Stained Glass Monsters

Chapter Fourteen

Kendall was entirely envious of Sebastian’s sister’s ability to ignore people. She acted like she couldn’t even see the twenty Arkathan students sitting at and on the desks around her, let alone hear their whispered comments. Turning away from Prince Justin, she gave the sigils on the floor a sharp look and began pumping power into them.

It really was becoming clearer. Not just people casting, but already existing enchantments. Kendall could even tell when she’d crossed an active circle. None of it made much sense yet, but it was a far more positive sign than the long days of failing to do more than make pebbles jump unpredictably.

The sigils began to glow as Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere spoke softly beneath her breath, bluish light working from the top to bottom of each row at the same time. Kendall couldn’t see the shield which was being created, but felt like she was being boxed in. There was a moment when the final sigil flared and, even though the door was still open, Kendall knew she wouldn’t be able to walk through it. It was like the room itself was telling her so.

"Sealed for air as well?" asked the gigantic Sentene mage, his rumbling voice more curious than concerned. Unlike the royal guardsmen, the Sentene just looked alert and interested.

"You think this will take so long we’d have to worry?" asked Rennyn, then shrugged and followed her brother as he moved back to where Kendall and Sukata were sitting by the windows closest to the chalk-board.

Kendall seized the opportunity. "Can I ask something?"

"Why not? It’s my day for answering questions."

"Your brother was trying to explain how everything goes slower in the Eferum. That an hour there is like two days or more in the real world. But if that’s so, then wouldn’t the Black Queen have only been in the Eferum for a year or two?"

"Not far from that. The distortion is variable, and we don’t know anything of what it’s like when you move away from this world. But I doubt more than two or three years would have passed for her."

"Then, if it’s – if what everyone’s been saying about her having a second son, one born in the Hells, is true – why isn’t he still a baby?"

"Mmph. Have you heard any of the theories on the origins of the Eferum-Get?"

"Not really." They were monsters. They lived in the Hells. They ate people. What more was there to say?

"A common idea is that the Eferum-Get are the nightmares of this world, conjured into existence by our fears. I can’t be sure exactly how my Wicked Uncle came to be, but I’d be surprised if Solace went through any form of pregnancy. Maybe he sprang fully-formed from her forehead."

Kendall checked the expressions of those around her, not certain if she was misunderstanding an attempt at humour. "You mean she just thought him up?"

"It’s entirely possible, though it’s equally possible she went through some form of ritual or…activity with a thing which could be called his father. Certainly the dominant school of thought is that Eferum-Get come into being, rather than do anything so mundane as breeding – that they only become capable of doing so when they reach this world and begin to adapt to its nature. In either case, it wouldn’t make this Helecho any less her son."

"The Eferum operates on an entirely different set of rules from this world," Sebastian put in, because he always would try and explain anything and everything, no matter how much Kendall discouraged him. "There’s no physical surfaces, no air. You float in Efera, raw magic moving all around and through you, without any need to eat or breathe. It’s very easy to lose your sense of self. A weak-willed person venturing into the Eferum is more likely to forget to come back than be attacked. A strong-willed person, someone able to hold back the tide of magic, blazes with a sense of Self which can leak through the best shielding. It’s a place of the mind, of emotion, and most importantly of will."

"Have you summoned a focus already?" asked Princess Sera, playing the wide-eyed and innocent card again. "You don’t look nineteen."

"Unregistered mages are so bad about keeping all sorts of rules," Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere said before her brother had to answer, studying the young princess as if she were deciding whether to step on her. She obviously hadn’t missed the mischief behind the question.

"Summoning my focus was the most daunting thing I’ve ever done," Prince Justin said, taking Princess Sera’s hand and settling with her at the desk just across the aisle. "How you can bear to venture there frequently I can’t guess, Lady Montjuste-Surclere."

Kendall would bet Sebastian and his sister found it harder to bear all this fascinated attention. Scary and dangerous as the Hells sounded, it was the source of all the magic in the world, and to this pair probably bunches more fun than being in a room with gossip-hungry strangers. If it wasn’t for them acting so much like they were in charge, it would look like they’d been backed into this corner and trapped there.

Feeling a little cornered herself, Kendall turned to look out the window, down at the Reading Garden, the grassy patch between the Arkathan and the dining hall which had little tables and seats scattered about it for the students to use. When this was over, the tittle-seekers wouldn’t accept any more excuses of having only met Sebastian looking for the dining hall. Once she was out of this box she’d either have to do some fast talking, or make herself scarce.

Outside it was warm and sunny. Except for the glowing sigils, she couldn’t see the shield at all, though it did make the grass seem all wavery – in a weird, moving patch. Concerned, Kendall nudged Sukata and pointed at the tree that looked like it was under water.

"Guise shield haze!"

Sukata was abruptly on her feet and holding a long knife she’d pulled from somewhere. The huge Sentene mage cursed and moved to look outside while his partner slid one of those overlong Kellian swords from the sheathe on her back. Everyone else moved forward or away depending on how brave or stupid they were, but Kendall was still by far the closest when the room’s four tall windows smashed apart.

There was – it was – only a few inches away from her face was a wet white tube. It was thicker than her leg, pulsing and twisting as it jabbed at her again and again. Over all the noise, all the breaking glass, scraping furniture and screaming, the noise it made as it pounded at the shield trying to get at her was the loudest thing Kendall could hear.

Then Sukata was there, a hand on Kendall’s arm as she drew her away, got between her and That. Moving back only gave Kendall a chance to see it properly, to understand the pale background blocking out the sky, surrounding that horrid, fleshy…mouth? As tall as the room, it looked like an upturned crab, but between hard-shelled and spindly legs there were thick tentacles, the blue-tinted suckers ranging from coin to saucer-size.

More pieces of wall and window broke away as the tentacles searched for a better grip on the side of the building. Little stalks with eyes poked from ridges at the front of the shell, then withdrew as it climbed upward. A leg, tipped like a spear, jabbed downward. Sukata’s long knife looked pitiful before it – even the Sentene’s four-foot sword was nothing to this thing as it began to rip the roof off trying to get in with them. One of the royal guards fired his pistol, filling the air with stinging smoke, but the shot stopped dead and dropped to the ground.

"For pity’s sake man, no need to tax the shield any further," growled the Sentene mage, pulling down the arm of another guardsman. "And be quiet, the rest of you!" he shouted. "Calm down. It’s not getting in here with us and squealing like stuck pigs isn’t helping."

His voice was loud, and certain enough to get the attention of the scrabble of people trying to claw their way through the shielded door. The shrieking dropped to a panicky babble, and the lone teacher who had been herded in with them made shushing noises, but Kendall wasn’t alone in looking worriedly at Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere, who was still sitting at the next desk down, her chin propped on one hand and her eyes half-closed. Almost as if she was bored, but Kendall was near enough to see the set of her jaw, and knew that keeping the shield up couldn’t be nearly so easy as she made it seem.

As the Thing outside sent bits of wall and ceiling flying, Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere turned her head and said: "Prince Justin, will you perform an experiment for me?"

The prince hadn’t moved, was holding his sobbing sister tightly. His voice was unsteady as he said: "What is it?"

"Go stand at the other end of the room."

The prince stared blankly, then went even whiter than he’d already managed. But, still holding Princess Sera, he struggled to his feet and walked swiftly along the centre aisle between the desks to the far wall, close to the clutch of people pressed against the doorway. Immediately the monster stopped pounding at the shield by Kendall and, with a writhe of tree-trunk tentacles and a skittering of long legs, went after Tyrland’s heir.

"I don’t recognise the type," Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere said over the renewed shrieking, not pursuing the subject of the monster’s target.

"Not one that’s been classified," said the Sentene mage. He and his partner gathered the two Montjustes back from the far end of the room, their attention never straying from the Thing which was now making a show of destroying the roof.

"What happens if it pulls the whole building down around us?" Kendall whispered to Sebastian, but he didn’t reply, busy writing in chalk on one of the tables.

"The shield is anchored to the point where the sigils were," Sukata answered instead. "It doesn’t matter if the surface they were written on is gone."

It would matter when the shield went away, Kendall thought, and grimaced as the Thing crawled down the wall behind them. When it pulled apart the stone, the chalkboard and a fine shaving of wall fell on the inside of the shield as well. Shifting most of its bulk into the room next to them, the monster began pounding on the shield with its tentacles and legs. It was an eerily unreal attack despite the noise and the light which bloomed around each blow. Kendall could barely feel the impacts. The shield seemed immovable. The inside of all the walls fell off, as well as the part of the door projecting into the room, but it was because the building had shuddered and shifted around the box which was keeping them safe.

How long would the shield last? Everyone said Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere was an incredibly powerful mage, but this Thing was so strong. It was demolishing the Arkathan as easily as kicking over a bucket of milk. A single blow would squash a man like a roach.

With a screaming sizzle bolts of white arched up from outside and slammed into the nearest tentacle. The monster flinched and bucked, destroying most of the floor in both rooms. It fell into the room below as another series of bolts punched into it.

"Thank the Dawnbringer," breathed one of the royal guardsmen, as the monster reoriented in the wreckage to face a row of black-clad figures standing on the far side of the Reading Garden, the Montjuste Phoenix shining.

"It’s not damaged," pointed out another, dismayed. This was true. The bolts had obviously hurt, but the thick tentacle wasn’t a bit crisped.

"Some Eferum-Get are resistant to magic," the Sentene mage explained, and Kendall noticed that he stood just a little straighter. He’d been worried too, though he hadn’t been showing it.

Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere bent her head back and looked directly up. Kendall followed her gaze and saw golden men and women. Kellian, blazing in the sunlight, standing on the exposed shield. One glanced down at them, and she recognised Captain Faille as he gave the signal to attack.

For people who always seemed so still, Kellian could move beyond fast. Almost, it was as if they had gone from roof to grass with no part in between. But, like a lantern swung at night, they left a little trail of light to show the path taken. They’d jumped down onto the monster, and made a bunch of cuts on its tentacles before leaping out of its reach.

The Thing let out a gurgling roar and writhed after them, but though it was faster than you’d expect for something so large, its blows only succeeded in creating deep dints in the ground and earned it a few more slashes. Its blood was treacle-brown. In another moment it was surrounded, and was being cut at from every side. Kellian wasps, stinging, always moving.

Just when Kendall was about to let her breath out in relief, the Thing changed tactics, charging toward the dining halls. It brought down one of the trees in the process and, picking it up, hurled it at its pursuers. Kellian scattered to all sides, and the tree slammed into the Arkathan as the monster scuttled straight at the Sentene mages.

A streak of golden light resolved into Captain Faille, running right between the tentacles and jumping up onto the blue-tinted shell. He thrust his sword beneath the ridge protecting the Thing’s eyes, then leapt away as a tentacle swiped at him like a fly on a horse. The monster turned for another charge.

A rock fell from the sky. More than fell – it hurtled down like someone had shot it from a cannon. The crack it made as it struck the monster’s shell was sharp enough to hurt Kendall’s ears, and the Thing staggered. The next stone went straight through one of its legs and made a black hole in the ground.

"They’re throwing bits of the Arkathan at it!" exclaimed one of the students, and a cheer went up as a third stone was followed by a positive rain of broken bits of wall. While the Kellian had been keeping it busy, the Sentene mages had cast a spell which lifted pieces of the destroyed rooms high into the air and smashingly returned them. Even the monster’s thick shell couldn’t stand up to this, and it was rapidly reduced to a pulpy mass which the Kellian went and poked swords into until it stopped twitching.

"One day you too will be able to throw rocks," Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere said to Kendall, and stood up. Everyone in the room suddenly rose a foot in the air, and before they’d had a chance to do more than gasp, the shield went away and the desks fell through the holes in the floor while all the people floated to the ground outside.

Kendall wondered if this was the spell Sebastian had been casting. It felt rather more like his sister had just picked them all up. She turned and stared back at the Arkathan, at the hole in the side of the building. This from only one Night Roamer.

"They said there were hundreds of monsters during the Black Night," she said, amazed. "How in the Hells did you kill them all?"

"I didn’t kill any of them," Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere said matter-of-factly, watching a handful of Sentene approach. "Besides, this was something rather special."

"A new type," said one of the approaching Sentene, an older version of Sukata. This must be Captain Illuma.

The group stopped before Prince Justin and bowed very formally, which was an eerie thing when most of them had yellow disks for eyes and sunshine hair. "Your Highness," Captain Illuma continued, "it would be best if you returned to the main palace."

"Do you believe there are more on the loose, Captain?" the prince asked, sounding calmer than he looked.

"None that we can divine, but if Eferum-Get are now able to guise themselves, a physical sweep will be necessary."

Princess Sera, all eyes and no mischief now, wriggled loose from her brother’s arms. "You must come with us!"

"You will be escorted, of course, Highness," Captain Illuma replied, without missing a beat. "And the circles and defensive spells around the throne room are the strongest in Tyrland. A creature such as this could not overcome them."

The princess didn’t put up any more argument, once she saw that four of the Sentene would go with her. Kendall was disappointed to be herded off with the rest of the students. She had particularly wanted to hear the discussion the Sentene would surely move on to once their audience was gone: just how had the Night Roamer been able to find, in the mish-mash of the palace, the boy who happened to be heir of all Tyrland?