Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (103 page)

‘Do we push on? Or do we run back to Southpoint?’ He knew his men wanted to go home. They’d made that choice a long time ago, even knowing the empire might prevent them. But now even seeing Pontus looked impossible, with all those windships hanging in the skies above, like an affront to gravity.

He was about to go on when a gnostic contact came. It was Alaron Mercer, and Seth seized the link like a lifeline. <
Mercer? What’s happening? Where are you?>

Alaron sounded no less desperate.

Alaron told him.

Through Seth’s feet, the Bridge suddenly felt as flimsy as straw.
They can’t . . .

They could though.
Could, and would
. There was more, information rammed into his brain by Alaron at a pace he could barely follow: plates of earth thousands of miles wide, the energy of the Bridge unleashed . . . enough power to destroy Dhassa, and Pontus too. He clutched the parapet and whispered a prayer. For a moment he just wanted to run screaming, but the practical – there was absolutely nowhere to run – caught up with the need to resist, in whatever way they could.

he said at last.

he asked, but Alaron was already gone.

He looked up at the towers of black clouds, tasted rain and salt on his tongue, inhaled the briny air, caught up in a sudden, vivid dream of life, all his senses intensified. Nothing felt real, everything was intensified. ‘Jelaska, what is the hour?’

‘About four bells: two hours to midday.’

‘Thank you.’ He turned to the rest of his battlemagi. ‘Array for battle. We must take Midpoint, or die trying.’

Javon Seas, west of Midpoint

Akhira (Junesse) 930

24
^th
and last month of the Moontide

‘Al’Rhon, listen to me. We must go to Southpoint Tower.’

Alaron peered past the sail of the skiff, which was almost ripping from the stresses they were placing the craft under. Ramita was huddled in the fore-deck to add weight to the prow and keep the skiff low to the wind. They’d been en route when he’d contacted Seth and found they were too late: the empire had struck already, and Ramon had been snatched. Now they were off the Javon coast, tearing westwards across the ocean. He’d been making for Midpoint, but now Ramita wanted to veer hundreds of miles off-course. ‘Why?’

She squirmed her way back towards him along the hull, crawled around the mast and under the boom and gripped his knee. Her face was devoutly forthright. It was an expression he knew: the one she used when she’d run out of rational explanations for anything and fell back on religion. ‘It is Fated,’ she said earnestly.

Kore’s bollocks it is!
‘There is no such thing as Fate!’ he shouted, really angry at her for the first time in his life. ‘Fate is coincidence masquerading as order! We’ve got to reach Seth at Midpoint!’

‘No! Listen, husband: Lord Meiros foresaw this moment three years ago!’

‘
What?
’ he exclaimed. ‘
Three years ago?
That’s impossible—! The number of variables involved are too many!’

‘Please, Al’Rhon! A few days before he was murdered, he took me to Southpoint! He showed me a tunnel, a way into the tower that the Imperial Magi don’t know about! He made me memorise the place!’

Alaron’s mind reeled.
Kore’s Blood, can I credit that? Could Antonin Meiros really have predicted this?

What Kazim had seen in Rutt Sordell’s mind was that Emperor Constant planned at the end of the Crusade for the Imperial Keepers – the Ascendant magi who’d been given control of the Bridge after the First Crusade – to destroy the Bridge. Not only that, but they would unleash a cataclysm that would trigger a vast earthquake, intended to raise a permanent land-bridge between Yuros and Antiopia, leaving the East open to permanent conquest.

I have no idea how to prevent that, but clearly we would need to storm one of the towers to even stand a chance. Logically that should be Midpoint . . . but what if Southpoint suffices, and old Antonin really did show Ramita a way in . . . ?

He met Ramita’s eyes, trying to see past her fervent conviction that the world operated like some giant fable to the real matter: that Seth had told him the towers were fortified and nigh impregnable.

We’re going to need a way in somehow . . . which is what this tunnel would be . . . But it adds at least two hours to the journey, while Ramon is in their hands . . .

‘My father once told me that to love is to trust,’ he said at last.

Her eyes shone.

*

A few hours later, the
Seeker
was hurtling under semi-control on a southwest tack, moving at speeds it could only have made – hyper-charged with spells as it was – with both Alaron and Ramita pouring energy into the keel and summoning a storm behind them. Below them, the waves roared as they streaked towards Southpoint’s distant beacon.

Alaron was so deeply enmeshed in his gnosis-workings, he almost didn’t notice the gnostic contact; but it was persistent, and strong.

It was Mater-Imperia’s voice, well remembered from their brief contact after he’d slain Malevorn. He almost rejected the contact, but decided to allow it, while minimising the link so that she couldn’t trace his position.

she purred, the voice a cat might use while toying with a half-dead mouse.

he lied.

She paused, then said,

There was a gasping sound, then a male voice.

he blurted, then thought of all the ways that this could be a trick and shut his mouth.

he shouted, while Ramita’s eyes widened in comprehension.

Lucia’s voice came back.

He believed her.
Which means she’s right there, at Midpoint! She’s come to watch the spectacle!

The surge of hatred he felt was most un-Zain-like.

She paused, her voice filled with controlled relish, then she couldn’t help but add,

He had his mouth half-open to retort, to tell her that he would do all he could to prevent that ‘news’, when he remembered that surprise might be the only weapon he and Ramita had. He almost offered the Scytale to prevent the Bridge’s destruction – but no, that would betray that he knew what she was up to, and anyway, he was sure that she was going to do it anyway, come what may.

Instead he broke the contact before he betrayed too much.

Three hours? Is that what Da said?
They were still at least an hour from Southpoint.
We’re running out of time . . .

Southpoint Tower, Dhassa

Akhira (Junesse) 930

24
^th
and final month of the Moontide

‘This is the place,’ Ramita said, finding the angles Antonin Meiros had told her to draw between the tower, the hill to the southeast and the hillock on the coastline.

Sea mist was drifting in from the north where the waves thundered, but the skies overhead were clear. She and Alaron were cloaked by Illusion, in case there were watchers on the tower piercing the skies some four hundred yards away – no distance at all, when it filled the sky. The beacon shone so bright it hurt to look up at it.

She raised her hands and gently blew the sand from the trap-door. Alaron made a small sound in the back of his throat, but there was no time for wonder. The bridge still stood, that much was clear, but the tower beacon was glowing like a fallen star, pulsing ever brighter.

She laid her hand on the door and it clicked open of its own accord, revealing a manmade hole in the ground. Alaron eschewed the ladder and dropped through, staff and gnosis ready. Ramita followed, finding a narrow tunnel, the walls made of brick and the ceiling low. It smelled dry, and the air was cool, and utterly lifeless, without rodents or lizards or even insects.

Alaron went to lead the way, but she pulled his arm. ‘My Lord expected me to come here. I will lead the way.’ She conjured light and took the lead. The tunnel was clear and straight, and they could see their destination, a wooden door far in the distance. She strode towards it as fast as her legs could carry her, with Alaron chafing behind her.

She’d heard those snatched words:
Three hours
. That was two hours ago . . .

They were within a stone-throw of the door when something shimmered in the air before them. She cried out as an image of her husband appeared. He looked just as he had the first time she’d met him, with lank grey hair and a full, wispy beard. He looked haggard and drawn, smitten with grief.

‘Speak your name,’ the image said in a reserved voice.

She felt a surge of fear and hope; she’d encountered a similar gnostic message at the Isle of Glass. ‘Ramita Ankesharan-Meiros,’ she replied in a clear voice.

The image flickered, and then Lord Meiros reappeared, looking exactly as he had the day they visited Southpoint, shaven-headed, with the bristly goatee she’d persuaded him to adopt.

‘Dearest Ramita,’ the image said. ‘I leave you this message, not knowing if you will ever hear it, and also that if you do, it is likely at great need, and I will not be with you. The only reason you would come here that I can divine is to try and prevent the destruction of the Bridge, something I’ve long expected the empire to attempt.’

Alaron looked astonished at how accurate Meiros’ message was, but Ramita wasn’t surprised; her first husband had been the greatest mage in the world: of course he knew.

‘I will therefore be brief and factual,’ the image went on. ‘The Leviathan Bridge is sustained whilst underwater by the accumulated gnostic power of the five Towers, which accumulate solarus energy and convert it to Earth-gnosis. The bridge is a self-repairing entity that can survive almost anything, provided the towers remain intact. The towers themselves are warded against all but the most overwhelming attacks.

‘We’ve long known that the power of the solarus crystals can be misused, and therefore the method of constructing them is carefully guarded. To date it has suited the empire to leave the Bridge intact, but that has always been likely to change. To prevent them, you must first climb the tower to the highest room, the one beneath the solarus crystals themselves. Each of the Five Towers contributes equally to the control and flow of energy into the Bridge and they are manned at all times. Since the Bridge was seized, this has been performed by Imperial magi, with the cooperation of the Ordo Costruo. To destroy the Bridge requires the five magi manning each nexus-throne to collectively act to destroy the Bridge by disrupting the flow of energy. To prevent this requires one of the five to overcome the other four and wrest control.

‘This is what you must do, my dearest: get to that nexus-throne, enter the link with the other four and prevent harm to the Bridge. They will try to stop you, and they’ll be able to strike at you, even hundreds of miles away in the other towers. But you will be able to strike at them as well.’

The old mage’s voice became low and earnest. ‘My dearest, to achieve this you
must
have gained the gnosis in the strength I hoped, and learned to use it. You will be facing Keepers, cunning old Ascendant magi with vast experience. So I beg you: whatever need drove you here, go no further if you aren’t the person required for this task. I’d rather lose the Bridge than lose you. If this task is beyond you, go home. Protect our children. And know that I care deeply for you.’

Meiros reached out, but his hand passed through her, flickered and then he was gone, leaving her tearful and shaken. She swallowed heavily, looking away when Alaron squeezed her shoulder. He looked overawed, as if he suddenly didn’t think himself worthy of her.

‘Am I ready?’ she asked him. ‘Can I do this?’

‘I believe in you,’ Alaron replied, with exactly the certainty she needed to hear. ‘You’re the strongest mage I’ve ever met, stronger even than an Ascendant. Your technique is improving all the time.’ He bit his lip, then added, ‘The key to fighting against many is to keep up a strong defensive screen, be mobile and to strike suddenly at the most vulnerable. We learned that in the Arcanum.’

‘I’ll remember. Thank you, my love.’

Alaron took a deep breath and flexed his shoulders. ‘Then let’s go.’ They’d both been awake and active now for three days, and he looked exhausted, dark circles like bruises beneath his glazed eyes. She could feel him drawing on his reservoirs of energy to reinvigorate himself. She was doing the same.