Chapter 14: Confrontation
In which unexpected guests arrive.
For once, John didn't have anything to say. We left the burnt library, irreparable portal, dead war statue, and any remnants of our plans behind. We left.
"Her Radiance will provide." Said John. But that was just scripture.
"We will figure something out," said Keller. "We always do." But that was just wishful thinking.
"I am going hunting." said Alaxoria. And that was fair enough.
"Meet you back at the settlement." said Zephyr. And that was another worry.
None of us were in any hurry to make it back to the survivors. We had nothing for them. No good plans, only brutal choices to make. John wasn't looking me in the eye any more. Zephyr was off doing their own thing. John would wind up his flock of adherents and send them marching back this way, into the ashen ruins of his memory of the citadel, right into a hell of his own making. Zephyr would cull the weak.
John wanted to make an army out of these desperate people. Zephyr wanted a healthy herd.
John thought too much of them. Zephyr, too little.
Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe we were all dead, and just slowly figuring it out.
I spotted the strange sign first, a white scratch of light crawling across the eastern sky. It didn't look like Zephyr, it was nothing like the normal blue fire. It left behind a trail of flimsy clouds, too slow for a comet, but just as bright as one.
Brighter even. Red and white flame, far away, but getting closer. Heading directly towards us, dipping and spiralling a little. Much brighter. And if it was heading towards us, and we were heading towards the settlement...
"That's not a mountain spirit. Is it? It doesn't look like one."
"Definitely not." Keller shook his head. "But it doesn't matter what it is. That looks like bad news to me. And which hell has Zephyr gone and run away into?"
"They said to meet us back at the settlement. They might be there already."
The crawling line of fire dipped and turned, rolling back and forth in the sky. At one stage it vanished, then re-appeared far below, just above the tree-line. Birds scattered up around it, flames licked the far horizon. Smoke mixed with the vapour of boiled snow.
"Some kind of... failed spell?" I hazarded.
Keller cocked his head, then gestured to me. My hearing was sharper than his. I could just about hear the damnable thing, a hungry furnace roar. My eyes widened. "Oh! That's one of ours. A wizard tower."
"You mean it was one of ours." said Keller. We looked at each other. Then ran.
Aching and thorn-whipped, we made it back to the settlement before either the tower or Zephyr did. One of our soldiers spotted us and hurried forwards, hungry for orders. When the mysterious light in the sky had been spotted Berkeley had sent the families away into the shelter of the forest, each with a soldier as escort. It was a reasonable plan, but now we needed everyone in one place where we could protect them. We sent the soldier off to find his comrades, and took the family with us back to the clearing.
Hedda found us first, "thank the goddess you're back!" she said. In the time we had been away, she had sliced off the bottom third of her skirts, and pinned the ragged hem in place. A large leather belt was wrapped around her waist twice, with a small dagger dangling from it by a scrap of rope. I could tell Keller was itching to get it in a proper sheathe before Hedda cut herself on it, but we had more important issues at hand.
I scanned the sky and found the onrushing fire. It was sweeping in great arcs back and forth across the sky, dipping and rising in random slashes. We could all hear it now, a great roar of air and ash. I could just barely see the thing amidst the glare, it looked like the top third of a wizard's tower, stone wrapped in metal, tipped with a triangular roof, with a dozen gouts of red-and-white fire blasting out the back.
Which, as a matter of fact, is exactly what it was.
Our own settlement had plenty of cookfires and the bonfire as well, all sending up ash in the clear air. At this rate, the smoke from the wizard tower would join up with ours, forming a fat line of smog scrawled across the sky, saying "hey, here's something interesting, look this way..." to anyone with eyes to see.
It roared overhead, over the black river, then turned back around in a great arc, burning lower this time. At it passed directly above our settlement, a downdraft of ash and desert air sent half of the stunned onlookers choking away. The tops of the trees swayed in the scorching breeze, the last autumn leaves ripped away.
It soared around and around the settlement, some of the jets of flame dimming and cutting out, the tip of the tower pointing further upwards as it slowed. It seemed to be looking for a place to set down, like an elderly dog circling the parlour for the exact right cushion. It bobbed towards a few clearings, before hurriedly ascending again. Eventually, green jets of light vooped down in a spot a few minutes walk from the settlement, cutting through tree trunks at oblique angles, followed by red beads of light that blasted the stumps to wood-chips. The tower eased down towards the smoky clearing, lower, and lower, flames licking the shattered wood...
Then, with an ear-ringing silence, all twelve pillars of fire snapped off. The tower-top fell like a stone towards the clearing, tilting on its side a little, before the flames smashed back to life. The whole lot disappeared under the tree-line, and the earth shook.
Eventually, apologetically, the birds of the forest began to chirp again. An excited murmur began to swell through the camp.
The tower was, mostly intact? At the very least, it was upright, embedded in a layer of thick mud, baked to clay by the intense heat. It was difficult to tell what damage had been caused by the impact, as the whole lot had a somewhat improvised aspect. Little jets of water fountained out of the very top of the tower, hastily patting out the smouldering fires.
The bravest in the settlement had come with us to see the newest visitor, and those in need of our protection had followed as well, so it was quite the crowd tramping through the forest behind us. I hurried ahead and disarmed the two closest lightning trees, though to my dismay, one of them was already inactive. Keller had disappeared somewhere in all the commotion, so it only the three of us, John and Ala and myself that stood firm to face the wizard tower.
The base of the tower was set with a thick steel door, of a similar make to the ones guarding the citadel tunnels. I could hear faint voices from inside the tower, as well as... sobbing? The thick steel door unlocked with two mechanical clacks, and was immediately stuck against the layer of cooked mud. Some muffled swearing later, and the stone tower bricks just above the door folded away and dropped to the ground. Behind the new window was a severely thin face wearing a very pointy hat and a very large grin.
"How goes it! Good day! Sorry to, uh huh, drop in on you unannounced like this." Sticklike arms draped in a voluminous purple robe reached through the new exit, and pulled the wizard all the way through. He made a tumbling roll and landed feet-first in the steaming dirt, but almost fell over anyway. Alaxoria reached out one hand to steady him. "My, many thanks. Gosh! You're quite the specimen, aren't you." he said, looking her up and down, and up.
"Mm." was her response.
Behind the purple wizard came another, crawling out with less haste and less skill. Directly behind John stood a few of his adherents, soldiers mostly. Soon, the heavily charred landing site was a cluster of open stares and whispered thoughts.
"You're Lady Susan, am I right? You're all Western Citadel folk?" asked the purple wizard, turning towards me. John stood stock still, gauntlets clasped. Those golden eyes must have been a little too unnerving.
"Well, yes. We were." I grimaced, it brought me little joy to share the news again. I took a few steps closer, so I wouldn't have to shout about it. "The citadel was destroyed, in the last day of the war." His face fell, and eyes widened, and he looked around and at the sky.
"Did we- did we win?"
"I mean, HE is dead, so the other side definitely lost." I shrugged. " Does that mean we won? I'm not so sure." The wizard was nodding furiously.
"Well! I may have good news, no, amazing news! Perhaps the citadel is not so destroyed as you may believe. Our orb-reader detected that the Western portal structure was reactivated only a few days ago. There may be more survivors! We-"
"That was us."
"-should... that was you? Oh."
I looked him square in the eye. "There's nothing there but alchemical monsters. And the star stone was completely disrupted."
"Oh..." He slumped further, and his face looked even more pinched. "I'll, tell my colleagues. We were so sure-" I reached out and put one hand gently on his shoulder. I could feel the bones beneath the plush robe, feel him twitching a little.
"When did you run out of food?" I asked quietly.
"Oh, oh no, we didn't. Ha, ha!" His eyes glittered with sunken delight, and there was a whistle of something wrong in his voice.
He flung up a hand, snapped his fingers, and before my eyes an apple pie sprung into being. The crust was thick and flaky, the steam wafting up was lush with fruit, my mouth watered. How long had it been since I'd last had such a luxurious treat as fresh-baked pastry?
"Get that shit out of here." I hissed, clapping my hands together and blowing on it, symbols springing in my mind. "There are children here for pities sake! What'll you tell them if they see you pulling tricks like that? That it's all candy and sweets from now on?"
"I, I'm sorry-" he stammered, looking at his hands as if they belonged to someone else.
"Two months." said the other wizard, garbed in green. He stopped inspecting a suspicious ticking vent on the side of the tower and turned to face us. "We went down against a dragon-construct, landed in the wastelands behind HIS army. Figured we were dead if we moved, and dead if we stayed, so we just, you know, waited it out. Then the armies all fell against each other, and nothing big found us, and the orb picked up a signal. We strung this together and got airborne, and now..."
"Now we're going to live!" crowed another wizard from inside the tower-top "We're going to live! Ha ha! Victory!" there was a bang of a spell going off, a delighted shriek, then another few of both. The purple wizard gave me a sickly smile.
We got them fed eventually, bits and pieces of dried meat, the last of the wormweed, things of that nature. Plenty of the wizards turned up their noses at the stuff, one of them even broke down crying at the taste. Most of them seemed frail, twitchy, eager to stare at the horizon or the normal survivors in the settlement. The purple wizard, whose name I hadn't caught yet, seemed a little more put-together, especially after choking down a sliver of duck meat and some stale bread mixed with water. He wandered about the camp for a while, nodding and smiling, and smiling and nodding. Zephyr still hadn't returned.
The purple one was asking me a few question, how we had fared over the winter months and the like ("Winter hasn't really started yet", which surprised him greatly), when Hedda approached us. He turned towards her, like a flower turns towards the sun.
Before she could say anything, he strode forwards with three great flapping steps, before kneeling in the dirt before her. "My lady!" he cried, for all to hear. Her hands were rigid by her sides. "My name is Calicule Cresorious, Wizard Belligerent and Officer of the Western Citadel, I know we have but met but all it has taken is my laying eyes on you to know we are meant to be," with a flourish of his wrist came a bouquet of hot-house roses, every petal perfect, every stem gently bending, every thorn pared away.
"If you would but come along with me, I can show you a life that you have never even dreamed of." he pronounced, with grand gravitas. "You shall not work, and know only leisure, with a hundred, nay, a thousand servants at your bidding!"
Hedda had her bare knees directly at face height, a polite smile plastered square across her face, like a rag tied around her mouth. The purple wizard waited a beat for her to speak, then rolled onwards. "If you would but be my wife, I will show you wonders the world over. What shall it be, my dear...?"
Hedda seemed to take an age to speak, but eventually she took a careful breath in.
"-My name is Hedda, and, I... I have no idea who you are, and-"
"As I said, my dearest, dearest Hedda, I am Calicule Cresorious." The wizard's voice and patience were both flawless, like water. "Wizard Belligerent of the Western Citadel and,"
"Enough." I said, putting myself between the two of them. I turned to the wizard, and felt Hedda taking a few quick steps backwards. "She doesn't know you. Far be it for a gentleman and an officer of your standing to, to force himself upon a woman so. For shame!"
I'd dealt with the likes of him, back in the citadel. He looked like the sort to love a bit of theatre. It wouldn't fix the problem, might even stoke the flames of whatever was going on with daft purple fool, but it'd give Hedda time to get away without making her a target. I could take him, if it came to that.
"My, my word no!" The wizard was flummoxed for a moment, then scrambled to catch his rhythm again. "I must, Lady Susan, dearest Lady Hedda, I do so apologise to you both. It has been a long and wearisome winter. My lady Hedda, you do not know of me yet, but, but you will soon!"
He stood from the muck, dirt sliding from his robes like air, and half turned to the intrigued crowd. "Far be it from me to descend like some wretched vagrant! No, I will prove my worth and my love for you, dearest Hedda. To you all! I shall bear you all away from this miserable squalor, to a place of safety and light, and then." He snapped round to where Hedda was standing a moment ago, turned a little further to face her. "Then my dear Hedda, you will know me for the kind of man I am."
The purple one, Calico Something, was in charge of the other wizards. Which was really saying something, as wizards tended to be in charge of themselves, and disinclined for anyone else to have a say. The Tower of Understood Disasters had been a community of peers and colleagues at best.
The wizards bickered as they worked, like fish wives doing masonry, and equally accustomed to it. They had spells aplenty, but for each two steps forward one took, another disagreed with the methodology and sent it three steps back.
Still, despite their best efforts, progress was made. The roughly-made huts were folded up and unfolded into quaint little cottages. Green orbs of smoking flame rolled along the muddy paths, burning into clay cobblestones. The meagre fence of sticks rocked, and shook, and a great wall of dirt and stone rose up to replace it. I asked one of the wizards to come take a look at the damaged lightning wards with me, but they only kept staring at the runes and asking were the arcane power was coming from. A leg had been broken while felling trees before we had left, and was now turning black. I had expressly forbidden any kind of healing, but the wizards managed to take it off at the knee without growing any new arcane flesh, or losing the patient. A survivor. A mouth to feed.
The sun was deeply set when Calicule found me again, standing on a little rise overlooking the settlement. He was still as spotlessly clean as ever, like a thoroughly washed and wrung dishcloth. He was holding a dark glass bottle, and the grin was a little worn around the edges. "Good evening, Lady Susan. I'm glad I could find you. I do hope my colleagues and I have been... polite guests."
"Well, I have nothing to say against any of your colleagues," I started, then relented when I saw the hurt look in his eyes. "Or you, I suppose."
"I- I am glad indeed to hear that, Susan. May I call you Susan?"
"You may. The title is just an affectation, you know." I said, out the side of my mouth.
"But, surely not! Just a few weeks ago, I heard that-"
"I know, I know, stop! Stop." I was trying my hardest not to laugh. "I know what you heard. Susan is fine. And we are glad to have you here, Wizard Cratorious."
"Cresorious. But, um, you may call me Calicule."
"Thank you, I will." I said, nodding my head a little. ("I'll try").
"Listen, um, Susan, I am very grateful to you all for welcoming us. After everything that has happened, it truly is an immense shock. The war, and victory, and just... everything. Listen, this is the very last bottle we had in the tower," he held it up to the rising moonlight. "We kept it as a sort of, memento? We were going to toast our rescuers when they came for us. And since, I guess, well since we are rescued now and it's thanks to you..."
It would be wrong to say that there was a rustle in the bushes. There was no rustle, just the movement of air and shadow. I didn't have time to scream, Cresorious had half a spell gasped out when the massive hand reached out between us and closed over- the bottle.
"Mine." said Alaxoria. She snapped off the neck of the bottle, cork and all, and tipped some into her mouth. Then she turned, and glided back into the forest.