Stained Glass Monsters (13 page)

"You think there is a risk some will
escape this shield?"

"I think you would not be able to
describe what happens tonight and stomach a meal."

Lady Risdale's smile faded, and she
stood motionless as her husband made a dramatic gesture and began
striding toward the house. "I have already sent the children to my
mother. I will – wish you luck, Lady Montjuste-Surclere."

Murmuring her thanks, Rennyn walked back
down to the cluster of uniformed figures as they switched into
action. By the time she reached them, Earl Forinth's sweeping lawn
had a large circle cut out of it, beetles and earthworms squirming
away from their sudden exposure. A spot toward the outer edge of
the expanse of scythed grass seemed near enough, and Rennyn cleared
and marked a far more modest circle, then spent some time casting
defensive enchantments on herself. The Sentene had been discussing
ways to overcome the practical difficulties of protecting someone
in the Eferum, but if that was even close to easy, summoning
focuses would not be so perilous. Captain Illuma was playing
bodyguard today, and all she could do while her charge was in the
Eferum was wait for her return. Rennyn thought she detected faint
approval for her precautions, but doubted any of the Kellian
enjoyed having their hands tied.

Returning from Surclere, her small group
had found almost the entire complement of Tyrland's Sentene and
more than half of the Hand waiting at Fenlis, the village abutting
Darasum Park. 'Change your tactics.' They weren't certain this
referred to the shield, but Lady Weston had wasted no time after
reviewing the report Captain Faille had sent ahead about the
projection. She would not risk a repeat of Asentyr.

Rennyn, stretching after a tedious round
of casting, nodded brief farewell to Captain Illuma and fed the
Sigillic until it shifted her into the cold embrace of the Eferum.
Solace's focus, now attached to a chain and heavy bracelet,
immediately dragged at her hold and nearly slipped free of her
fingers. It had taken a major step toward being one with the Grand
Summoning, and she shuddered at the weight of power it allowed her
to sense.

She'd prepared for an ambush by
Eferum-Get, but the dark sea showed no unusual signs of life, and
her divinations revealed only minor creatures some distance away.
Perhaps, now that the Sentene were sealing these major breaches,
there would be no more attempts at spectacular incursions.

Still cautious, Rennyn next triggered
the divination which would measure the force approaching her. Soon.
She cupped the vessel in both hands and waited, having no plans to
linger a moment longer than necessary. The wave was coming.

And a tiny star came with it. Rennyn
frowned, but it was not headed for her. A single Eferum-Get, one of
the scaled and winged Darensi, was guiding a compact mote of
tightly-wound Efera toward the forming breach. Some kind of
casting? It looked like the hint to change tactics had been a
warning that the Eferum-Get were about to alter theirs.

Knowing there was little chance of being
able to return before that thing had gone through the breach,
Rennyn concentrated on making the attunement, choosing the best
moment rather than rushing. The younger focus pulled at her till
she felt she was a fisherman who had hooked a whale. She would have
to set her circle further from the breach next time, or risk being
dragged in.

"Hello cousin."

As shock sent a cold spike down her
spine, arms closed around her waist. And, far worse, two
injunctions settled on her as he spoke, binding her from casting
and moving. Immediately she tried to break them, to overwhelm them
with her sheer strength, but they were an odd structure, layered as
if she were wound in a thousand cords which flexed instead of
snapping. She couldn't stop Solace's second son as he tightened his
arms, pressing against her back.

"We have so much to talk of, cousin, but
first I think a moment's silence only appropriate. You must say
goodbye to your little friends."

Rennyn couldn't make the adjustment to
look through the veil, couldn't see what that mote was doing. She
couldn't even close her eyes. But the hot circle of power which was
the shield abruptly flared and vanished, leaving her surrounded by
darkness.

She pushed harder against the invisible
bonds, feeling them stretch and fray. It would break, strand by
strand if necessary, but the question was how much time she'd have
to do it. Rennyn had never met an injunction so well built, its
strength not drawn from any massive amount of power, but the
intricacy of structure. What kind of mage was he? She'd not been
able to detect his presence, but he had unerringly found her. She
hadn't had time to trigger even one of her defences. But he hadn't
killed her yet.

"How your heart is beating, cousin." The
arms around her waist tightened further, and he rested his cheek
against the side of her throat. She could feel his heart beating
too. Fast. Excited.

"My name is Helecho," he continued, in a
conversational tone. "I thought you should know. I'm going to have
you, you see. You're mine from the moment I walk into your world.
You should know the name of the one who owns you."

With unhurried deliberation he undid the
top four buttons of her shirt and pulled it loose at the throat,
then began to kiss the side of her neck. The touch of his lips sent
a blank incredulity through Rennyn, but the jolt woke a spark of
hope. He wasn't going to kill her, not right away at any rate. And
no matter how well-built these injunctions, she had the advantage
of strength. The longer he delayed, the more certain became her
escape.

An injunction was an unequal battle of
strengths. Structured magic was always stronger than the pure will
of Thought casting which was the only recourse of a person under an
injunction. Rennyn had been able to break Lady Weston's injunction
quickly because she was that much stronger than the Grand Magister,
and the woman had not been prepared and so used a very
straightforward Sigillic spell inscribed on a bracelet. This
Helecho's injunctions hadn't used even half as much power as the
Grand Magister's, but their layers stretched instead of obligingly
snapping.

Anger helped. All she was able to do was
stand there while he nuzzled and licked her throat, his arms
wrapping so tightly back around her waist her stomach felt bruised.
It was revolting, infuriating. And then he freed one arm so he
could slide a hand inside her shirt, beneath her thin camisole to
fondle her breast. Outrage roared through her and she stoked it,
concentrated it, fed it. Thought magic was as much will as raw
strength, and the injunction was becoming badly frayed.

"I can't promise to treat you well," he
murmured, nipping lightly at her skin. His teeth were sharp.
"Rather the opposite. But you mustn't give in. Too dull, if you
crumble straight away."

He was so pleased. Enjoyment of her
situation radiated off him, and his excitement was reaching a
fever-pitch as he bit her again and again, each time coming closer
to breaking the skin. He squeezed her breast in painful
accompaniment, twisting soft flesh cruelly, and made a little noise
in his throat, one of triumph and satisfaction, and it was too
much. It was enough.

Shedding fragments of the casting,
Rennyn thrust him furiously away, and triggered one of the spells
she'd prepared. The Efera all around her ignited, white fire
blasting out into the darkness. Without pause she followed it with
three expanding circles which would cut through anything, but they
sliced into nothing. Unlike her, he could easily move through the
Eferum.

"So powerful." The gloating words
drifted out of the darkness, out of her reach. "I
am
going
to enjoy you, little cousin."

Shuddering, Rennyn refastened her shirt
as she tried to isolate from which direction the voice had come.
"Not if I see you first, worm." She guessed a direction and spent
her anger in a meaningless bolt of pure force, but there was no
sign that she'd hit anything. This was his home ground and there
was no value in lingering, so she made the shift back to the far
side of the veil. And fell.

Strong arms caught her. Rennyn gasped,
and clutched at an unseen shoulder, then stared about her. She'd
forgotten the mote of worked Efera.

It was night, with a low sliver of moon.
The carefully smoothed earth where she'd marked her circle was
gone. Most everything was gone, replaced by a massive crater, a
dozen feet deep in the centre. It covered a quarter of the lawn,
shearing the stone-lined pool in two. The explosion hadn't reached
the house or even the rose garden, but dirt and stone had been
flung in every direction, sparing little.

The arms holding her tightened, and
Rennyn looked up. Captain Illuma, faintly luminescent in the
moonlight. There were others: Danress, Faille, and Illuma's partner
Vesan. Waiting patiently for her return.

"How many dead?" Rennyn asked,
struggling to control herself.

"Three," Captain Illuma replied, and
started walking out of the crater. "But few escaped without
injury."

Looking around, Rennyn was surprised
there hadn't been more deaths. "The shield didn't contain the
blast?"

"The shield was the blast," Lieutenant
Danress explained. "Some kind of spell which converted the shield's
energy. You were a long time returning."

"Yes." It was a dry little word, and
Rennyn closed her eyes to push away the sudden roil in her stomach.
"Solace's second son calls himself Helecho, and he is enjoying
himself far too much. I don't think the intention was to kill me,
though. He didn't even try to take my focus, and he could have very
easily. A taunting kind of creature, this uncle of mine. Playing
games."

They had reached flatter ground, so
Rennyn slid free of Captain Illuma's hold, concentrating as tightly
as she could on business, on what must be done. "I learned a couple
of things. He's at a disadvantage in terms of power. He can't have
summoned a focus of his own, perhaps is unable to without coming to
this world first. So though his castings might be technically
skilled, there's a limit to the scope of them."

"Broad enough." Danress' voice was
bitter.

"He's nigh-undetectable in the Eferum,"
Rennyn continued. "So I will change my approach there. I think I
should be able to avoid another ambush. What do the Hand say about
using the shield again?"

"They debate the point," Illuma said,
leading the way toward the drive. "And will put the question to the
Grand Magister."

Rennyn nodded, then retreated into
silence for the walk to the coaches and the ride to the nearby
village. She was tired, cold, hungry, and had been...wounded. And
three more people were dead. Just for the night, she wanted a way
to stop thinking. She wanted her father.

"Why are you frightened?"

Startled, Rennyn looked up. She hadn't
even noticed the coach draw to a halt, or the door open. Captain
Faille was a pearl-tipped shadow blocking the way out. "What?" she
asked, not equal to any better answer.

In the pause before he responded Rennyn
could hear the sounds of people moving about, of horses. They'd
reached the inn the Hand had commandeered.

"You are perhaps not so arrogant as you
pretend," Captain Faille said finally, in his soft, attenuated
voice. "But you are secure in your abilities. You did not so much
as flinch when we met at Finton. During the incursion in Asentyr
your plans were completely overset, and that casting was one which
had every likelihood of killing you. It barely made you hesitate.
In Surclere, this second son's existence was simply a new factor to
include in your calculations. But now you are frightened. Why?"

Rennyn stared, resenting the uniform
which hid so much of his face, and the lighting which always
conspired to make Kellian impossible to read. Surely she could not
be so transparent as he made it sound. How much more had he seen?
He was risky, more dangerous than she'd realised. But, all the
same, the question deserved an answer.

"I was raised to do everything I could
to stop Solace," she said. "Or to die trying. I'm used to that
idea. But I never pictured anything but a quick death. The idea of
being...brutalised by this son of Solace, that is new to me." Her
skin crawled at unwanted memory, and she pressed her lips together
to control them.

A slight shift of position was all of
his response, and then he stepped aside. Rennyn escaped upstairs,
to the room she'd left her bags in hours ago. A tray of food had
been set out waiting but, hungry as she was she couldn't face it,
and stood by the fire clenching her fists. Frightened. It was true.
It was what that gloating snake had been trying to achieve.

A tap at the door broke into her angry
thoughts, and Rennyn turned a less than pleasant expression on the
two maidservants who opened it.

"You ordered a bath, M'Lady?" the first
girl asked uncertainly, balancing one end of a large tin tub.

Rennyn hadn't, but realised it was
precisely what she needed and nodded stiffly, then went to the food
tray and forced herself to eat while the maids carried in bucket
after bucket of steaming water.

Captain Faille saw entirely too
much.

The stables of the Houses of Magic were
crowded, for most of the Sentene had returned to Asentyr ahead of
Rennyn's small party. Re-grouping to lick their wounds and make new
plans. The undoing of the shield had been a bad blow.

"Can you tell Lady Weston I'd like to
talk to her when she's free?" Rennyn asked, lugging her bags out of
the coach.

"Of course," Lieutenant Danress replied,
not managing to hide a flash of curiosity. Rennyn saw her give
Captain Faille a quick glance, but the man only turned to remove
his overlong sword from the second coach.