In the Square outside their shelter, Morg’s horrible screaming stopped.
Asher stood. Ready or not, want this or not, his time had come. “Best finish this, I reckon.”
The quality of silence behind him changed. Lost outrage. Acquired sorrow. Became heavy, full of unspoken last words. He didn’t want to hear them. He was doing this because they’d asked him. Begged him. Because no one but him could do it. Because he’d promised to help them no matter the cost and unlike some people, he kept his word.
Didn’t mean he wanted a scene.
“What are you doing? Don’t go out there!” said Dathne. “Fight him from here, in safety!”
Pellen Orrick answered her. “How can he, Dathne? There are people in the way.”
The Square was full of Olken and a handful of Doranen. Folk who’d had nowhere to run to, or thought they’d be all right. Some of them wore faces he’d known once, surely, when he’d been a different man. Dazed and stumbling they crawled amongst the rubble and debris, the aimlessly milling livestock, the fallen bodies. Some struggled to reach Barlsman Holze, the last authority left in the City. The cleric sprawled on his Barl’s Chapel steps, unmoving.
“Asher!” Dathne cried as he took another step.
He stopped, fingers tight on the ragged brickwork. Don’t look, don’t look, there ain’t no bloody point!
He looked. He had to.
All her love was in her face. Seeing it, something brittle inside him broke, or was broken. He summoned a smile for her. “It’s all right, Dathne. The bastard won’t touch you.”
There were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. “There’s something I have to tell you, I—”
He went to her and dropped to one knee. Let his fingers trace the gentle upswing of her eyebrow, her severely curving cheekbone, and lips.
“Tell me later.”
“But—”
He stood, and she fell silent. With a final smile he turned his back on her. On all of them: Veira, Darran, Pellen, Matt, and Gar. Stepping out of their meager shelter he looked at the creature spinning and spinning and spinning above him, oblivious to everything save its private pain.
But for how long ...
In his mind, the Circle waited.
He ran haphazard to the steps of the chapel, dodging livestock, ignoring the fallen who needed his help, even the children. Holze was stirring now, sitting up. Seeing him, the cleric gasped. “Asher? “
He held out his hand. Above their heads Morg dangled, moaning. “Holze.”
Five charred fingerprints marred the side of the cleric’s pain-twisted face. “You’re alive?”
“No, I’m a ghost,” he said, and helped Holze to his unsteady feet. Despite the dirty past they shared he felt a grudging respect: Holze could’ve bolted, and didn’t.
The Barlsman’s pale lips tightened. “Do you know what that is?” he asked, pointing to Morg.
“Aye. Do you?”
“I think I might,” Holze said, frowning. “Though my mind can scarce believe it.”
He snorted. “Believe it, Holze. That’s Morg.”
The last hint of color drained from the cleric’s face, leaving the fingerprints livid, and he kissed his holyring with fervor. “Barl save us.”
“If you say so.” Asher turned and looked at the dazed people in the square. “These folk can’t stay out here. Can you get ‘em back in the chapel?”
“Yes, yes, of course, but why? What are you going to do?”
He jerked his head upwards. “Kill that.” Holze choked. “How?”
“How d’you reckon?” he snapped, and conjured flame.
Not tame and gentle glimlight but the cruel, greedy heat of warfire. One of the many tricks to be found in Barl’s diary, which he could so easily have lived without.
“What is this blasphemy?” Holze demanded, staring at the fire leaping from Olken fingers. “That’s no magic known to me! How do you come by it? Who taught it to you? Morg?”
He grinned, feeling vicious. “No, Holze. Barl.”
Holze came close to falling head first down the steps. “No—no—that’s not possible.”
With a flick of his wrist he extinguished the flame. “We can argue what is and ain’t possible when this is over, provided we’re both still standin’.”
Shaken, Holze looked again at Morg. “You can’t kill him, Asher. There’s Conroyd to consider.”
He could’ve hit the ole fool. “Of course I can! I have to! And if Jarralt’s still in there I’ll be doin’ him a favor. Now get these idiot folk out of here, would you? I’ve seen enough dead bodies to last me a lifetime!”
He turned his back on the protesting cleric, trounced down the chapel steps and picked his way across the Square until he was directly under Morg’s undulating body. Ignoring the danger, he closed his eyes, and for the first time called willingly to the power within.
The flames leapt, burning away the last of Morg’s taint. Crimson, gold, silver, azure: the colors of his peculiar magic poured through his veins like a waterfall. And joining them, power of a different hue: earthy brown mixed with grassy green. Pure Olken magic, from the Circle. Suddenly he was connected to the natural world with a strength he’d never felt before. As though he were a mountain himself, forged of living rock.
Dimly, through the rainbow haze, he heard shouts. Cries of surprise and wonder. He stopped his ears to them. Looked inwards only, gathering the strands of his multicolored talent, preparing it for battle. Barl’s fierce war spells seethed beneath his surface, straining to be set free.
A woman’s scream, abruptly silenced. Wrenched from his trance he opened his eyes—and stared at the face of death itself.
“Asher!” cried Morg, hovering before him. Jarralt’s beauty contorted, distorted and spittled with hate. “Not dead yet!”
He lashed out his mind, fingers blurring the ah with sigils even as the words he needed tumbled from bis tongue. Somewhere, softly, he felt the Circle’s shock and surprise.
Spitefully laughing, Morg deflected the power. Sent the red flame splashing left and right, igniting helpless Olken who stood too close, like statues of stone.
Except statues didn’t burn.
Sickened, he turned on the rest of them. “Run, you idiots! Run!”
Gleeful, malevolent, Morg whirled above them. “No, no, don’t run! Change!” He pointed his fingers and shouted a string of terrible words, syllables to clot the blood and crawl the skin. Power poured out of him, black and stinking. The fleeing Olken it sullied fell screaming to the ground ... and altered.
Became demons.
———
“Jervale’s mercy!” cried Veira, watching. “Prophecy protect us!”
Dathne watched, shaking and sickened, as vulnerable flesh boiled and bubbled, stretched and strained, grew fangs and talons and snouts and horns. Became scaled. Sprouted bristles. Thickened, hardened, and lost all humanity. She gasped as the milling livestock mutated’ with the people: grew steely wings and claws like billhooks and teeth as long and sharp as daggers.
Nothing living touched by Morg’s foul magic was spared.
Forced now to focus on Morg’s creations instead of Morg himself, Asher tried to stop the terrible transformations. He hurled his own magic after Morg’s, light at the dark. The sorcerer extinguished it and flicked him aside with contemptuous ease. Catapulted him through the rancid air and crashed him to the puddled ground where he lay winded and feebly struggling.
“Asher!” said Matt.
Dathne clutched his sleeve. “Don’t. You can’t help him. We can’t fight—that.”
“Then what good are we, Dath?” he demanded. “What are we here for?”
Veira turned on him. “We’ve done our part, Matthias. We’ve kept the secret of the Innocent Mage, and brought him to the place he was always meant to be. Dathne’s right, we’re not made to fight this evil. That’s why he was born!”
“It’s not enough!” Matt shouted. “I can’t just sit here and let him face t
hat alone!”
“He’s not alone! The Circle’s with him!”
“Aren’t we the Circle?”
“Not any more!” said Veira, sharply. “Our part is played. To interfere now is to put all at risk!”
Pellen Orrick stared at the monstrous things lurching and clattering and flapping and growling into hfe all over the Square. “But I’m Captain of the City! I should be out there fighting!”
“If you go out there he’ll try to protect you!” Veira told him. “Which will likely get him killed. So hold your tongue and stay out of sight! All of you! That’s the best we can do for our Asher now!”
She was hurtful, but right. Dathne exchanged stricken glances with Orrick, Gar and Darran, then turned to Matt, anguished beside her, and touched his hand. “He’ll be all right, Matt. We have to believe it. We mustn’t lose faith, for his sake.”
“I’m trying, Dath,” he whispered. “Jervale knows I’m trying.”
He looked so unlike himself, lost and frightened, it was easier to stare outside than at him.
Dazed and unsteady, Asher was back on his feet. Consumed with vengeance Morg sizzled the air above his dreadful creations. “Kill him, children!” he shouted, pointing. “Kill them all!”
The bestial, grunting, roaring things that moments before had been people, livestock, turned on Asher, slavering. Beat then wings. Lashed their tails. Crashed their tusks against their hides—and charged.
Asher flung out both hands and called forth Barl’s war-beasts. The air around him shimmered and seethed as monsters worse than the demons attacking him burst into hfe from thin air. Creatures torn from the heart of nightmare, towering, stinking, yowling for blood.
Morg howled his fury as Asher’s monsters attacked his creations. He called forth his own war-beasts, equally dire. The world filled with the sound and stink of violent death: the living demons’ black blood gouted, poured sulphurous to the upheaved ground. The magical war-beasts burst into clouds of stinking acid.
Dathne watched, barely breathing, as Asher fought to destroy the cruelties Morg sent against him. From a vast distance she heard Gar name them: brilbeests... dog-trolls... wereslags... ruunsliks... an endless litany of foulness and decay.
Asher held his ground... but only just.
And then shrill screaming wrenched her head around. Not all the demons were trying to kill Asher. Some were in pursuit of other prey. She saw something that once had been a horse, now with eyes of fire and bony spikes all over its scarlet-scaled body, leap through a ruined shop-front then back out again with a Doranen youth in tow, his arm clamped in its teeth. The beautiful blond boy was crying, flailing at the creature with his inadequate, watered-down magic. The demon released him, reared up high, red hooves waving, then pounded his body to pulp on the cobbles.
More screaming, this time from the chapel as its doors burst open and four bull-demons chased a horde of Olken out of then refuge. Most were children. Holze staggered behind them, drenched in blood, but his wounds overcame him and he collapsed to the ground, dead or unconscious she had no way to tell. Asher saw the children—couldn’t help them—
And Matt burst shouting from their pitiful shelter. Ran straight at the demons, waving his arms. At his heels, Pellen Orrick, just as demented.
“Come back, Matthias!” Veira shouted after him. “Don’t do it! Come back!”
Dathne leapt after them. Felt the brush of Veira’s fingers as the old woman tried to catch her arm, and shook her off. Heard a curse as Veira followed. She didn’t look back, saw nothing but Asher—Asher—.
He’d seen Matt and Orrick. They’d reached the first of the running children and were pushing them desperately left and right behind anything that might hide them from the monsters pursuing.
The leading bull-demon reached the slowest of the little ones and gored her. Asher killed it with a spear of fire. Matt and Orrick kept on snatching children, throwing them to safety.
And then Morg attacked. Swooped from the sky like a falcon to the kill, his face a rictus of fury and hate.
Asher flung a massive ball of warfire at him. The writhing flames engulfed the sorcerer, cartwheeling him backwards and sideways into the majestic carved front of Justice Hall. Shattered masonry plunged to the ground, stained glass splintered and smashed and fell. Stunned and burning, Morg plummeted to the unforgiving marble far below and lay there, unmoving.
Slipping in mud, in bloodied water, hurdling rubble and bodies, Asher tried to reach Matt and Orrick and the fleeing children, throwing warfire at the demons as he ran. One of Morg’s monsters reared up behind him.
“Asher!” cried Dathne, and he turned and killed it. He saw her—faltered—brandished his arms—get back! get back!
Then his face changed. Someone shouted: “Veira! Look out!”
Dathne staggered round. Saw Veira, hobbling, her frail strength spent. Saw Pellen Orrick running back to her, a long spar of timber in his hands like a javelin. Saw a giant bull with bloodstained horns thundering behind the old woman. Gaining .. . gaining ...
Veira tripped, went sprawling. Orrick lunged and thrust his makeshift weapon into the creature’s gaping maw. It bellowed, gouting blood, and crashed to the ground—
—crushing Veira beneath it, and Pellen Orrick too.
Asher cried out and dropped to his knees, hands clawing at his heart, his head, oblivious to the battle raging round him.
“Veira!” Dathne shouted, and started running. Children forgotten, Matt ran too.
They reached Veira and Orrick together. Flung themselves to the blood-slicked street and reached for her hand—a way to free her.
No use. She was dead. Her eyes, half-open, stared at the red-hazed sky. Spilled from her fingers a shard of crystal, cracked now, its beauty charred.
“Veira!” Matt whispered. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—”
A groan, then, filled with pain and confusion. Grief-struck, Dathne looked over the lumpen carcass of the demon-bull and there was Orrick, leg-pinned and living.
Matt pushed to his feet. “Help me, Dathne. I’ll lift this monster—you drag him free—”
But they couldn’t do it unaided. She looked back to the shelter for Gar, who should be helping—
“Dathne! Watch out!” Matt yelled, and knocked her brutally sideways. She fell across a pile of rubble, feeling her skin tear and blood spill, crying out as her head struck something cruelly hard.
Matt had leapt forward, waving his arms. He danced himself sideways, away from her, shouting like a madman. What—what—
An enormous armored-winged demon, snouted and bestial and no longer human, was lumbering towards them.
“Here! Here!” her crazy friend shouted—her compass—her anchor—her candle in the dark. “Here, you evil bastard!”
“No, Matt! Run! Run!”
But her voice was reduced to a whisper and around her the world was fading fast... ... but not quite fast enough.
Morg’s giant, dagger-clawed monster seized Matt in its massive arms and tore him limb from limb. Hot blood sprayed in a mighty fountain, splashing the cobblestones scarlet.
———
On his knees and devastated by the sundering of the Circle, Asher heard Matt’s desperate cry. He looked up. Through blinding pain saw the demon. Saw Dathne, in danger. Saw Matt shove her to safety—confront the monster—and die in blood and futility.
Time stopped, and the whole world with it.
When it started again he was back on his feet. Raging, weeping and lusting for death. War-beast after war-beast boiled into existence around him. He set them loose to rampage—and then leapt forth to join them.
Kill—kill—kill—
His first victim was the thing that slaughtered Matt. When it was over, and all Morg’s monsters were slain or destroyed, there fell a silence, shot through with the sound of someone sobbing and someone else groaning. The Square was drifted with sulphurous smoke. Slicked underfoot with pools and puddles of blood, thick black and red, looking like
a slaughterhouse with the sundered carcasses of demons and the broken bodies of children and then elders. Tired beyond imagining, Asher raised a hand as heavy as lead and banished his surviving war-beasts to nothingness.
Then he staggered to Dathne. Gar was with her, seemingly unhurt, helping her sit up. He didn’t give a rat’s arse about Gar.
“I’m all right, Asher,” she insisted, though there was blood on her face and her eyes were unfocused. “Leave me. Finish this. Destroy Morg and end the nightmare.”
It nearly killed him, but he left her. Ignoring Gar, who shouted his name.
Morg the sorcerer lay still as death on the steps of Justice Hall.
Brimmed with pain Asher walked to join his fallen enemy. Looked down on him and considered his opulent clothing, burned in patches by the scorching warfire. Considered too the way the intact rubies across his chest winked and flashed with every indrawn breath. Reaching down, he rolled Morg over.
Conroyd Jarralt’s unmarked face was as handsome as ever.
On his belt, neatly secured in its lavishly jeweled sheath and barely flame-touched, Conroyd’s knife. Asher slid it free and hefted it in his palm, admiring its weight and balance. Admiring the Olken craftsmanship. Odd that Conroyd chose an Olken-made dagger, given how he despised all things not Doranen.
Odd... and immensely gratifying.
He felt the merest flicker of sorrow, then. Conroyd Jarralt was a bastard but it was unlikely he’d asked to be consumed by Morg. And now he was going to die. Had to die, so Lur might live.
He shook himself. Don’t think on that, don’t think on it. It’s him or you and everyone else. You’re savin’ lives, remember?
And not by spending his own, after all. When he wasn’t so tired and full of pain, and this day’s doings were a good ways behind him, he might crack a smile about that.
But not now.
He ripped apart Conroyd’s blackened clothing. Bared Conroyd’s unburned chest to the air. Blanked his mind, his imagination, and plunged the knife through muscle, between bones, deep into Morg’s black rancid heart and twisted with all the might left in him to summon. Flesh quivered. Blood flowed. The sorcerer exhaled once, and died.
Incapable of walking anywhere else, even back to Dathne, Asher let himself slump to Justice Hall’s steps. Dropping his forehead to his knees he let the trembling take him.