Bone, Fog, Ash & Star (43 page)

Rea says hollowly, “Now you know how it feels to lose.”

“Yes, I left you with that memory, didn’t I?” says Nia. “I…I don’t think the Guardians will let us stay here long, so I suppose I’ll be dead in moments. But Kyreth is mistaken if he thinks he can get away with this. If he thinks he can stamp me out and be safe.” The golden fire in her green eyes shines more brightly than ever as she looks at each of them, Selva, Rea, Eliza. She begins to whisper something, curling in on herself. The white tiger comes leaping out of the desert towards them. It paces circles around the Lookout Tree, tail lashing.

When Nia looks up again, she holds two little wrapped bonbons in her hand.

“This one is for you,” she says to Eliza, giving her one of them. “Yummy sugar-coated centuries of dark Magic. My power. Ironic, isn’t it? Use it to avenge me. Promise me.”

“I promise.” Eliza replies without thinking.

Nia turns to Rea. “And this is yours. Everything that I took.”

Rea reaches for it with a trembling hand.

Eliza looks at the bonbon in her hand. Nia’s power. She sees again the Oracle of the Ancients, her clear eyes and her small pointed teeth, and she hears her hissing voice:
You will cut out your own heart.
And finally she understands. That time has come.

“If you take back your power, you’ll have to leave Di Shang forever,” she tells her mother. “We have to separate the worlds. All the beings of power will go to Tian Xia, and the humans must stay in Di Shang.”

“Rom?” asks Rea, staring at the bonbon, brow furrowed.

“He must stay,” says Selva quietly. “He belongs to this world.”

“You
can’t
be thinking of…” Nia begins.

Rea hands the bonbon swiftly to Eliza. “I can’t leave him,” she says.

Nia rolls her eyes and slumps against the tree.

“You must make your choice quickly, my dear,” says Selva to Eliza. “Time will not wait for us much longer.”

“You could have it,” says Eliza, knowing it’s useless.

Selva shakes her head. “Mine is another road. You know yours. You have only to choose it.”

Nia has turned very white. “Smidgen, you promised! You’ll punish him, you said…”

“Yes,” says Eliza. “I will.”

“I wish I could see their faces when you turn up! You know, I always thought…well, if anybody was going to do me in, I’d have thought it would be you.”

“I couldnay have done it,” says Eliza.

“Oh, you might’ve had to. I was going to wreak the most terrible havoc. But that’s all done now.” The pendant around her neck is fading, darkening. The white tiger gives a low moan and bows its great head to her. She puts her arms around its neck.

“Oh Smidgen,” she says, tears shining in her eyes as she looks up at Eliza. “The fun I’ve had!”

“Go on,” says Selva gently.

Eliza puts the bonbons in her mouth, one after the other, and bites down. Trust Nia, they are delicious, but there is not much time to notice that. She feels the wind and the ocean thundering through her veins. She feels the emptiness of space in the marrow of her bones. She looks up into the branches of the Lookout Tree, where the little boy is staring down at her with wide, frightened eyes. He points, and she follows his finger.

A dark river cuts through the desert. In the shadowy distance the great panther looms, crouching over it. The river rushes between its giant paws.
You will bring me your beloved.

Eliza finds she is weeping as she lifts Nia into her arms. The sand turns to darkness beneath her feet as she carries the Sorceress to the river. The white tiger pads behind her.

~~~

Charlie, Nell and Ferghal huddled together in the grass around Foss, staring at the spot where moments before Eliza and Nia had joined hands and then vanished. Malferio lay dead just paces away. The Mancers were silent and still.

“A seeking spell,” Kyreth threw over his shoulder at last. “Find Eliza.”

“The Vindensphere…” a Mancer began tentatively.

“In need of repair,” said Kyreth with a harsh laugh. “Again.”

Gautelen sank to her knees in the grass. She looked at Nell in stunned bewilderment.

“You are not the Shang Sorceress,” she said.

“No,” said Nell coldly.

“I do not like this place,” muttered Ferghal. “Hello! My friend awakes!”

Foss was sitting up slowly, painfully, a faint glimmer returning to his dark eyes.

“Kyreth!” he called out, his voice still weak.

The Emmisariae were standing directly behind Kyreth and started when Foss spoke.

“It is Foss!” Finnis cried out joyfully; then he fell to frightened silence.

“You are leading the Mancers astray, Kyreth,” said Foss. He tottered to his feet.

From somewhere in his flowing robes, Kyreth drew a long, gleaming sword.

“See what becomes of a traitor!” he called out to the assembled Mancers.

“Will you stand by and watch murder?” cried Ferghal, outraged, leaping to his feet. “Defend your fellow from this monster!”

The Mancers looked at one another fearfully. Kyreth strode towards Foss, sword aloft. Ferghal snatched up the dagger Gautelen had dropped.

Before they reached each other, the earth moved, as if the Citadel was perched atop the back of a sleeping beast that was now stirring. The great walls and towers trembled. For a moment they all froze, waiting in the strange hush that fell for what would happen next.

Ravens poured out of the sky. Ravens burst from the ground and the white walls. The world was a mass of them, seething. They covered the grass, they covered the walls, they filled the trees. They formed a doorway against one of the walls, and through it stepped Eliza.

Her eyes were black pools, her hair dark cords that snaked around her shoulders. Light trembled from her fingers.

Kyreth span towards her, sword raised, and Ferghal lunged at him, driving Malferio’s enchanted dagger into his back.

The Citadel shook again. Kyreth staggered. Ferghal was backing away from him, eyes wide, mouth working soundlessly. The walls groaned. The earth gave a jolt and they all staggered. Great cracks began to run across the walls and the ground.

Kyreth stumbled towards Eliza, the light draining from his eyes, his bright gold skin fading rapidly to white and then to grey. She stood still as he grabbed her by the shoulders, towering over her.

“Eliza,” he whispered. “The greatness of the Mancers depends on Di Shang. You must not…you must not…” His voice faded. He fell to his knees.

“There are many kinds of greatness,” said Eliza.

He looked up at her, unseeing, his eyes black caverns, and then toppled sideways, dead. The walls and towers tumbled with him. The Inner Sanctum cracked and fell. The Mancers and the humans covered their heads and ducked among the trees for shelter from the falling stone. When the sound had abated and the dust cleared, they began cautiously to emerge. The Citadel lay ruined.

Ferghal helped Foss climb onto the rubble of the Inner Sanctum, where he addressed the Mancers.

“I would like to call an emergency council,” he said weakly. “With all Mancers in attendance.”

~~~

Once Eliza had explained her side of the recent events, she left the Mancers to their council outside the ruined Inner Sanctum. Foss was getting stronger every moment that he stood among his fellows, she was glad to see. They had all been stunned by the revelation that their Magic had for eons connected the worlds rather than pulled them apart, and a great many of the Mancers were still insisting that this was impossible. Most of them, however, saw the truth of it as soon as they heard it. Eliza hoped that they would agree to go to Tian Xia peacefully, but had made it clear that any who refused would have to contend with her. They all looked at her fearfully now; Obrad in particular avoided her gaze. She had other things on her mind for now.

With some trepidation, she joined her friends sitting under the trees. The ravens were mostly gone, just a few of them here and there pecking at the dust. To her relief, they looked at her as if she was unchanged. As if she was still Eliza.

“Nia’s really dead?” asked Nell.

Eliza nodded.

“I’m sorry about…before,” said Nell. “On the Isle of the Blind Enchanter. It’s just, lah, when you said you were going to
her
for help…”

“It’s all right,” Eliza said quickly. “I understand.”

“And look at you now,” said Charlie. “The power of three Sorceresses! How does that feel?”

There were no words for it. What could she say? The power she felt trembling within her and around her was terrifying. She was connected to everything, or so it seemed, but not in a nourishing way. She could pull the sky down with her fist, stop time. It felt destructive, too large and too dangerous for this quiet, gentle world. She felt as if she had been swallowed by Magic and was looking out of it from a great distance at everything that had once been familiar. Her friends.

Thankfully, when she didn’t answer, Charlie kept on talking. “So, separating the worlds. I used to be opposed to the idea, but being human now, I’ve had a change of heart, aye. It’s awful how vulnerable humans are. It might be the right thing to do after all. I mean, if you think it is, then I’m all for it.”

“I dinnay know if it’s the right thing to do or nay,” said Eliza. “That’s too big a question for me. But it’s what would have happened naturally if the Mancers hadnay been stopping it. It’s also the only way to keep the Thanatosi away from you for good, aye. I’m guessing they’re on their way to Di Shang right now.”

Charlie grinned, a little nervously. “How many people can say that their best friend sundered two worlds on their behalf?”

“And all that needs to happen is the Mancers need to leave,” said Nell. “That means you’ll be the only being with any power left in Di Shang!”

There was a short pause. The truth hit Nell and Charlie at the same moment.

“No!” said Nell.

“Eliza!” said Charlie.

She looked down at her hands. Light still flickered around her fingertips. It was unsettling.

“It’s the only way, lah,” she said. She couldn’t look at them.

“But…how will we see each other?” cried Nell.

Eliza stood up. Her own grief felt dangerous to her, tinged as it was with this terrible and unfamiliar power.

“We willnay,” she said shortly. “But it’s the only way. I’m going to see how Gautelen’s doing.”

The young Storm Seamstress sat huddled by herself under an oak tree, her dark face streaked with tears. She looked up when she heard Eliza approaching.

“I don’t understand,” she said dully. “I thought you were her enemy. Now it seems you were her friend.”

“A little of both,” said Eliza, crouching down next to her.

“And Malferio…she hated him. I thought she’d be…grateful.”

“It’s complicated,” said Eliza. “It always is.”

“Is she dead?”

Eliza nodded and Gautelen buried her face in her hands. Eliza put a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll take you back to Tian Xia,” she said. “Your parents will be worried.”

She sat with the weeping girl until Nell and Charlie came and joined her. Nell’s eyes were red and puffy.

“They’ve all agreed,” said Charlie. “The Mancers, I mean. They’re going back to Tian Xia. They need to go through the ruins for books and enchanted objects…that’ll take a while I spec. And they’ve just voted Foss Supreme Mancer.”

“What?” Eliza leaped to her feet.

“At first they all assumed it would go to Ka. But then he said he wasnay worthy because he’d known Kyreth was wrong and suspected him of killing Aysu but hadnay done anything. He said the only one who had been willing to do the right thing was Foss and he should be Supreme Mancer. I cannay say everyone looked happy about it, but they agreed.”

“There must be some way you can stay here,” Nell burst out, almost before Charlie had finished.

“I dinnay think there is,” said Eliza. “And I’ve done a lot of damage in Tian Xia. Amarantha is still on the loose. Now I have all this power, praps it’s time to do…something good. Something useful.”

“You can be good and useful in Di Shang!” cried Nell.

“And be the last thing linking the two worlds, aye,” said Eliza. “If anything crossed over from Tian Xia, it would be my fault. Besides, I spec the Sparkling Deluder would be as good as its word, or as bad as its word, and take me back like it threatened to. I know what I have to do and it’s nay easy. Dinnay make it harder.”

They were all silent for a while, finding it difficult to look at one another. At last Nell said, “By the way…it’s nay the best timing, praps, but do you spose we could borrow a dragon from the Mancers?”