Stained Glass Monsters (17 page)

"Have you summoned a focus already?"
asked Princess Sera, playing the wide-eyed and innocent card again.
"You don't look nineteen."

"Unregistered mages are so bad about
keeping all sorts of rules," Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere said before
her brother had to answer, studying the young princess as if she
were deciding whether to step on her. She obviously hadn't missed
the mischief behind the question.

"Summoning my focus was the most
daunting thing I've ever done," Prince Justin said, taking Princess
Sera's hand and settling with her at the desk just across the
aisle. "How you can bear to venture there frequently I can't guess,
Lady Montjuste-Surclere."

Kendall would bet Sebastian and his
sister found it harder to bear all this fascinated attention. Scary
and dangerous as the Hells sounded, it was the source of all the
magic in the world, and to this pair probably bunches more fun than
being in a room with gossip-hungry strangers. If it wasn't for them
acting so much like they were in charge, it would look like they'd
been backed into this corner and trapped there.

Feeling a little cornered herself,
Kendall turned to look out the window, down at the Reading Garden,
the grassy patch between the Arkathan and the dining hall which had
little tables and seats scattered about it for the students to use.
When this was over, the tittle-seekers wouldn't accept any more
excuses of having only met Sebastian looking for the dining hall.
Once she was out of this box she'd either have to do some fast
talking, or make herself scarce.

Outside it was warm and sunny. Except
for the glowing sigils, she couldn't see the shield at all, though
it did make the grass seem all wavery – in a weird, moving patch.
Concerned, Kendall nudged Sukata and pointed at the tree that
looked like it was under water.

"Guise shield haze!"

Sukata was abruptly on her feet and
holding a long knife she'd pulled from somewhere. The huge Sentene
mage cursed and moved to look outside while his partner slid one of
those overlong Kellian swords from the sheathe on her back.
Everyone else moved forward or away depending on how brave or
stupid they were, but Kendall was still by far the closest when the
room's four tall windows smashed apart.

There was – it was – only a few inches
away from her face was a wet white tube. It was thicker than her
leg, pulsing and twisting as it jabbed at her again and again. Over
all the noise, all the breaking glass, scraping furniture and
screaming, the noise it made as it pounded at the shield trying to
get at her was the loudest thing Kendall could hear.

Then Sukata was there, a hand on
Kendall's arm as she drew her away, got between her and That.
Moving back only gave Kendall a chance to see it properly, to
understand the pale background blocking out the sky, surrounding
that horrid, fleshy...mouth? As tall as the room, it looked like an
upturned crab, but between hard-shelled and spindly legs there were
thick tentacles, the blue-tinted suckers ranging from coin to
saucer-size.

More pieces of wall and window broke
away as the tentacles searched for a better grip on the side of the
building. Little stalks with eyes poked from ridges at the front of
the shell, then withdrew as it climbed upward. A leg, tipped like a
spear, jabbed downward. Sukata's long knife looked pitiful before
it – even the Sentene's four-foot sword was nothing to this thing
as it began to rip the roof off trying to get in with them. One of
the royal guards fired his pistol, filling the air with stinging
smoke, but the shot stopped dead and dropped to the ground.

"For pity's sake man, no need to tax the
shield any further," growled the Sentene mage, pulling down the arm
of another guardsman. "And be quiet, the rest of you!" he shouted.
"Calm down. It's not getting in here with us and squealing like
stuck pigs isn't helping."

His voice was loud, and certain enough
to get the attention of the scrabble of people trying to claw their
way through the shielded door. The shrieking dropped to a panicky
babble, and the lone teacher who had been herded in with them made
shushing noises, but Kendall wasn't alone in looking worriedly at
Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere, who was still sitting at the next desk
down, her chin propped on one hand and her eyes half-closed. Almost
as if she was bored, but Kendall was near enough to see the set of
her jaw, and knew that keeping the shield up couldn't be nearly so
easy as she made it seem.

As the Thing outside sent bits of wall
and ceiling flying, Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere turned her head and
said: "Prince Justin, will you perform an experiment for me?"

The prince hadn't moved, was holding his
sobbing sister tightly. His voice was unsteady as he said: "What is
it?"

"Go stand at the other end of the
room."

The prince stared blankly, then went
even whiter than he'd already managed. But, still holding Princess
Sera, he struggled to his feet and walked swiftly along the centre
aisle between the desks to the far wall, close to the clutch of
people pressed against the doorway. Immediately the monster stopped
pounding at the shield by Kendall and, with a writhe of tree-trunk
tentacles and a skittering of long legs, went after Tyrland's
heir.

"I don't recognise the type," Rennyn
Montjuste-Surclere said over the renewed shrieking, not pursuing
the subject of the monster's target.

"Not one that's been classified," said
the Sentene mage. He and his partner gathered the two Montjustes
back from the far end of the room, their attention never straying
from the Thing which was now making a show of destroying the
roof.

"What happens if it pulls the whole
building down around us?" Kendall whispered to Sebastian, but he
didn't reply, busy writing in chalk on one of the tables.

"The shield is anchored to the point
where the sigils were," Sukata answered instead. "It doesn't matter
if the surface they were written on is gone."

It would matter when the shield went
away, Kendall thought, and grimaced as the Thing crawled down the
wall behind them. When it pulled apart the stone, the chalkboard
and a fine shaving of wall fell on the inside of the shield as
well. Shifting most of its bulk into the room next to them, the
monster began pounding on the shield with its tentacles and legs.
It was an eerily unreal attack despite the noise and the light
which bloomed around each blow. Kendall could barely feel the
impacts. The shield seemed immovable. The 'inside' of all the walls
fell off, as well as the part of the door projecting into the room,
but it was because the building had shuddered and shifted around
the box which was keeping them safe.

How long would the shield last? Everyone
said Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere was an incredibly powerful mage, but
this Thing was so
strong
. It was demolishing the Arkathan as
easily as kicking over a bucket of milk. A single blow would squash
a man like a roach.

With a screaming sizzle bolts of white
arched up from outside and slammed into the nearest tentacle. The
monster flinched and bucked, destroying most of the floor in both
rooms. It fell into the room below as another series of bolts
punched into it.

"Thank the Dawnbringer," breathed one of
the royal guardsmen, as the monster reoriented in the wreckage to
face a row of black-clad figures standing on the far side of the
Reading Garden, the Montjuste Phoenix shining.

"It's not damaged," pointed out another,
dismayed. This was true. The bolts had obviously hurt, but the
thick tentacle wasn't a bit crisped.

"Some Eferum-Get are resistant to
magic," the Sentene mage explained, and Kendall noticed that he
stood just a little straighter. He'd been worried too, though he
hadn't been showing it.

Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere bent her head
back and looked directly up. Kendall followed her gaze and saw
golden men and women. Kellian, blazing in the sunlight, standing on
the exposed shield. One glanced down at them, and she recognised
Captain Faille as he gave the signal to attack.

For people who always seemed so still,
Kellian could move beyond fast. Almost, it was as if they had gone
from roof to grass with no part in between. But, like a lantern
swung at night, they left a little trail of light to show the path
taken. They'd jumped down
onto
the monster, and made a bunch
of cuts on its tentacles before leaping out of its reach.

The Thing let out a gurgling roar and
writhed after them, but though it was faster than you'd expect for
something so large, its blows only succeeded in creating deep dints
in the ground and earned it a few more slashes. Its blood was
treacle-brown. In another moment it was surrounded, and was being
cut at from every side. Kellian wasps, stinging, always moving.

Just when Kendall was about to let her
breath out in relief, the Thing changed tactics, charging toward
the dining halls. It brought down one of the trees in the process
and, picking it up, hurled it at its pursuers. Kellian scattered to
all sides, and the tree slammed into the Arkathan as the monster
scuttled straight at the Sentene mages.

A streak of golden light resolved into
Captain Faille, running right between the tentacles and jumping up
onto the blue-tinted shell. He thrust his sword beneath the ridge
protecting the Thing's eyes, then leapt away as a tentacle swiped
at him like a fly on a horse. The monster turned for another
charge.

A rock fell from the sky. More than fell
– it hurtled down like someone had shot it from a cannon. The crack
it made as it struck the monster's shell was sharp enough to hurt
Kendall's ears, and the Thing staggered. The next stone went
straight through one of its legs and made a black hole in the
ground.

"They're throwing bits of the Arkathan
at it!" exclaimed one of the students, and a cheer went up as a
third stone was followed by a positive rain of broken bits of wall.
While the Kellian had been keeping it busy, the Sentene mages had
cast a spell which lifted pieces of the destroyed rooms high into
the air and smashingly returned them. Even the monster's thick
shell couldn't stand up to this, and it was rapidly reduced to a
pulpy mass which the Kellian went and poked swords into until it
stopped twitching.

"One day you too will be able to throw
rocks," Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere said to Kendall, and stood up.
Everyone in the room suddenly rose a foot in the air, and before
they'd had a chance to do more than gasp, the shield went away and
the desks fell through the holes in the floor while all the people
floated to the ground outside.

Kendall wondered if this was the spell
Sebastian had been casting. It felt rather more like his sister had
just picked them all up. She turned and stared back at the
Arkathan, at the hole in the side of the building. This from only
one Night Roamer.

"They said there were hundreds of
monsters during the Black Night," she said, amazed. "How in the
Hells did you kill them all?"

"I didn't kill any of them," Rennyn
Montjuste-Surclere said matter-of-factly, watching a handful of
Sentene approach. "Besides, this was something rather special."

"A new type," said one of the
approaching Sentene, an older version of Sukata. This must be
Captain Illuma.

The group stopped before Prince Justin
and bowed very formally, which was an eerie thing when most of them
had yellow disks for eyes and sunshine hair. "Your Highness,"
Captain Illuma continued, "it would be best if you returned to the
main palace."

"Do you believe there are more on the
loose, Captain?" the prince asked, sounding calmer than he
looked.

"None that we can divine, but if
Eferum-Get are now able to guise themselves, a physical sweep will
be necessary."

Princess Sera, all eyes and no mischief
now, wriggled loose from her brother's arms. "You must come with
us!"

"You will be escorted, of course,
Highness," Captain Illuma replied, without missing a beat. "And the
circles and defensive spells around the throne room are the
strongest in Tyrland. A creature such as this could not overcome
them."

The princess didn't put up any more
argument, once she saw that four of the Sentene would go with her.
Kendall was disappointed to be herded off with the rest of the
students. She had particularly wanted to hear the discussion the
Sentene would surely move on to once their audience was gone: just
how had the Night Roamer been able to find, in the mish-mash of the
palace, the boy who happened to be heir of all Tyrland?

Rennyn lay watching Seb making notes as
he read. He never remembered he was holding a quill, and had
managed to draw a delicate squiggle from the corner of his mouth
down past his chin. Each year he grew more like their father: as
soon as he was caught up in something he found it hard to focus on
anything else. The shadows under his eyes had already told her that
he was burying himself far too deeply in the Houses of Magic's
library, but it was hard to lecture him when she'd had to borrow
his bed for a few hours to balance a night without sleep and some
unexpected shield-casting.

"So why the lessons?"

Seb started, then smiled over at her,
shrugging. "Kendall. I wanted to see how much she took in. And I'm
trying to make her see what she's missing."

"How do you mean?"

"She went from nothing to the beginnings
of using Thought in a few days. Her memory's almost as good as
yours – she really is memorising those dictionaries they gave her,
without any context. She has enough willpower for two, and the
questions she asks are sharp, well-observed. But she never sees
magic as anything but a means to an end. Can she really have that
much potential, and absolutely no
feel
for it?"

"The world's full of rote mages,
Seb."