Rebellion

CHAPTER 60

Deep in the blackened shaft of the once-white Abysm, the petrified man who had been Axil Grandys, and was now a solid lump of opal the size and shape of a man, roused from aeons-long crystal dreaming.

What had woken him? His opaline eyes were stinging, his nose burning from a pungent vapour gushing up the shaft. A vapour that made his nose bleed and glorious visions form behind his eyes.

He shook them off. He was not a man to seek refuge in chymical visions. All he craved was reality. But as the reality of what had been done to him and the other four Herovians struck him, he felt such a rage that it shook the shaft.

In the blackness far below, Lirriam and Yulia were also rousing, though they could not move either. Had Grandys’ tongue and throat not been solid opal he would have screamed with fury and frustration.

Another memory wisped up from his crystal dreaming. A recent memory: the destruction of his heritage at Tirnan Twil. Every book, every paper, every artefact and personal item had been burned in a furious, hour-long conflagration.

How could this have happened? Memory showed him a pale, blurred face — a woman who might have saved Tirnan Twil but had not. Rage, rage!

But then — ah, sweet joy! His right hand, his focus, guide and protector. Maloch was nearby! The sword had protected him so well, all his life, that one day Grandys had forgotten the peril he was in and laid it aside while he went for a swim. That day, that very hour, his enemy struck.

Before Grandys had left Thanneron on the First Fleet, in search of the Promised Realm, potent magery had been imbued within the sword to guide and protect him. Now he called to it.

After an agonising delay it recognised him.

Get — me — out! said Grandys.

Maloch’s magery continued the de-petrifaction, though painfully slowly, and from the inside out. But the sword-bearer was riding away and the job was not near done. Could Grandys hold him back and draw enough magery to complete the process? Even escape the Abysm?

He tried to call the sword using his own, weaker magery. It would have worked had he been able to utter a single word, but he had not yet regained the ability to speak aloud. He reached towards Maloch, tried to draw the power he needed from it by thought alone, and almost succeeded.

Almost.

Then Maloch was carried out of range and its magery faded. Was he to be trapped here until true death took him? Now that he had been de-petrified internally, he could truly die. Grandys sucked in the alkoyl-laden air, praying it would be enough to restore flesh from stone. It had to.

After a lifetime of gleeful bad deeds, Grandys feared death as no other man could.