Stained Glass Monsters (7 page)

The flags of the street faded to soot,
leaving the sigils forming the inner circle glowing white against
nothing. The second circle flared brightly as the dark flowed past
it, not stopping the tide but anchoring it so that it would not
extend beyond the borders of the original breach. A wave of cold
followed behind and Rennyn's breath puffed mist as she waited for
the full breach to be outlined. Even firmly anchored, almost the
entire width of the street was engulfed, with all but a few of her
defenders standing on the surface of a black lake.

The Hand members were watching her with
open fascination, but not a single Sentene faced inward. They would
not turn their backs on Eferum-Get. That unity made Rennyn a little
more confident about survival, and she set her jaw to stop her
teeth from chattering as she activated the outer circle. Dark lines
began lifting from the surface of the lake, slowly at first, then
streaking upward and outward like a tarry sunburst. One, two, three
darted directly into the furthest recesses of the Devourer's
portico, but most spread far out into the city.

They'd all passed through this point,
all the Eferum-Get loose in Asentyr. That was the connection she
exploited, making tangible the fact of their passage, turning it
into a visible trail.

"Be ready," she said, lowering herself
to her knees then resting back on her heels. One hand she lifted to
press against her focus against her chest, warm with her body's
heat. The other she held above the surface of the dark beneath her.
Then, closing her eyes, she made a scooping, gathering motion, as
if collecting a tangle of black ribbons floating beneath the
surface. The trail became a thread, a link, a chain. And she hauled
on it.

"Above!"

Rennyn firmed her grip as whatever had
been lurking in the portico leapt straight at her. There was a
brief warmth as someone loosed a casting, then heavy meaty noises.
The noises were harder to block out, but she tried, hauling on the
icy, slippery tangle which joined the Eferum-Get to the breach
between the worlds. Hand over hand, dragging them back, her fingers
turning to sharp spikes of pain, then losing feeling.

Sounds kept breaking through. Sharp
commands, the ring of steel on...something, bursts and whumps of
offensive casting. The staccato of hasty sigil writing. Her throat
and chest started to hurt, and it became as hard to breathe as it
was to hold on to the tangled, thinning rope, and that was very
hard indeed when only the effort it took to pull told her she still
had it.

The thinner it grew, the heavier it
seemed, until she finally realised that she wasn't able to pull the
last strand any further. Telling her fingers to tighten, she wound
it around and around her hands so it wouldn't slip, and opened her
eyes.

Pieces of monster were everywhere,
scattered across a street slick with blood and ash. The neat
formation of mages had broken, and beside her was a little cluster
of people working over two fallen defenders. Everyone else, all of
them, were arrayed to her right, toward the Docks District. She
couldn't see what they faced, but she could feel it. An intensity,
a swell of power which left her head throbbing, like a sound too
low to hear.

The urgent discussions among the Sentene
on what to do next gave her a name. Azrenel-type. Possibly the most
powerful of the Eferum-Get. They were intelligent with little
physical presence, similar to the Life Stealers though fortunately
far rarer. Only two had been encountered in recorded history.
Rennyn looked down at her hands, at the black line cutting into
numb, blue skin. This fragile thread stretched between her and a
thing that unchecked could lay waste to the entire kingdom in a
matter of weeks. She'd been dragging it up the street.

There was a strange noise, high and
harsh, and she realised it was her breath, tearing in her throat.
She'd done too much, was exhausting her physical as well as casting
strength. The sixty-year plan, the entire purpose of her family,
had been suddenly side-lined, leaving only that thread. She would
hold it till all her strength was gone. Then she would sleep, if
her heart did not stop, and the Azrenel would no longer be
pinned.

What was worse? To let go, to let this
creature run loose so she could continue on the task she'd been
raised to carry out? Or to turn away from stopping Solace? The
Grand Summoning seemed diminished by comparison. And yet, wasn't
this an effect of the Summoning, on a vastly larger than expected
scale? There would be five more incursions.

Overwhelmed, Rennyn leaned forward,
curling over her bound hands. She couldn't think of it. Better just
to close her eyes again, and remember to breathe.

Sunlight. The smell of medicine and
recently-laundered linen. A bed, over-firm, though the pillow was
nice. She was lying on her back, and her arms ached, and her hands
were stiff. Her chest felt like she'd been breathing knives. Rennyn
flexed fingers cautiously, and found they were bandaged but seemed
to be all there, so she opened her eyes.

There was a Kellian watching her from
the doorway. Two Kellian, and a red-haired woman. Rennyn lifted her
head to look at them properly, then lay back and laughed. Not dead
after all.

Ignoring her audience, she looked around
more of the room. Four beds, and Seb on the one beside hers. Pale
and lying very still, but he breathed.

"How is he?" she asked the small,
elderly woman sitting on the far side of his bed.

"Out of the woods. He'll be sitting up
in a day or two. It will take several weeks of treatment before
muscle function is fully restored, though."

Irisian poison paralysed before death.
But still, he would recover, and in time. Not much else was going
according to plan, but she would at least have her brother.

"Is it still the same day?" she asked,
suddenly worried.

"The same." The woman was watching her
with an air of entertainment which Rennyn definitely didn't
appreciate. "You'll be hungry, I expect."

More than. Moving cautiously, Rennyn sat
up. She was wearing some kind of shift, and her focus stone was
missing. Both of them. The sense of unreality was fading, leaving
her feeling less than pleased with herself. Events had spiralled
out of her control.

"What is this place? Sentene
headquarters?"

A third Kellian had appeared in the
doorway, and this one Rennyn recognised. "The infirmary of the
Houses of Magic in Villemar Palace," the Kellian mage said. "The
Sentene occupy one branch of the Houses. The Grand Magister asks if
you feel able to meet with her after lunch."

Time for interrogation. Rennyn supposed
there was no escaping that. "Provided my clothes can be found," she
said, which proved an effective Sentene-banishing charm. They
withdrew to other parts of the infirmary while the old woman
produced her clothing, recently laundered, and directed her to a
small side-room where she could change and clean up.

Her clothes, but not her other
belongings. It would be inconvenient if they tried to keep the
focuses. Rennyn took her time dressing, weighing options: how much
to tell them, what to keep back, and when to lie. Associating with
the Sentene now changed the timing but not the main features of the
plan. Since she'd survived the night she would make the assumption
that she wasn't under imminent threat from within their ranks.
Besides, after last night she had to shift her priorities, due to
both the strength of the incursions, and Seb's injuries. She
couldn't care for him and go racketing about the country, which
left her with absolutely no choice in the matter.

"You've some minor frost bite on your
hands," said the old woman, when she emerged. "The severe chill was
the more serious matter. Exhausted as you were, you're at a high
risk for lung infection. I boosted your defences as best I could,
but you'd be well advised to keep warm and take a few days'
rest."

That sounded nice. Rennyn put it on her
list of things to do, and turned to the tray of food which had been
brought in her absence, concentrating on filling the aching pit in
her stomach. A cup of spiced tea with half a pot of honey dumped
into it raised her spirits enormously.

"Thank you for looking after my
brother," she said, when she rose to depart. "I mightn't be here
when he wakes, so can you tell him that before I get back he needs
to produce a highly imaginative and original explanation of just
what exactly he was doing anywhere near that incursion?"

There was only one Sentene outside the
door now, the red-headed woman she'd seen in Finton, who said: "The
Grand Magister's Chambers are upstairs," and led her past a number
of empty rooms to curving corridors and then up stairs which wound
inside a circular tower. They stopped at a well-lit room dominated
by a long table.

The Grand Magister was standing with a
group of people on the far side of the table, but turned and nodded
her welcome when Rennyn came in. "I am glad to see you recovered,
young lady," she said. "Please, sit."

The missing contents of her pockets were
lined along one end of the table, so Rennyn sat down before them.
Both focuses were there, two innocuous round globes, one less than
half the size of the other. The larger was clear, with only a few
faint traces to show how it had grown, while her own was pitch
black. She fastened it around her neck.

"How many died last night?" she asked,
as the others settled around the table.

"We don't have a final tally," Lady
Weston replied, lines momentarily etching themselves between her
brows. "It may be days before we uncover all the bodies. The Docks
are the worst hit. Households, ships, even an entire street with
nothing but dead. Over a thousand."

It could not have been more than an hour
between the breach and Rennyn's casting. A thousand dead in an
hour. Rennyn stared down at her bandaged hands, and wondered if
there was any way she could have prevented this.

"No injunction this time?" she asked,
rather than prod that sore.

"My dear child, I'm not altogether sure
I would dare," Lady Weston said, with a serious edge beneath the
light words. "You are quite the strongest mage I've ever
encountered. Besides, it was rude of me. Can we begin again, with
some introductions? You probably know that I am Honoria Weston.
This is Councillor Vargas, High Magister Fennis, Senior Captain
Illuma, Senior Captain Faille and Senior Captain Lamprey."

Vargas, an ageing but still handsome
blond man, was the Queen's closest advisor, and the only one
looking at Rennyn as if he thought her liable to bite. The Sentene,
though they'd unfastened their uniform collars enough for her to
see their faces, were expressionless. Magister Fennis, balding and
pink-skinned, showed every sign of someone in for a rare treat.

She'd paused overlong without
responding, and her reply felt strange in its honesty. "Rennyn
Montjuste-Surclere."

"Ah." Her answer hadn't been a surprise.
The Grand Magister had been doing some thinking since their last
encounter. "So there was a survivor of that fire. One of Prince
Tiandel's sons?"

Rennyn leaned her chin on one hand. "The
whole family, actually, since Tiandel was expecting the assault.
Feeling was very high against him, and there'd been other attempts.
By then he'd realised that he'd only succeeded in interrupting the
Grand Summoning, not halting it permanently, and thought it best to
remove himself from sight and prepare for Queen Solace's
return."

Magister Fennis leaned forward, eyes
widening to comical effect. "He
chose
to disappear? But then
– Queen Solace's library? Her researches?"

"Moved to safety well beforehand,"
Rennyn said. This was a question she'd been expecting. "Yes, most
of it still exists. Yes, I have it. Perhaps, if this current mess
can be resolved, I'll present it to the kingdom or something. But
not until then."

"But, don't you understand?" Fennis
asked, sounding straightforwardly astonished. "With access to that
library, to the original documentation, we may be able to discover
a way to break the Grand Summoning."

"Perhaps you could," Rennyn said. "The
Montjuste-Surcleres have been researching that very problem for the
past three hundred years, but I suppose it's within the bounds of
possibility that you could succeed in the bare month you have
before the Summoning is complete. I'll certainly give that idea
some thought, and let you know my decision."

His face stiffened, and he looked so
like a disappointed child she had to smile apologetically at him.
"I suppose this will go quicker, and I might manage to be
marginally less offensive, if I just gave a précis of the
situation, rather than go back and forth with questions and
answers."

"Please do," said Lady Weston, with a
quelling hand touching Fennis' elbow.

Rennyn glanced at Councillor Vargas,
least likely to understand. "When a mage enters the Eferum to
summon a focus stone, they are limited by their inborn strength,
plus the strength of their previous summoned focuses. It's rare to
make the attempt more than three or four times because the risks –
exhaustion, cold, and Eferum-Get – increase along with the amount
of power summoned.

"The Grand Summoning abandons the normal
progression entirely. Queen Solace didn't even take her younger
focuses into the Eferum with her, but commenced the Summoning with
her own raw ability. And instead of drawing as much power as she
could and immediately compressing it, she is using it to – this is
hard to express. If you have a large bowl of water, and swirl a
spoon around in the middle, it sets up a current which brushes the
edges of the bowl, even though the spoon never passes there. The
Grand Summoning uses the caster's own strength to set up a motion,
and then structures that motion so that it continues to increase.
When each cycle completes, it begins again, drawing on the power
produced in the last cycle. Because the power involved is mainly
raw Efera, not the caster's strength, energy can be diverted to
surviving the dangers of the environment, and there is not the
problem of exhaustion."