Stained Glass Monsters

Chapter Twenty-Four

There was nothing worse than waiting. Kendall supposed she should be glad she was in the Arkathan rather than the dungeons, but the hours still grated by. At least she had the dormitory room to herself. All but a handful of the Arkathan students had been sent back to their homes until the Black Queen had been dealt with.

Earlier that day a squad of Sentene had returned from the marshes. Kendall had managed to find Lieutenant Danress, who had a bandage down one arm, but she didn’t know anything much. Rennyn had left them. If everything had gone to plan, she was somewhere in the city. The Sentene were refining the defences in the Hall of Summoning, and would sit there hoping she showed up before the Black Queen did. Typical Rennyn.

Sick of doing nothing, Kendall decided to go over to the Sentene barracks. The palace was at highest security and nobody was supposed to be moving about right now, but the most they could do was send her away again.

All the security meant too many guards. They were even patrolling the barracks, for all that it was practically empty. Kendall made it to the garden between the Arkathan and the Sentene barracks without any problem, but then was stuck watching one of the Ferumguard pacing back and forth, tensely alert. He didn’t even have the decency to stick to a predictable pattern. The windows on the ground floor were too narrow to squeeze through, and it didn’t look easy to climb the side of the building. One day she’d be able to levitate up there, which was a nice thought, but useless right now.

Stymied, Kendall was wondering if she could bluff her way past when she heard voices, and the patrolling guardsman went to investigate. Not slow to take advantage, she nipped inside and hurried along inconveniently bright halls to Sebastian’s room. There were too many magelights in the palace, and every one of them had been left uncovered this night.

The wards itched at her as she shut the door, but that only made her pleased she was able to tell they were active. Kendall had made Sukata try and explain the difference between wards and circles, but mostly because she had wanted to distract the Kellian girl, who had gone all mute and hunched after they’d found Rennyn crying. Kendall hadn’t much liked that herself.

The bed had been pushed to one side. Odd. Kendall checked under it curiously, but found nothing unusual. Otherwise, the room was tidy, the bed made, the desk clean, with no sign of the meal they’d delivered. Except for the lines of sigils around the walls, it looked like any other room. Dissatisfied, Kendall took down one of the books above the desk and flipped through it. Healing magic, which Rennyn had said she didn’t do. Maybe she’d decided to learn. With nothing better to do, Kendall started on another book, and found that it was full of pictures of what people looked like with all their skin gone.

This was definitely distracting, and Kendall was busy turning the pages when the room grew gloomy. Dark lines on the walls grew darker, then twisted across and out, as if the shadows were stretching out fingers to grab her. Kendall was a breath from diving under the bed when the darkness fell apart to reveal Rennyn.

"What in the Hells was that supposed to be?"

The black-haired woman gave her a brief, unsurprised glance. "Teleportation using Symbolic magic. From shadow to shadow basically. Conditional and expensive, but very useful."

If Rennyn said it was expensive, it probably meant most people couldn’t begin to cast it. What did it matter? Kendall took a couple of deep breaths and switched to the far more important matter of Rennyn being here, now.

"Are you heading to the Hall of Summoning?"

"Not quite yet." For once Rennyn looked like she’d slept, though the circles under her eyes seemed to have become etched in place. She sat down on the bed, holding the bulky focus on her lap.

"Why hasn’t anything happened?" Kendall asked, frustrated by Rennyn’s calm. "There haven’t been any attacks. Everyone’s just sitting about. Even the Kellian–"

"Are just sitting about?"

"Lieutenant Danress told me that they stopped moving. Since before midnight yesterday. They don’t move, and don’t react if anyone talks to them. They drink a little water sometimes, and that’s it."

"No orders," Rennyn said, curtly enough that Kendall knew she didn’t like to think about it either, no matter how cool she was acting. "She’s conserving her resources. Although they’re formidable, the Kellian are tremendously outnumbered. Since the aim is to stop me, it’s logical to wait until I’m easily located, which I will be once I go to the Hall of Summoning. After that, I doubt Solace will be too concerned with how many of their lives she spends trying to overcome the Sentene’s preparations."

"You’ve been hiding all day?"

"Sleeping in a warded room. I can’t hide the focus completely, since it’s too powerful a thing, but wards make it difficult to track. Presuming my Wicked Uncle is even bothering to try."

"So you’re safe until you leave this room?"

"No ward is guaranteed safety." Rennyn turned the focus over in her lap, the chain clinking softly. "They just make attacks and divinations harder. There is no ward which cannot be overcome, no spell which cannot be countered, no defence which can’t be breached. Strength can be overcome by imagination. Imagination can be defeated by strength."

"Still giving lessons?"

"Still–"

"What in the Hells is that?!"

Power. Power of the kind Kendall had only felt at the dome around Falk, monumental, beyond the scale of people. Rennyn stood up, obviously startled, and took a step to the window.

"Is it the Black Queen come early?"

"No." Rennyn was gazing out over the city, searching. "My Wicked Uncle is making his move. Strength and imagination combined."

"I thought he was supposed to be weak!" Kendall protested, as Rennyn started drawing power of her own.

"Was." A shield began to shimmer around Rennyn, but she looked more resigned than alarmed.

"It’s coming!" Kendall gasped, as the bloom of power roared into something larger. Far away, all the way down by the river, a wave was flowing toward them.

"Sit down."

"What?"

Rennyn reached out and put a hand on Kendall’s shoulder, pressing until she sat down on the bed. And then the power reached them and everything went black.

"Wake up."

A man’s voice. As Kendall fought her way through groggy layers of darkness, a cold finger moved away from her temple. Upside-down. She was hanging upside-down. Someone was carrying her over their shoulder.

She stiffened, lifting her head, then tried to go limp again. Whoever was carrying her didn’t slow down, but a man laughed, and then a hand gripped Kendall painfully by the hair and lifted her head.

"Little fledgling mage," the person said, in a pleased, purring voice. "Have you by chance seen my nephew?"

"Wha–?" Kendall managed.

"What kind of answer is that?" the man chided, letting go. "Well, the question will keep. Hold her there."

Kendall was upended, her arms trapped behind her back, but this gave her a better look at the room she’d been carried into. The Hall of Summoning. There were bodies scattered on the black and white floor. Sentene mages, Hand members, palace guards with their swords and pistols fallen from their hands. Unable to hold back a gasp of dismay, Kendall jerked forward, but the person who had been carrying her didn’t move an inch, and her arms twisted painfully. Kendall looked back.

"Sukata."

The Kellian girl didn’t react, wasn’t even looking at her. Her face was impassive in a way that made Kendall realise that Kellian really were far more expressive than she’d given them credit for. This girl, this thing with Sukata’s face and eyes of glass, was no more a person than a doll.

The only people upright were a handful of Kellian, Kendall, and a man with black hair and black eyes, dressed very finely in dark blue. He had more angles to his face, was better looking, but was, no matter what Rennyn had said, very much like Sebastian Claire. There was a weird shimmer in the air above him, a hint of violet light. Hanging from his wrist was the Black Queen’s focus.

They had lost. The shock of it made Kendall dizzy. This was the Black Queen’s demon son. He had the only thing which could stop her return. Rennyn had lost.

"Put her over there."

Kendall twisted in Sukata’s hold as Sukata’s mother moved forward from the Hall’s entrance and lowered a still figure to the floor at one edge of the central black square. Rennyn. She lay without moving, her hair making black swirls on the marble.

"Is she dead?"

"No more than you are, fledgling." The demon prince walked over to stand above Rennyn and nudged her with one foot. With a sharp sideways glance he said: "Put one of the restraints on her, then clean this place up."

Captain Illuma, eyes as empty as her daughter’s, drew something out of a black bag. A barbed and twisting thing, like a mix between a bramble and a worm. She dropped it on the back of Rennyn’s hand, where it writhed for a moment, then slid around her wrist. Rennyn twitched as the spiked bracelet pierced her skin, sighed, but then lay still again.

Asleep. She was just asleep as Kendall had been. Perhaps they all were. There was no sign of any injuries, no blood. Everyone had just fallen to the ground in a scatter of swords and slates.

"Wake up!" Kendall yelled immediately, careless of consequences. "Wake up! Wake up!"

The demon prince laughed. "Noisy fledgling. Would you like me to give you a reason to scream? It wouldn’t stir them."

"Don’t talk to me, monster!" Kendall cried, caught between panic and fury. "You’re a horror! You’re a wrong thing! Just – go away!"

The demon only looked entertained. "Spirit, if a little lacking in common sense," he said. He seemed an oddly smiling and cheerful sort for a monster, though there was a taste to his words she didn’t like. "Now, what was it I wanted – oh, yes, my distant nephew. Tell me, fledgling, where is he?"

"Why would I know that?"

"Don’t be obtuse. That was his bed you were lying on. You were with his sister. My little cousin’s best little friend, isn’t that so?"

How did he know? But the last question had not been addressed to Kendall. She felt the faintest movement behind her. Sukata had nodded. The demon prince smiled, cheerfully smug.

"I don’t know," Kendall spat, grateful for ignorance. "She sent him away, somewhere safe, somewhere only she knows. Somewhere monsters like you can’t get him."

"How lacking in confidence. Really, I overestimated her. What a disappointment she must be to you."

This was unanswerable, and Kendall made a searching study of Rennyn’s still body. It could be possible to wake her. Would she be able to do it?

More Kellian began arriving then, carrying people. Kendall’s eyes widened at the sight of Captain Faille with Princess Sera across an arm and Prince Justin over his shoulder. He put them both down to Kendall’s right, where Captain Illuma had been clearing away unconscious Sentene. Another Kellian set a woman down beside them, one who resembled Sera enough for Kendall to guess that this was Tyrland’s Queen.

As the demon prince walked over to inspect the new arrivals, Kendall twisted experimentally in Sukata’s hold, but the Kellian girl was far too strong and not the least inattentive. Kendall didn’t bother to try appealing to Sukata, to try and break her free of the control. There was no feel of the person she knew in this silent creature holding her, and definitely no sense that any words would reach her. Talking to a wall would achieve as much.

While the demon son of the Black Queen bent over Princess Sera, Kendall decided the only thing left to her was Thought magic. Pebble skipping. It was useless for attacking or escaping, but she figured that she could try and pull that horrid spiky thing from Rennyn’s wrist. Even if it didn’t come off, the movement might wake her.

Taking a deep breath, Kendall focused, determined to pull as strongly as possible. And Rennyn’s wrist moved. Not much, as if someone had plucked at the skin. That was it. Totally, utterly, completely useless.

The demon prince just laughed again, not the leastways bothered. "You don’t listen well," he said. "Watch."

He reached down and touched Princess Sera’s temple, murmuring softly. The girl immediately stirred, and sat up, blinking. It took a count of three as the princess looked around at the strange man standing above her, at all the people lying in heaps, and her brother and grandmother on the floor. Then she screamed.

It pierced the skull. The whole huge room was filled with it, rising with each hiccupping breath the girl took. Rigidly upright, she did nothing but scream, till her face was scarlet and she looked fit to pitch over. But the demon prince had made his point. Not one of the fallen so much as twitched. Even the Kellian didn’t glance her way.

"What a sad lack of dignity," the demon said, about the time Sera was starting to go maroon. "This is the quality of Tyrland’s false kings, is it?"

Amazingly, that was enough. Sera jittered to a stop, gazed up at the demon in outrage, and then threw herself on her brother’s body, shaking him urgently. Skin mottled and hair all-abouts, she looked just a baby, no match for anyone.

"Put restraints on those two," the demon prince said, and Captain Illuma left off lining the Sentene along the wall and produced two more of the thorny things.

Princess Sera gasped as the first of the things wrapped around her grandmother’s wrist, and shook her brother with increasing desperation, then stood and tried to pull him away from Captain Illuma. "No!" she cried. "Leave him alone!"

Captain Illuma didn’t even seem to notice, just dropped the worm on Prince Justin’s free wrist and turned back to moving people off the black central square, removing their weapons and lining them up against the walls. The demon prince looked critically around the room as more Kellian arrived carrying people. Kendall recognised two members of the Hand, ones who had been in the infirmary.

They were sorting out the mages. Not killing anyone, just moving them all together and putting one of the thorny worm things on the wrist of every mage. A restraint. It must be something to stop them using magic.

"Wake up," the demon prince said, bending over Prince Justin, and then repeating the motion for the Queen. "Can’t have the guests of honour sleeping through the royal progress."

Queen Astranelle was the same dainty, pretty type as her granddaughter, but didn’t show any sign of blubbing despite waking up with a demon standing above her. She picked herself up off the ground with the minimum of fuss, looked around her and said, "The worst result?"

"I suppose that would depend on your point of view," the demon prince said, in the same conversational tone he’d used with Kendall.

Prince Justin, struggling as his sister latched her arms around his neck, managed to get to his feet. "You – you’re–"

"Helecho Montjuste-Surclere," said the demon, nodding as if they’d been introduced at a party. "Be quiet now."

A group of Kellian came in carrying more people. The only one Kendall recognised was Lady Weston, but they all looked important. A few were given horrid bracelets, and then the demon walked from one to the next, telling them to wake. But he wasn’t interested in talking, completely ignoring their outrage and distress and the Queen’s murmur of explanation. With a glance at Captain Faille he said: "Tear the throat out of the next one who speaks."

Even the most hysterical of the newcomers instantly choked into silence. Kendall didn’t blame them: Captain Faille was always scary, and was far worse now that he wasn’t a person anymore. Unconcerned, the demon turned all his attention back to Rennyn, like a wolf who had decided to stop circling and go in for the kill.

It must be nearly time. Kendall tried escaping Sukata’s grip again, but it was pointless. Still, most of the Kellian had left, so they were really only dealing with the demon, Sukata, her mother and Captain Faille. There were ten captives standing now, and while the Kellian were strong they weren’t carrying any weapons. Could they possibly give Rennyn the chance she needed?

"Lift her."

Captain Illuma hoisted Rennyn up by the armpits, which didn’t wake her any more than Kendall’s efforts. The demon prince reached out and gripped Rennyn’s chin, his mouth widening in a gloating smile.

"Wake up, cousin."

Rennyn blinked, and tried to stand straighter, but was hampered both by Captain Illuma and the demon’s hold on her chin. Kendall could tell the demon wanted her to be upset, and was glad Rennyn didn’t give him any satisfaction. She turned her eyes left and right, taking in the piles of people, and the Queen and her small group of nobles clustered nervously under Captain Faille’s watchful eye. For a long moment she looked at Captain Faille, then finally the demon.

"I suppose it really was too much to hope I’d never have to deal with you again."

"So pleased to disappoint," he said, letting her go. Captain Illuma stepped back as well, and Rennyn lifted her wrist to look at the thorny thing. There wasn’t any blood where the spikes had pierced the skin, and the flesh around it was blanched white.

"Don’t play with it – its defences are very amusing," the demon said. "And you don’t have a chance of overwhelming it without this." Eyes glittering, he held up the necklace which carried Rennyn’s focus.

But Rennyn barely glanced at it, surveying the room again. "She means to rule, not ruin."

The demon looked just a little nettled. Not, Kendall thought, because of what Rennyn was saying, but because she wasn’t acting particularly frightened of him. "Ruin? An odd notion. A Queen overcomes treasonous attacks to return to her kingdom. That is what is happening here."

"And the incursions, the Azrenel particularly, would have benefited her rule how?"

"Azrenel are not at my beck and call," the demon said, shrugging.

Rennyn glanced at him, assessing him in a way which left Kendall unexpectedly hopeful. Rennyn hadn’t given up. She might have lost the power of her focus, and have that thing on her wrist, but she was looking for weaknesses, a way to turn this around. If she could grab the Queen’s focus at the right moment–

"Where did you get the power for that casting?" she asked next. "Even with some immunity to the perils of the Eferum, that was beyond any focus you could have summoned in so short a time. At least with much of the localised Efera being caught up in the Grand Summoning."

"Borrowed power," the demon said, and recovered his smile. "A tiny fraction of what is coming."

"You used the city’s main circle to transmit it?"

The smile broadened. "Yes, and yes the sleep doesn’t extend outside the main circle. But, dear cousin, if you’re counting on rescue I hope whoever is playing hero can overcome these." He cocked his head toward Captain Illuma and finally had the satisfaction of disrupting Rennyn’s calm assessment of her surroundings.

"The Kellian are weak to magic," she said, narrowing her eyes. "I wouldn’t rely on them overmuch."

Pleased, the demon stepped closer to Rennyn. "Is it your brother you’re waiting on? I’m told you’ve put him somewhere safe. Does he come dashing in at the last moment to save the day?" His hand darted out to tangle in Rennyn’s hair, stopping her move to step back. "Aren’t you worried? Time’s running out."

"Did you start out as a monster?" Rennyn asked, sounding more annoyed than anything. "Or do you work at it?"

"I knew I was going to enjoy you," the demon said. He tightened his grip on her hair, pulling her head back. "Where were we, cousin? Do you remember?"

His head lowered, and he bit her. Bit her neck. Kendall wasn’t sure if she only imagined the sound it made, or the faint swallowing noise which followed, but she couldn’t mistake the pain and disgust which flashed across Rennyn’s face. Princess Sera made a sympathetic whimpering sound, quickly stifled. Kendall didn’t blame her. The air felt thick with dark magic. This was a true monster, a Night Roamer, a blood-drinker, and none of them were enough to stop him.

Not that this would keep Rennyn from trying. Lacking magic, she simply curled one of her hands into a fist and hit him in the stomach. It was hard enough to hurt him, and she managed to wrench herself away, leaving a long hank of her hair tangled in his fingers. Blood streamed from her throat, from the ragged tear his teeth had left, but she didn’t have a chance to do more than take a step back before the demon said: "Hold her," and Captain Illuma obediently got in the way.

"Did that make you feel better?" the demon asked, only a little out of breath. He was all excited and pleased, eyes shining and mouth bloody, though beneath it there was a hint of puzzled surprise.

"Not much," Rennyn said shortly.

The demon chuckled and looked around, then went and fetched a silky scarf from one of the conscious captives, laughing again when she flinched away from him. Rennyn only stood, stiffly upright with her arms held behind her, as the demon wiped his face, then tied the scarf around her neck. Her shirt was slick and wet, and Kendall felt the twitch of magic as the demon cast something to stop her from bleeding so much.

Then he balled up one fist and slammed it into Rennyn’s stomach just as she had hit him, except with a monster’s strength, so that she was smashed back against Captain Illuma and then crumpled and hung, gagging, in the Kellian woman’s hold.

Her hair fell across her face, but Kendall didn’t miss the way her eyes flicked at the nearest door. She was waiting for someone, just as the demon had said. Sebastian? Or could there be more Montjuste-Surcleres, and the story about them being the last just a lie?

And it was too late. A snatched breath and a stirring among the captives told Kendall she wasn’t the only one in the room who felt it. She realised it had been growing for a while, swelling, and now was made obvious by the way the Black Queen’s focus swung on its chain, pointing toward the middle of the room like it thought that way was down. The demon glanced at his wrist, irritated, interrupted in his play. But then he smiled, and shrugged, and said:

"Time to meet your Queen."