay,’ he said at last.

Langstrit looked at him sympathetically. ‘Go with Jens. Farewell!’

Then his face hardened and he gathered his powers. The air about him swirled until he was at the eye of a tiny storm. He looked at Muhren and grinned, then thrust his left hand upwards and his right hand sideways. A concussive force flew from either hand and the general drove upwards, soaring through the earth as if it were paper. The burst of energy as the ground ripped dizzied them, and they heard the screams of at least three men. Then the general was gone, his presence receding in a blaze of gnosis like a comet.

Muhren pointed to the northern wall, where Langstrit’s right hand had blasted a hole into another chamber beyond, and cried, ‘This way – come on!’

Cym gripped Alaron’s hand and yanked him after her, but he looked back at Ramon and whispered a prayer, he had no idea to whom: Be safe. Be safe. Please, be safe.

Muhren closed the hole behind them with a pained effort, in stark contrast to the Ascendant general’s effortless explosion of might. He might be a Hero of the Revolt, but he was only a half-blood – And we’re probably going up against pure-bloods, Alaron thought fearfully.

Gnosis-light glowed in Muhren’s left hand, illuminating the chamber: a small cellar full of broken barrels, generously festooned with spider-webs. The captain spotted stairs in the corner and stormed up them. He burst the locks of the door at the top and they followed him into the house, ignoring the frightened cries of the owners as they thundered out the back door and into a yard.

Muhren spoke into their minds as they vaulted the low fence and sprinted down an alleyway. <Vult won’t have too many with him, because he won’t want to share the prize. Let’s hope they all went after Jari. Come on!>

Movement drew his eye and Alaron glanced over his shoulder, but it was gone before he could react. They ran down another alley and into a small square lit by the half-moon, their feet thudding on the cobbles as they flew across the open space. Then a crossbow sounded, and a bolt flew past Cym’s shoulder. Muhren threw a gnosis-bolt down the alley behind them and was rewarded with a shriek. He pointed towards a street opposite and cried, ‘Run!’

They ran.

When Norostein Council extended the reservoir at the western end of Lake Tucerle, they botched the job – or deliberately got it wrong, depending upon who you believed. One spring morning in 887, seventy rickety buildings on the northwest tip of the lake were swept away when the flood-banks gave way under the first flush of the thaw through the newest aqueduct. More than two hundred people lost their lives. An error in the peak-flow calculations was blamed, though the engineers were not fired, nor even reprimanded. It was just coincidence that the council had tried to evict those same tenants and had been blocked by the courts. Despite the rumours of conspiracy, the council finally had their extended reservoir, and new flood-banks were established to contain it. When the water was particularly clear, anyone standing on those flood-banks could see the decaying buildings below.

Alaron and Cym ran, panting, to the edge of the lake and almost collapsed. Their gasping breaths rose like clouds. Muhren joined them, far less distressed by the mile-long run. They had paused only once, when they ran into a Watch patrol, but Muhren had sent them off with a cock-and-bull story about robbers in Old Town.

Now the tenth bell of night chimed through the city. The half-moon was westering, its face beginning to turn pink, and the eastern sky was softening towards dawn. The flood-bank was capped by a promenade, complete with a bronze statue of Jarius Langstrit himself, posed as he’d been in the Revolt: shouting orders whilst pointing with his sword.

Cym patted it as if for luck. ‘Is this where we go in?’ she asked, peering at the black water. It radiated cold. Her face was all fierce purpose and she frightened Alaron right now; her almost callous dismissal of Ramon’s plight bothered him. Only the prize matters to her now.

‘It is as good a place as any,’ Muhren replied, looking up at the statue of Langstrit. Alaron wondered if the general still lived. He was an Ascendant, but he was old and outnumbered.

Cym touched Muhren’s arm: shadowy shapes as large as ponies had emerged from the alleys, dark things that reflected the moonlight as they stalked across the green towards them. Alaron gulped as their forms became clear.

There were five of them, moving with jerks and bounds. They were shaped like hounds, but with carapaced bodies, each with six legs. The heads seemed to be pure insect, except for the inches-long teeth in their maws. Instead of tails, some kind of stinger rose from their hindquarters and swayed like bobbing bulbs above their heads. The head of each was about chest-height. They had probably three times the bulk of a man.

‘Constructs,’ Muhren cursed, and Alaron scowled; animagus constructs were warped products of nature and you couldn’t banish them as you could a spirit. You had to kill them. ‘Fyrell’s work, I warrant,’ Muhren added, edging his blade with gnosis-light. ‘Get behind me.’

One had advanced much faster than the rest and Muhren strode forward to meet it. It emitted a shrieking sound, and the rest responded by surging into an awkward gait, rearing up so that their forelegs – long, jointed limbs with sharp, raking claws – were free to attack.

Alaron and Cym shivered and she whispered a prayer.

‘Go, you two,’ yelled Muhren, blurring into motion, ‘go – now!’

Alaron‘s jaw dropped as the watchman thrust out a hand and a curtain of fire rippled across the wet turf and engulfed the charging creatures. For a moment he thought it might have stopped them as two went down in the blaze, emitting a high-pitched squeal that tore at his eardrums, but one had managed to leap the fiery barrier and now it skidded towards them on the wet turf. It snapped at Muhren, but his form blurred with the shadows. The construct’s mandibles clashed on empty air and it wrenched its head about in frustrated fury. Then it spied Alaron and its eyes lit up.

Muhren lunged out of the darkness. He stabbed his sword into the creature’s side and twisted; dark blood sprayed and it sagged sideways, an unearthly shriek rending the night. Then the remaining two creatures leapt the fire barrier and charged. One went for Muhren; the other headed straight for Alaron.

‘Into the water!’ Muhren’s cry was frantic, and then he was rolling away from a stabbing tail-sting. The construct followed his roll, landing on him, and they heard him cry out. He stabbed upwards into its open mouth and the thing staggered, but its tail whipped over and punched its deadly venom onto Muhren’s chest before it toppled sideways.

An instant later, the other charging beast had reached Alaron.

Come on, you’re supposed to be able to do this, he snarled at himself, hurling up a Barrier-rune. He threw everything he could muster into it, but he knew he’d screwed it up even before the creature came straight through it. He desperately flung himself aside, feeling the stinger as it whipped past his thigh and stabbed the earth. He rolled and thrust blindly, in case it had followed his movement, but it hadn’t: it had careered straight onwards and was leaping at Cym, who was floating a foot above the flood-bank.

‘Cym!’ he screamed in horror.

The thing soared, its jaws snapping, its claws reaching, and she blurred away to the left – revealing the statue behind her, its bronze sword extended. The creature’s headlong leap ended in a sickening thud as it impaled itself upon the outstretched bronze weapon. The blade punched through the creature’s chest and came out its back. Black blood spurted as the creature thrashed weakly, then went limp.

<Well struck, General!> Alaron heard Cym exult.

Alaron looked back for Muhren, who was crawling to his feet, his battered breastplate covered in noisome fluids, his breathing laboured. ‘Muhren,’ he asked, ‘did it—? Are you—?’

‘Good Noros steel,’ the watchman panted, slapping at his dented breastplate. ‘But I’ll need a blacksmith.’ He turned and sent a further torrent of fire into the two burning creatures, which made them squeal like pigs and thrash about wildly before they went rigid and curled up like dead flies. ‘Are you both all right?’

Cym nodded. ‘The general got that one,’ she remarked of the one impaled on the statue.

‘I hope the real Jari is faring as well,’ Muhren panted. ‘Now it’s time for you to do as you’re told. Get into the bloody water and find that thing. I’ll keep anything from coming for you.’

‘Come with us,’ Alaron urged, ‘while there’s time.’

‘There is no time,’ he said grimly and pointed back across the green where the creatures had come from. A man walked towards them: Darius Fyrell. The Arcanum Magister clicked his fingers and the two burning construct corpses suddenly stood in a flux of purple gnosis-light, their eyes glowing as they sought Muhren.

‘Now run,’ Muhren shouted.

Alaron saw the burning gnosis-constructs stumble erect, violet necromantic-gnosis spilling from their eyes, and felt a sickening hopelessness. Cym gripped his shoulder. ‘Stand still,’ she hissed and clapped a hand over his mouth and nose. He felt fluid fill both and nearly screamed before he realised what she was doing. Water-breathing gnosis… He gasped, and nearly choked. Rukka, he thought, I’ve got to breathe water now, or I’ll drown up here! He ran desperately towards the top of the flood-bank and dived off the edge into the black water. Even as he plunged through the water, he heard another splash and he opened his eyes to see a pale shape dart past him in a swirl of bubbles. Gnosis-light flared, revealing Cym kicking off her shoes and billowing skirt before plunging downwards into the darkness.

Good idea! His own boots and clothes felt impossibly heavy. He fought his way free of the clothing and footwear, and managed to loop his belt, the sword still attached, over his shoulder. He’d not yet taken a breath, but he could delay it no longer and sucked in water, fearing the worst. But Cym’s spell worked, and all that hit the back of his throat was air.

Thanks and praise! He winced a little as the cold water filled his mouth and became air: it felt uncanny, but it was endurable. He created a gnosis-light before him, like a will o’ the wisp, and sent it ahead, lighting the way down into the depths of the lake.

The sword’s weight helped pull him downwards and he soon caught up with Cym. Her legs were pale in the dark water and her long black hair and white blouse rippled as she swam. She too had a gnosis-light bobbing before her. As they descended, fish darted aside in silvery flashes. A dark bulk loomed out of the depths, the roof of a drowned hovel. Cym flowed past it into what would have been an alley. <This way!> she whispered into his mind.

Alaron glanced back up at the shimmering surface far above, trying to quell his fear. How long have we got? Can Muhren hold out against Fyrell?

Belonius Vult’s moneyed friends liked to talk about ‘risk-free investments’, but Vult knew such things did not exist. There was risk in all things, and the bigger the gain, the bigger that risk.

He could live with that. You picked your battles, avoided foolish fights like Lukhazan and went for the jugular when the odds were tilted in your favour. He had never flinched in the face of danger, not when there were worthwhile gains to be had. They were always calculated risks, certainly – unknown risks were for fools dazzled by the prize.

But this is for the greatest prize of all.

Langstrit had erupted from the earth and soared into the skies like burning pitch hurled by a siege-engine. Fortunately, Vult had anticipated the potential for a chase; he had a skiff ready for just such an event. He gestured for Besko to follow him, leaving Fyrell and his entourage to mop up the others. A young pilot-mage crouched beside the tiller, his eyes eager. Vult leapt in beside him with gnosis-assisted grace, Besko clambered in behind him, then they lifted and caught the wind. In seconds they were soaring above Turm Zauberin, over the south wall and towards the Alps.

Their quarry flew before them, his arms spread like a bird, but they were gaining on him. Flying with just the gnosis was hard, while the skiff took almost no energy and travelled faster. We will catch you soon, Langstrit, Vult thought. You can’t keep that up for long, Ascendant or not.

He thought about who they faced: An Ascendant, ill-equipped and unused to exerting his powers –he’s already burning gnosis at a dangerous level. He’s an old man, despite his power, and frail after all those years we had him under lock and key.

‘Where is he going?’ Eli Besko panted.

Vult masked his disdain for the fat popinjay; Besko knew what was at stake, of course – that was unavoidable. But Vult had no intention that Besko should ever survive their victory. He wished for an instant that Gurvon Gyle was here, but that was a dangerous wish – with Gurvon present, he’d have to watch his back. At least Besko’s treacheries were containable.

‘There are two possibilities, Eli: one, that he has abandoned his accomplices and is running straight for the prize. Two; he seeks to divert us, and his accomplices are going for the prize.’

‘The former, surely,’ Besko said instantly. ‘The stakes are too high to risk anything else.’

‘Perhaps – but it is in his nature to trust his underlings, and he is already an Ascendant. He can afford to run the other way. Worst case, he will still be what he is, an Ascendant mage. The second option cannot be ignored.’

Besko frowned, digesting the idea that Langstrit might have trustworthy accomplices, when Vult might feel that he himself did not. ‘You can trust me absolutely, Governor,’ he responded, tellingly.

Really? We’ll see … ‘That’s excellent news, Eli, but we are considering Langstrit: his character would lead one to believe that option two is the more likely, and that would mean Muhren and his young friends are the people we should be following. However, you will notice that I still elected to follow Langstrit south.’

Besko thought it through. ‘The risk of letting him go is too great. If he’s really the one going for the Scytale we’ll never get it back if we let him go. If his accomplices are the real hunters, Fyrell will destroy them; or we can return to their trail as soon as Fyrell confirms that fact.’

‘Correct, Eli: Darius Fyrell is more than a match for Muhren, and Mercer and his friends are worthless. No, the real challenge is ours: how do we deal with Jarius Langstrit?’

Besko swallowed, reflecting on his own narrow escape from annihilation when Langstrit fire-blasted the street as he flew up through the stone. ‘He might not even have a periapt attuned.’

‘True, but we cannot count on that. So what plan have you formed to take him down, Besko?’

Besko grimaced, clearly unused to thinking so hard. ‘Uh, he is a Thaumaturge, lord. His greatest strengths are the elements, but he is weak against mental attacks.’

‘Indeed.’ Vult sent his mind outwards, following that blaze of energy ahead. ‘And old, Eli: he is old. Conserve your powers, when the battle comes; remember, it is more economical to defend than to attack. We harry him, we wear him down. And if Fyrell sends confirmation that Muhren should be our target, then we break off immediately.’

Eli hissed suspiciously, ‘What if Fyrell betrays us, lord?’

‘Then we kill him. Do not fear, Eli. He won’t become Ascendant the moment he touches the thing – that’s a myth. I have spoken with Ascendants. The process takes hours. We can afford to be second to the Scytale, as long as we are not overly delayed.’

Vult watched Besko wondering just how secure his own position was. Wonder all you like, Eli; you won’t see my blow coming. Returning his attention to Langstrit, he noted the man was slowing. Flying-gnosis was very energy-hungry, and they had been gaining on him all the time, their pilot working with dogged skill. He smiled to himself. It will be soon.

Jarius Langstrit saw the windskiff clear the ridge behind him with a sinking heart. He could fly no further without destroying his own ability to fight when caught. He chose a rough gully where he might be able to use the terrain, and prepared to make his stand. He had barely thirty seconds to prepare. The slope was tussocky grass, studded with boulders. Part of his mind was tracking Muhren; the watchman was still running as the tenth night-bell rang miles away in the city, still audible here in the thin air of the alpine foothills. He glanced to his right, where the sun would rise within the hour.

So, old man, ready for one more battle?

Not really, was the answer. He hadn’t had time to attune to the periapt Muhren had slipped him, so every spell was costing thrice the energy it should. And pain accompanied every casting, a constriction of the chest, a hollowing of his gut that he didn’t like. He was badly out of practise – his spells were overdone, sloppy – and that could cost him everything. He was sodden with sweat and shaking in the cold air. Standing was an effort, and the fight had barely begun.

He consoled himself that if someone had come to his cell one of those nights after Vult’s questioning and offered him a chance to fight, he’d have taken it. He’d lost so much of himself, and so much time: eighteen years! The slow release of his memories from that crystal had been like waking up from a long, half-recalled dream. But that desperate scheme hatched so many years ago had come through in the end. He was himself again, and the goal for which he’d sacrificed himself was close.

But first he had to deal with his pursuers, though he felt frail, frighteningly weak. He watched the skiff glide closer. There were three men aboard, and one of them was definitely Belonius Vult.

Let’s see what I can do … He summoned Air-gnosis and sent it in a vicious gust that caught the skiff and hurled it to the rocks below. Evidently Vult had underestimated his reach, as there was no counter or ward raised against the strike. Two men spun from the craft as it fell, but the other clung on as the skiff slammed into the rocky slope and splintered. A shout was cut off instantly and he felt momentary guilt, but he reminded himself that Vult didn’t recruit innocents. One down.

He sent a ball of flame fully one hundred yards, far beyond the range a non-Ascendant could attain, and engulfed the shattered skiff in fire. That’s your wings clipped, Bel. But they would have noted his position now.

He moved, hobbling awkwardly, sucking in great mouthfuls of the thin mountain air, his lungs struggling with the altitude. His heart was tight in his chest. Who’s with you, Vult? Someone I know?

A flicker of movement to the left caught his eye: he blasted with Fire-gnosis, but only succeeded in scorching a patch of dewy grass. An illusion … it was the other mage: not Vult. Illusion had never been Vult’s affinity, despite people’s impressions of him. Vult was an absolute realist, a pragmatist who liked to know all the facts, then manipulate them. So it was Vult’s companion he faced.

If you want to play with illusions, stranger, try this. He sent an image of himself walking to the ridge-line, while he himself circled in the shadows. He made his illusory alter ego top the ridge and cautiously scan the gully. Come on, have a go! He waited eagerly for a bolt to flash from the darkness and reveal the hiding-place of his foe, but nothing came.

So it’s to be a stalking game. Damn. I don’t have the stamina for that.

He made his illusory form crouch, moved it out of sight, then let it fade to conserve energy. He felt the tentative touch of a mind, hunting his. That’s more what I expected, Belonius: a little Theurgy. He clamped down his aura, hiding from that questing touch, and clambered towards a cluster of broken boulders. Vult’s probing nagged at him, forcing him to strengthen his mind-wards. His control was draining without a periapt. He shuddered in the frigid air, each swallow chilling him. His chest felt tight, his heartbeat too rapid. It’s too damn cold here … too hard to breathe.

His tenuous link with Muhren flared suddenly: the watch captain was fighting someone or something, fighting hard. Damn … Kore be with you, Jens – Kore be with you all! He would not regret the decision to separate: if we’d fought in that street we’d all be dead. If I’d gone for the Scytale, I’d still have Vult on my arse. We did the right thing. Just let me live through this …

He topped the rise, sensed a movement and blazed flame at it, and something small squealed and died in the hiss and crackle of burning wet grass. A rabbit. Damned waste – stupid!

Blue fire flared from along the ridgeline, struck his shields and deflected away. He fired back at a dim shape walking towards him, and it vanished as the fire struck. Another damned illusion – it was too hard to tell in this pre-dawn dark. Damn this, I’m jumping at shadows and taunts!

Muhren’s hurt. He sensed the flare of pain and clenched his fists in helpless fury. I should have stayed with him. He felt his heart pounding over-fast, his blood pumping. I should be back at the lake – damn this— He ran back the way he had come, burst around a boulder and ran straight into Eli Besko.

So it’s you, you arse-licker!

The fat man squealed, erecting panicky shields in time to deflect Langstrit’s bolt of energy, and they staggered to a halt mere feet apart. Langstrit had raised his hands to pour flame into the man when Besko did something completely unexpected: he leapt at him, and his sheer bulk battered through the general’s shields and smashed him backwards into a boulder. Air belched from his lungs and his head crunched wetly against the jagged stone. He was wrenched back and hammered into the stone again as Besko shouted something. His face was maniacal. Langstrit’s vision dimmed, his chest felt about to burst and for an instant he was teetering on the edge of darkness. Then he snarled and roared flame from his mouth as if he were a dragon of Schlessen legend.

Besko screamed as his face melted, sinking to his knees as he went up like a torch, but Langstrit felt no pity. He could feel the pulpy wetness at the back of his skull and a throbbing pain in his chest that overwhelmed him. He fell to the ground, the pain in his chest ripping him apart. His left hand pawed impotently at his breast—

My heart! He managed a sob. His mind was clogged, his senses all astray. He saw Besko topple forward, flames licking at his body, and tried to focus beyond the agony in his breast. Two down …

But I’m rukked as well—

He tried to stand again, but that pain had become unendurable. He fell back, his mouth sucking like a beached fish, and he tried to feed himself oxygen through Air-gnosis, but the exertion made his heart pulse even more frenetically. He clawed the earth desperately. You’re having a heart attack, you old fool. Lie still and think!

He could feel Vult, making careful little forays, measuring his strength, assessing his weakness.

<Come and get it, Belonius!>

His foe didn’t reply, but a faint greenish cloud washed down the slope. Smoke? Poison? Langstrit pushed it away, and his heart thumped harder, harder. No, I won’t go out like this—

More green smoke washed down the slope: poisonous vapours. A cautious and clever attack, easier to launch than to counter. Somewhere in Norostein he felt Muhren take a savage wound, as if the blow had been inflicted upon his own flesh. But worse was the tearing thunder in his own chest, a wrenching that felt like being physically torn in two … He shook uncontrollably while the morning sky turned to midnight, desperately holding his last reserves inside, praying for one final chance.

Somewhere up the slope, booted feet came ever closer.

One last chance …

Alaron swam frantically after Cym, fear of being left behind driving him faster. The girl’s face was concentrated and fierce as she glanced back, then plunged through a crossroads into another drowned alley. <Do you know where you’re going?>

<Of course I know where I’m bloody well going – unlike you, I was listening when the general gave us directions.> Her voice was caustic in his mind. <You’re a babe in the woods, Alaron.> She frog-kicked away into the gloom.

<What’s got into you? Ramon may be dying back there—>

<You heard the general: Ramon can’t be helped further. It’s the future of the entire world I’m more interested in right now.>

Alaron looked up anxiously: something was silhouetted briefly against the shimmery silver sky that was the surface of the reservoir. <Cym – someone’s in the water with us.>

<Rukka – watch it, we’re nearly there … I think this is it.>

He worked his way to her side, panting out huge pearly bubbles, and reslung the sword belt.

She turned to face him, her face wide-eyed and urgent. <Look at this.> Her gnosis-light darted ahead, illuminating the smashed remnants of a stone plinth. A statue lay fallen at its feet, grimed in green algae; around it pale waterweed swayed in the sluggish currents of the lake.

<Are you sure that’s it?>

<Of course.> Cym gripped the plinth with one hand and scuffed away the algae. <The Scytale should be inside the plinth. Do your thing, Earth-mage.>

He was suddenly overwhelmed. <This is really it?>

.>