Stained Glass Monsters (28 page)

She was vaguely aware of fear. Partly of
doing anything which would make him stop, of embarrassing herself.
A little of a thing she'd never done. But most of all of hurting
him more. She hadn't expected any of the Kellian to want anything
to do with her, after she'd told them the truth. Faille, most of
all, she'd expected to hate her. She'd been trying to come to terms
with that ever since she'd realised that she'd started to more than
trust him, and still could not quite believe that he had come to
talk with her once he knew that the Kellian could not leave behind
their origins. Reaching out had been an impulse, and perhaps she
wouldn't have done it if she'd thought the implications through.
This threw aside common caution, and in its way was the most
selfish thing she'd ever done.

She brushed a finger along the vertical
line to the right of his mouth, barely visible against opalescent
flesh. She was close enough to feel the heat of him through her
shirt, and the quiver which ran the length of his body when she
touched him. She should never have come near him.

-oOo-

Rennyn lay watching Faille dress. The
first time she'd seen him wearing anything other than a variation
of his uniform, he was buttoning a charcoal grey shirt above loose
leggings. Preparing himself for the dungeons. He looked thinner
without the layers of uniform, ropey muscle stretched over a long
frame, lean and spare.

She felt so greedy, and painfully
protective. Possessive. Ironic given how very much she didn't want
to consider herself anyone's owner, how much she objected to the
idea of inheriting people. A different kind of possession, she
supposed. They hadn't spoken at all, not since she'd touched him.
She hadn't dared, didn't want to complicate the night with any
possibility of commanding him, though she was sure more than a few
would suggest or suspect exactly that. It had also seemed more
natural, letting actions speak for them, pushing aside the shock of
the day's revelations. He'd been so hungry for her, the totality of
his response overwhelming.

He noticed she was awake and crossed to
sit on the side of the bed. Rennyn looked up at him, wondering what
she could possibly say, and in the pause he reached down and traced
the tip of a lock of her hair coiling on the sheet. There was a
black band about his wrist, and she recognised her hair ribbon, the
ends neatly tucked under tightly wound loops. That made her want to
cry, but she settled for gripping his hand, the calluses of a
swordsman hard against her skin.

"I don't know your first name."

"Illidian."

She smiled at the absurdity of herself
who had never asked, and he curled his fingers through hers, then
bent and kissed her. Saying goodbye. He didn't need to tell her
anything else, not what it would mean if she didn't succeed, not
what he hoped they might do after. They couldn't speak of that yet,
so he just kissed her. And left.

For a long time Rennyn stayed where she
was, keeping her thoughts on the previous night instead of the
future. Eventually she rose, found her clothes neatly folded on a
chair, and wandered around exploring. Three rooms, the bedroom very
sparse and clear, but the other two devoted to books. Philosophy,
history, science, memoirs, travel journals, plays, poetry,
fictions. An extensive selection of the better works on magic, and
a larger one focusing on Eferum-Get. The books covered every wall
except one, which held more than twenty swords, all different
lengths and edges. A small shelf by a window seat wasn't ordered by
subject, but instead held a disparate collection of books, covers
worn from frequent handling. It was like seeing inside his
mind.

None of them was anything she had read,
not one. She only knew magic and the mission of her family. It was
the whole of her life. What would it be like, after? She'd never
dared to make real plans, and her mind recoiled from dreaming of
what she and Illidian Faille might do together. The chance that she
would be killed was too large. The chance that he would be wasn't
much lower. Even if they survived, her inheritance would always
stand between them.

And that only if he forgave her for the
things she hadn't yet told him.

The marshes west of Asentyr started as
freshwater and ended salty. The last breach point was well toward
the centre, where the water was brackish and black and the reeds
thick. Most of it was hardly more than knee-deep, but below was
sucking mud, and anyone wading risked sticking themselves firmly in
place. Long Sentene coats were quickly abandoned, and movement was
either awkwardly accomplished in flat-bottomed boats, or involved
getting very dirty. Power-hungry levitations were carefully
rationed, for all the Sentene mages felt they would need their full
strength.

There were no conveniently large areas
of dry land where a traditional circle could be constructed, let
alone a camp, and the Sentene had been working for weeks on the
technical problem this presented. Rennyn was faintly astonished by
their solution. Not that they had sunk pylons and constructed a
platform, but that it was so large. Enough for dozens of people to
move about freely. There were a scattering of smaller artificial
islands surrounding it, an archipelago of wood doubled in size
again by the boats used to travel across the swamp. Like
ocean-going ships, the main platform had wards built into the
boundary. Wards were more energy-intensive than the circles placed
around fixed locations, but they were quicker to establish so long
as you had the power to feed them. The platform was safe for
sleeping, and difficult to attack.

It was also extremely crowded.
Determined and anxious people, busy preparing spells and weapons,
discussing strategies, resting, eating, stretching. They still
managed to leave a clear space around Rennyn. Intellectually, they
might understand that she had not created these circumstances. That
didn't make them any less angry with her: for concealing what she
knew, for not warning them. For being the owner of their
friends.

It didn't help that she'd made it clear,
during the uncomfortable meeting yesterday, that the question of
how she would reach the throne room, how she would survive the day
between the attunement and Solace's arrival, was something she
still wasn't going to discuss. Her position hadn't changed: the
easiest way to protect herself was to be difficult to find.
Travelling with an escort was like painting a target on her
back.

"Counting the hours?"

Captain Medan. He'd become designated
babysitter, perhaps because Lieutenant Danress no longer seemed
able to talk to her.

As he settled his bulk against the
wooden railing, Rennyn shrugged. "I'm surprised how close this is
to the incursion point." They would be able stage much of their
attack directly from the platform.

"Very complex calculation based on the
previous breaches," he said, then met her sideways glance. "Or
luck. One of those."

"It never hurts to have a little
luck."

"Just don't rely on it." Captain Medan
bent down and studied her face. "And sleep more, for pity's sake.
You make me tired just to look at you."

"It's hard to sleep when you know you
have to," she said, lying. Every time she closed her eyes she saw
Illidian Faille chained to a wall. "I'll go in a few hours, anyway.
Has there been any sign of observers?"

"We've scared everything down to the
guppies out of the area. If there's going to be an attack here, it
will come out of the Eferum, not from this side."

She nodded, unsurprised. "If it's equal
to the Asentyr incursion, will you be able to handle it?"

"Ah–" He shrugged. "I wouldn't care to
try an Azrenel that wasn't handily leashed. You made Asentyr easy
for us. But we're better prepared this time."

Rennyn lifted her eyes and looked at him
until he sighed. "We'll be able to handle that many, yes," he said
in a slightly less booming voice. "But the Kellian are the backbone
of the Sentene for a reason. Speed and instinct. The Ferumguard
have the same training, and they'll do us proud, but a lot more
people will die tonight, if we face even half the numbers."

The sun was sinking, and birds and
insects began to clatter and call, revealing just how much life
still remained in the marsh. Captain Medan watched a heron fly
overhead, and when he spoke again his voice was stifled. "Will it
hurt them, do you think?"

"I can only guess. Like a slow
suffocation, perhaps. Or drowning. I can't be sure."

"I'd appreciate it if you got some rest,
then. Even a couple of hours." His hands gripped the railing like
he wanted to wring someone's throat. "She means the world to me.
Dessaile. My partner. If you fail, she drowns."

This wasn't news, but to make him feel
better Rennyn returned to the flat, covered boat which was her
personal bed and lay down, curling around Solace's focus. The heavy
wards on the boat stung at her senses and made her brain itch, but
she fell asleep despite them for all she really didn't want to, and
had the same dream as she'd had last night. Illidian, kissing her,
touching her. His weight on her. Looking up at him with growing
doubt as he pinned her hands. She couldn't see his face, couldn't
make out his expression. Didn't know whose will moved him.
Illidian's? Solace's? Or her own.

It was just barely still light when she
woke, gasping. She felt sick, her head pounding, and she was keenly
aware that Illidian was not nearby, was not watching over her.
Chained to a wall, waiting for his mind to be taken away, his body
to be made puppet.

Rennyn couldn't continue to allow her
self-command to fray at the seams. It would have been easier if she
could have had Seb with her. She would at least have been spared
the constant, nagging worry that he'd been found and killed. Lying
with Solace's focus on her stomach, she began a series of mental
exercises. She had to set this aside. Illidian. Seb. Sukata and
Kendall. People glaring at her and depending on her at the same
time. Fear of failing. Fear, even, of succeeding. She had a task.
She would carry it out as she had been trained to do. When it was
done, she could spend as much time being upset as she wanted. Or
wouldn't care either way.

When dusk had moved to moonlight, she
forced down a little dry food and cast a number of preparatory
spells before emerging. She had asked that the small platform
closest to the breach point be left free, and she levitated across
to it now to wordlessly begin marking out her circle.

"Good luck."

Rennyn looked over at Lieutenant
Danress, sitting in one of the many small boats. Her face was
pallid in the magelights.

"You too."

Enough said. Enough waiting. Rennyn
stepped into the Eferum, bracing herself against the pull of the
Summoning, and lit up her surroundings with an outpouring of power.
Enough to disrupt any ambush.

The wave was already swelling: she'd
almost left it too late. Rennyn let loose another barrage, aiming
it directly at the approaching surge of power, and then busied
herself with the final attunement. She kept herself methodical with
the discipline of life-long training, and concentrated only on
completion as the surge of the Grand Summoning swelled. Then, the
focus hanging heavy from her wrist, she looked up to see a horde
even larger than the first, heading toward the rapidly forming
breach. An attempt to eliminate the Sentene mages once and for
all.

Rennyn emptied the remaining prepared
spells directly into the centre of them, then stepped back into the
world as the remnants tumbled through the breach.

Her shield was active, but she still
ducked as something flew close to her head. Needing to get her
bearings, she levitated up, trying to make sense of a tangle of
fighting beneath moon- and mage-light. There were fewer Eferum-Get
moving than she'd expected, dominated by a group of hopping things,
all legs and long jaws. Spindly, grinning foxes.

Heat washed over the area from a barrage
of spells, but the foxes shrugged off the flames, no more than
briefly stunned. A shielding aura? They moved extremely quickly,
leaping high into the air, bounding about like over-excited foals.
She saw one come down on the shoulders of a nearby woman,
overbearing her so she fell. White teeth flashed into red, but the
thing leapt away before those nearest could react.

These were the kind of Eferum-Get which
the Kellian had been most valuable in countering. The Ferumguard,
using a combination of swords and pistols, were just too slow.
Frowning, Rennyn dropped to the large platform, since she'd agreed
during yesterday's meeting to be properly guarded while the battle
went on. She allowed herself to be surrounded while she tried to
puzzle out a solution. Magic directly used was often resisted – it
was far more effective to create fire or throw stones, and these
things seemed resistant to conjured fire. Nor would the technique
the Sentene had used back at the Arkathan work here: the creatures
were rarely in one place long enough to be hit by missiles.
Besides, she had already seen a mage fall to musket-shot gone
astray. She watched one of the things leap up, soaring well above
everyone's head, and then closed her eyes.

Trying to move things you couldn't see
was far from easy. Not looking at all helped a little, but it still
took far more energy than she liked. There was a faint murmur from
those surrounding her as glistening black columns rose from the
water around them, thickening as they grew. Mud, glutinous and
stinking.

Tendrils began to extend from each
column, curling and twisting like the new growth of plants,
reaching out to each other, lacing together, sending out new
feelers, linking and interlinking until there was a net, a ceiling,
a web of the stuff.