<u>16</u>


    Everything else seemed to fall utterly silent, all other motion to cease, as Arvendahl’s sword… launched by Valerian… slashed through the narrowing distance between them. The blade came alight as it flew, suddenly wreathed in searing-hot flame.


    It passed through a crowd on its way; missing Keldaran, Reston, a pouncing manticore and a racing glass pirate to plunge itself straight through Lord Arvendahl’s chest. The sword split Filimar’s crossbow-quarrel as it crashed home, setting the wood on fire, piercing and roasting at once.


    The blade was sentient. The gods were involved… but it was still an incredible shot. Grassfire cut through feathers and wood and struck sparks from the steel quarrel-head, plunging onward to bury itself in Lord Arvendahl’s heart. Ought to have killed the hateful warg-son, no?


    Only, as Val and Filimar looked blurrily on (critically injured, themselves) the very air seemed to unfold. It was as if reality came apart on some great, unseen hinge, swinging wide to reveal a huge and awful machine.


    Terribly vast and insanely complex, shot through with glimmering lines and thundering gears, this assemblage pulsed and lurched in too many directions to number or grasp. Not powered by manna; producing it. Fed somehow by old, wrung-out gods and dead stars, with Fate herself controlling its switches and data. Its output, no less than Order and Chaos. Spinning forever around, the two mighty forces flared and then faded like fire. Like breath.


    At the construct’s core was a sentient linchpin. Once Oberyn, now Sherazedan. With a second act of tremendous willpower, that immortal wizard reached out of his trap, squirming partway free of the fetters that Salem’s curse had locked him in. Saying,


    “Falco, enough! Come, my friend.”


    …the silver-haired mage called to Arvendahl.


    “My lord!” he replied, wheezing heart’s blood and coughing up splinters of bone. Not both assassins together, not Grassfire or Filimar’s shot, not Keldaran’s blade or the pirate’s slash killed him. Instead, Arvendahl’s soul left that ravaged and staggering body. Flew straight to Sherazedan’s side. “I am here, Lord. We will find a way to esc…”


    And then, like a book slamming shut, the world turned on its unseen hinges once more. With a noise like the molten core scraping rubbery stone, that eldritch machinery went impossibly flat and then faded from sight. Not forever. For now.


    Keldaran’s strike bit into Arvendahl’s neck from one side. Glassy’s cut, from the other. His lordship’s head popped clean off and went flying into the air, trailing blood as it tumbled. Kaazin the Drow fielded the loathsome thing, catching it neatly at the tip of his upraised sword. It crunch-slid-thumped to a halt about halfway down that icy dark blade, staring sightlessly at all those it hated worst. Then…


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    Filimar crashed to his knees, vomiting blood. Valerian struggled to reach his young friend, clambering forward while trying to clamp down his own bubbling, hissing chest wound. Vikran chanted aloud, calling in favors for the next hundred years.


    A red hawk and young griffin both wobbled down to the scuffed, spattered ground. One of them lurched over to Valerian, screeching and cawing and flapping small wings. The other… turned into a slim, wild-eyed girl, her crooked bare toes streaked with Arvendahl''s blood.


    Then a unicorn, freed at last of compulsion, shook off its bindings and burst from its stall like a thunderbolt. Reared up on its hind legs, no longer Arvendahl black, but pure, shining white.


    On the pillar, meanwhile… one arm around Zara, Faleena and Bean, the other wielding his sword… Lerendar shielded the giantess. Used raw magic and unshaped force to deflect sounds, and bat aside hurtling demon-spawn. Even, at one point, a heavy, spiked anchor. Nothing touched that somnolent stone giant. Nothing disturbed her. Instead, like Alyanara, Lerendar willed all those cuts, bruises and burns onto himself. Zara sobbed, alternating her hiccupping lullaby with the Song that Takes away Pain, while Faleena hunched herself over the baby.


    At the pillar’s top, Meliara fed a few moments’ grace to young Kellen, Sandor and Arien, allowing those Arvendahl rogues to see… just a heartbeat ahead… what was coming their way. The four of them stood like a wall around Tormun and Beatriz. Defended them both as the ship’s captain fought to keep the young mother… and her wisp of an unborn child… alive.


    “An Arvendahl!” shouted Kellen, sounding ragged and hoarse.


    “An Arvendahl to the fray!” came back the response, as…


    On her floating-rock perch, Cinda first jammed her transformed bow back to its faerie pocket, then wild-shaped into an owl. Next, she took silent flight, wheeling and banking through demon-pocked air, searching.


    High overhead, at much the same time, a diamond-tipped spear and a sword struck home together; first piercing Skyland, then shredding that vile, writhing demon to chittering, shrieking small bits. It puffed into a cloud of tiny, foul pieces that flared and went out like the crinkling ash of burnt paper. Not dead, for no strike out here could bring an end to a monster like Skyland. Instead, banishing the demon back to its infernal charnel-house den.


    Alfea gasped, scored and burnt in a dozen places. Drained and befouled. Then Firelord turned to her, smiling. Even speaking through Galadin, the god’s voice shook the land and troubled the ocean, causing shockwaves that blasted the last of those fiery skull-heads and swords far away.


    <u>“A boon, dragon-blood,</u>” the god said to her. “<u>Speak. What wouldst thou have of me</u>?”


    Reeking of entrails, spattered and scorched, Alfea drew her ragged wings close about her and started to cry.


    “Please,” she whispered, as her spear broke up into slivers of rainbow. “Please let everyone forget what… it said… what they saw, today! Great One, if he knows… If Van has seen my true form, I must leave him! My baby, my husband! I… Great Lord, please help me to stay! Please make them forget what they saw!”


    Firelord nodded assent, still smiling a little.


    “<u>It is done, Sky Born</u>,” he thundered. “<u>You… and my last worshipper… have merited much this day and in time yet to come. Be it so, exactly as you have asked of ME, Seralfea</u>.”


    And so, it was.