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45. Endings and Beginnings
🕑 Added 2021-06-12 16:26:22 +0000 UTCUpdate: Unlocked for all patrons.
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The lines of thought, fate, and karma go wild, flailing like the arms of a maddened thousand-limbed octopus. There’s no way for Eratosthenes to read them, pressed as he is on all sides. He flies through the air, rending the shadows around him with tooth, claw, and magic. They, in turn, burn him with their hate and malice. The battle requires the attention of all the facets of his 38-aspected mind.
Below, the other guardians stand within a protective formation. Not that it diminishes their impact. Curtains of spiritual fire sweep through the shadows as the Red Witch acts from within the coven’s circle embedded within the formation. Once the spell runs its course, she steps back to let Mary take her turn next. A new magic builds and culminates in a field of spiritual brambles. The thorns extend like lances to pierce the shadows.
The coven attacks in sequence: Red, Green, Ochre, Blue, and Gray. When the last of the Gray Witch’s spell fades, Red moves back into the center to begin the sequence anew. The witches’ faces are grim, but determined.
The fighting is just as fierce among the mortals. The Scholar wears a belt that bends light around him, using it to move around the battlefield unhindered. He directs the Silent’s troops, and they solidify their hold on the artillery and armory. Marid also wears an invisibility belt. He sabotages the areas of the Army camp unneeded by the Silent, his explosions punctuating the gunfire.
Neither man is affected by guardians or shadows. Their belts project a barrier that keeps the spirits’ influence at bay.
Amid the fighting, Eratosthenes feels a shift in reality’s substructures. He turns to the east, and sees the lines of thought, luck and karma halt. They collapse into a single scalpel-sharp line that cuts across the sky. The shackles binding the world’s weather split open. Energies foam and sputter, only to dissipate under the influence of a multitude of wind currents.
The spirits stop to stare, soon followed by the mortals. All look up as the wind howls.
###
The storm lashes Dawrtaine—the wind rioting; treating every part of the city with equal ferocity. Polite Stoneside gardens are uprooted, Brickside market stalls knocked down, and the ubiquitous push carts of No Town swept into the dark, swirling air. The wind is heavy with sand, scouring the stones on which the city was founded.
Through it all, inside a gentle bubble, Hallon walks to the Standing Goat. The woman who’d helped access the Ministry of Education’s stairwell, Houda, is with her, as is Milo, supported between them. He is unconscious and has been since they’d found him on the rooftop.
A sheep flies above the street. Its panicked bleating can barely be heard. Then the sheep is gone, absorbed by the curtains of wind.
“Is this really happening?” Houda asks, looking frightened.
“Yes,” Hallon says. She shifts her share of Milo’s weight to ease the burden on her left shoulder. Her arm is rapidly healing thanks to the cultivation of her body’s spirit centers, but that doesn’t mean pain and exhaustion disappear.
“Just yes?” Houda asks.
Hallon doesn’t know what to tell her. The poison gas was swept away and the artillery barrage stopped thanks to the sandstorm, but what that means for Dawratine, she’s not sure. Was the Calamity averted?
“What you see is what we know,” Hallon says. She grits her teeth as she uses her injured arm to clear sweat from her eyes. “There’s more that’s invisible—you probably guessed that—but we don’t have a way to communicate with the invisible; not until we get to safety and help Milo here regain consciousness.”
“So what I saw was true? This gentleman, this Milo, he flew?”
Hallon grins in spite of the situation. “Oh, yes.”
The Standing Goat has medical supplies. It may even have Dr. Rahima Rugaam depending on what happened after Hallon and Milo separated from the inn’s residents. Rahima and the rest intended to go to the Barmaki’s estate, but plans change, especially when there are powers at work behind the scenes, her beloved Eratosthenes among them.
Hallon stops. There’s a sense—a ripple. Almost she can hear it—a chiming laughter. Is it the wind? Milo’s air elemental?
“But how did he fly?” Houda asks.
Hallon shushes her and listens. Suddenly, the bubble around the trio moves on its own towards an alleyway. They’d found the bubble surrounding Milo, and it’d protected them from the storm since. Something must’ve changed to lead it elsewhere. Or was it leading them? In either case, Hallon and Houda have to follow if they want to keep its protection.
From one alley to another, the bubble moves until they arrive at a sanctuary dedicated to Saket wedged between buildings. The interior is a mess with papers and cushions twisting in the air, but the bubble calms and sets them gently onto the floor.
There is a mural of Saket with his wings folded, his arms by his sides, and his palms facing outward. He looks like he’s standing in Breathing the World, his eyes cast downward in meditation. The object of his contemplation is one of Milo’s lions sitting neatly in the corner. Hallon recognizes it as the one piloted by the General. He must’ve sought shelter from the storm here.
“Can I talk now?” Houda asks, staring at the lion.
Hallon licks her lips. There is a little twirl of air circling above the trapdoor leading to Dawrtaine’s undercity. She eases Milo onto the cushions and heads for the trapdoor. It’s unlocked, and below, she sees a ladder and the outlines of a corridor shrouded in shadows, the mundane kind.
The General isn’t anywhere nearby, and there are no blood stains inside the lion. He should be uninjured. Where could he have gone?
“Are you okay with going underground?” Hallon asks.
“There are Null down there,” Houda says.
“Then help me get Milo down the ladder.” Hallon checks the wind guarding the sanctuary’s entrance. “You’ll probably be safe if you stay here.”
Houda shakes her head. “You’re just going to ignore the machine in the corner? The storm?”
“Yes,” Hallon says. “The machine’s pilot is what matters, and he went below. In No Town, they call him the General, and he’s a friend. As for the storm, I’m at a loss. For now, anyway.”
“I just wish I knew what was happening.”
That surprises a laugh out of Hallon. “Me too.”
Houda looks indecisively between Hallon, Milo, and the sanctuary entrance. She takes a deep breath, and her lips firm. “All right, I’ll go with you.”
Hallon grunts in agreement. Her left arm is well enough now to make it down the ladder unimpeded. She receives Milo, who is lowered to her feet first. He flops a bit at the end, but Hallon keeps his head from hitting anything solid.
A moment later, Houda climbs down to join them. “I’ll let you know a secret,” she says, whispering. “I’ve always wanted to come down here. I’m too curious for my own good.”
“Curiosity is how the world changes,” Hallon says simply.
The twirl of wind circles around the ladder and disturbs the sandy ground. There are footprints leading to the left. The wind tugs on Hallon’s clothes, leading them also to the left.
The corridor isn’t much wider than the three of them abreast. There’s no light except for the pool cast by the open trapdoor, which they leave behind. Fortunately, they’re not walking in the dark long before they hear a woman singing, the words echoing along the stone walls.
“Is-is that The Donkey in the Desert?” Houda asks.
“I don’t know who is singing,” Hallon says.
“No, the name of the song is The Donkey in the Desert,” Houda says. “It’s a folktale. I just didn’t expect to hear it here. To hear singing at all.”
The melody and lyrics sound familiar to Hallon. She thinks back and recognizes them from the night of the party. She remembers liking the song then. Now, it draws her onward, and soon she sees a flickering light in the distance. Houda must see it too, because both women speed up.
The corridor opens onto a small bare room. On the floor in the center is a kerosene lamp, and beside it is a woman wrapped entirely in bandages. The song abruptly stops when they step into the light.
“You’re here, good. We’ve been waiting. Well, it’s just me here, but the others are deeper in.” The bandaged woman stands and picks up the lantern. “Come, follow me.”
###
Eratosthenes processes the inputs in parallel. Hallon has found safety in the Below, a glow of silver light washing over her. That silver light creeps into the Above—slipping between cracks and gaps in the stone. Meanwhile, ten thousand thousand air elementals descend shrieking upon the battlefield.
Hallon and Milo have done their part, and, for whatever reason, Atu has finally joined the fight in earnest. The silver light is his influence upon the city.
The dragon roars. “This is our chance!”
He twists in the air to rake the shadows with his claws, while alongside, the wind slashes at them too. The battlefield, already chaotic, becomes a roiling, churning sea of vicious attacks and reprisals.
There are so many shadows—almost too many to fight—but they cannot outnumber the currents of the wind.
###
The woman introduces herself as Nadia, a priest of Atu, the God of the Hidden, and while she ignores all of Hallon’s questions—“you’ll get your answers, just hold a jot”—she does answer the one question Houda blurts out—“the tribes save any olive oil they receive for me or else the bandages stick.”
The undercity is nothing like Hallon expected. The deeper they go, the more she sees the faces of old ruined buildings, their interiors empty except for rubble and traces of people passing through. It’s all much bigger and maze-like than she was led to understand.
Hallon regrets not visiting sooner, but what’s done is done. All she can do at the moment is follow after Nadia, who eventually leads them to an old hall and—
“Hallon!”
She is mobbed by the General, Safi, and Wahid. Rahima is slower in her wheelchair, but they make room for her. The Barmakis are here, and Karam too, the young boy’s gladness at her arrival complicated by grief. The people talk over each other in their eagerness for news.
“You are alive!”
“Is Milo hurt?”
“Put him down. Let me examine him.”
“How many shells struck the city?”
“Is that the wind howling?”
“What’s it like being a flying bandit?”
“Quiet!” Hallon shuts them up, so that she can take in the situation.
They’re inside what looks like an old banquet hall or dance room. The General appears worn but unhurt. The same holds true for the other Standing Goat residents and the Barmaki household. At the edges of the room, figures dressed in black stand in clusters.
Hallon’s eyes stop when she sees a human-sized desert fox standing upright and talking to a minotaur, a real gods-be-damned minotaur, just like in the stories. There’s a third person with them, an older man whose side is caved in, like someone had smashed him with a giant mace. He leans on the minotaur’s arm.
“Just what is going on here?”
###
There is no way to avoid the wind. It whips past the barricades the mortals use for cover, the fine grains of sand grating against flesh, cloth, and metal. It slips under their clothes, into the mechanisms of their guns, and even between the cubes attached to the Scholar’s belt. All it takes is for a single grain—in the wrong place, in the right place—to cause it to malfunction.
The device sparks, and the Scholar becomes visible to the other mortals on the battlefield. It is hard for them to see, to breathe, in the sandstorm, but the winds part, just enough for an Army soldier—one who isn’t possessed by shadows—to see him.
Eratosthenes throws the full weight of his influence onto the next moment. A silver band appears from inbetween the wind currents to bend and redirect it; turning the headshot into a heartshot.
The Scholar’s spirit barrier is still active, but it can’t stop a bullet. More sparks fly, this time from the Scholar’s chest. The scent of lilacs fills the air as a violet energy foams from the wound.
###
The introductions take too long, and the explanations of what’s happened aboveground even longer, even after excluding Milo’s miracle in the sky. Hallon is barely able to contain her impatience. There’s no way all these people are here coincidentally. They were brought together, and she is desperate to know why.
Finally, Karam explains. “The Hidden were waiting for me.”
Safi adds: “Us too. They said they’d lead us to a safe place.”
“When we felt the explosions,” Lady Barmaki says, “we knew we were too late and decided to stay.”
Rahima looks up from her examination of Milo. “It’s more than that. These people said we should wait.”
“Then the General arrived,” Wahid says, “and you too. It’s amazing.”
“They are all,” the General says, “important people among the Hidden.”
Hallon listens, while keeping an eye on Milo’s examination. “Yes, yes, but why were they waiting for us?”
It’s the priest Ali, the one with his side caved in, that answers. “There’s a change coming. Soon, the Below will fill with water, and the Hidden will not be able to remain here. We must return to the Above. This we have been told by Atu. You—” He gestures to include Hallon, Milo, the inn’s residents, and the Barmaki. “—are needed to facilitate this change. Things cannot stay as they are.”
###
A soap bubble pops—that’s Eratosthenes’s sense of it—and the thin cohesion binding the shadows disappears. For a frozen moment, they hesitate. They tremble. Then they scatter in ten thousand thousand directions.
Erastosthenes overwhelms the battlefield with a triumphant roar. The shadows flee, but not fast enough. He chases after the thicker ones—the more nefarious, the ones beyond redemption—and cuts them down. Now that they’re not organized, he is a dragon among cattle, picking out the ones most deserving of slaughter.
###
Hallon, frustrated by the endless debate between the General, Lady Barmaki, Houda, and the Hidden, strides to where Milo is resting. “How is he?”
Rahima sighs. “Bruised and exhausted. I’ll need my instruments to be sure there aren’t any internal injuries, but I don’t believe he’s in immediate danger.”
The priest Ali must be tired of all the talking too. He comes to sit beside Hallon. “Atu’s blessing is upon him.”
Hallon takes Milo’s hand in hers. “There are other powers watching over him too.”
“So we have been told,” Ali says. His voice is gentle, at odds with the wicked-looking dagger at his side.
All of the Hidden are armed. Hallon noticed once she’d gotten over her surprise at the Blessed among them.
“Will you fight,” she asks in a whisper, “if the Untainted don’t make room for you aboveground?”
Ali nods. “If it’s necessary. But our hope is that it will not be so.”
From what Hallon understands, Lady Barmaki is one of the most sympathetic to the Gloop among the nobles, but even she is having a hard time wrapping her thoughts around the Hidden living aboveground. Her current proposal is that they stay in camps outside the city. The General and, surprisingly, Houda took exception to that, as did the Hidden.
“That might be a slim hope,” Hallon says.
“I am alive,” Ali says, “in spite of all that this life has given me. I will have hope.”
Hallon sighs. “I understand. Too well.”
Ali sighs along with her. “The priests of Atu have always helped to make peace between the tribes. This— ” He points to the ongoing argument. “—is like that, but bigger.”
“And deadlier.”
“There is death under every rock,” Ali says. “That is nothing new for the Hidden.”
Rahima had avoided participating in the arguments, choosing instead to watch over Milo. Her voice is quiet when she says, “Salima—Lady Barmaki—will come around.”
“Will you add your voice to ours then?” Ali asks.
Rahima clenches her hands. The white gloves she wears are dirty and streaked with dried blood. “It’s too dangerous to get involved. Civil Order will come after us after what we’ve done. We have to go into hiding.”
“The only witnesses were your friends,” Hallon says. “They won’t talk to Civil Order.”
“That doesn’t matter. They’ll still take us in for questioning. Because we live in No Town and are connected to people like the Scholar and have a history and...and I won’t let them near. Civil Order’s knives won’t touch my Safi. We’d finally built a safe, peaceful life, and now it’s all gone.”
“So you’ll run and hide?” Ali asks.
“What else are we to do?” Rahima asks in return.
“Fight,” Hallon says. “Go on the offensive. Push Civil Order so hard, they won’t have the time to go after you. But in a way that doesn’t let them know you’re responsible. Nudge people along. Connect them. Point them in the right directions, but keep your head down.”
Rahima stares at Hallon. “You’ve done this before.”
Hallon stares back. “A time or two.”
“Just how old are you?” Rahima asks.
“Old enough to know that I don’t like politics, but I’ll play the game if I have to.”
“It won’t make any difference,” Rahima says.
“Undoubtedly, it will,” Hallon says. “Lady Barmaki will listen to you in a way that none of the rest of us can hope to be listened to. I saved her son, but even so, there’s a limit to her gratitude. You, on the other hand, are one of her dearest friends. You know and understand her concerns. You can sway her. And through her, the rest of the nobles in the Reform bloc.”
Rahima pulls at her gloves but doesn’t take them off. “I’m afraid.”
“I can’t take your fear away,” Hallon says, “but know that it doesn’t serve you. Nor your son. What lesson do you teach Safi by running and hiding?”
“To survive,” Rahima says.
“Surviving is not enough,” Ali says. “The Hidden understand this.”
Rahima shakes her head. “It is.”
“It’s not,” Hallon says. “Life has to be about more than survival. Otherwise, it’s empty. The Standing Goat was warm and lively—a home in the best sense of the word. You’d have Safi trade that for a life of cold-soaked fear?” Hallon’s eyes look out into the distance, back through time to the young girl she once was. “To survive and to live are two different things. Sometimes you have to survive—I won’t deny that—but it’s not a place you can stay forever. Eventually, you have to go beyond it, or else you might as well have died.”
###
Mary approaches one of the puppets maintaining the protection formation. Eratosthenes continues to maintain it even though the shadows have scattered. No doubt he’s worried about the coven’s safety. There may still be some hidden piece yet to come into play. Jawad and Reem are investigating, while Eratosthenes and his free puppets patrol the air.
The Green Witch hopes with all her heart that the fighting is done. She’s never been so weary in her life. So drained, even her bones are tired. “The power binding the shadows is destroyed? The source was the device buried in the Scholar’s chest?”
The puppet speaks with Eratosthenes’s voice. “It seems so.”
Mary can’t help the hope that slips into her voice. “Does that mean we’re done? The Calamity was averted?”
“The probabilities point that way, but we’ll have to dig to find out for sure. Which we will do, once the immediate dangers have passed.”
“There’s more?” Mary asks.
The puppet points west, and Mary turns to see a wall of dark clouds approaching. Lightning flashes to illuminate their interiors.
“The wind refuses to calm,” Eratosthenes says. “Some of the currents chase after the shadows, others lash at the land, and there are a good number driving those clouds towards Dawrtaine. The air is heavy with the scent of rain.”
“We’ll get to see the desert bloom then.” Mary thought she’d be too tired to care about anything, but the Green always has a way of capturing her interest.
“Yes,” Eratosthenes says, “but I’m worried about the city. The tunnels of the Below will likely flood, as well as the old river channels. All those people are in danger.”
“Is this the wind’s revenge?”
“I don’t know. The elementals aren’t responding, and I can’t find the one that helped us earlier. She ran off part-way through the battle.”
“I was surprised when she appeared,” Mary says.
“She smelled familiar,” Eratosthenes says. In the air above, he shakes his head to clear it. “I don’t doubt that we’ll solve the mystery soon enough, but first we have to—”
“Disrupt the circle of compulsion under Dawrtaine. Yes, I agree.” Mary gauges the clouds’ speed. “We won’t have much time.”
“Another complication,” Eratosthenes says, “is that Milo is still unconscious. We don’t have an easy way to instruct the mortals.”
“What do you recommend?” Mary asks.
“We relocate to the Below to tend to our injuries and wait for Milo to wake up.”
“There’s also Atu,” Mary says. “We can ask them for help.”
“It is as you say.”
Mary nods. Their plan is petal thin, but it’ll do for now. She turns towards her sisters waiting for her—the brave witches who came when she’d called. They’re as tired as she is, and a wry smile flickers at the edges of the Green Witch’s mouth. There likely won’t be any more complaints at their meetings about how she’s been spending her time.
###
Just what has been going on? The thought is a stray one, slipping between banks of tumultuous calculations.
A voice says, “I’m telling you. That won’t work.”
A thread of equations chases after the thought, but is caught instead by the words heard, adhering to the sensations.
The voice continues speaking. “The Councils don’t like threats, and they’ll respond in kind, except magnified tenfold.”
Milo’s model for parsing human behavior snags the equation and kicks up a prediction that the voice’s speaker is frustrated.
“Sympathy won’t work either. At least not with the Purity bloc. To them, the Gloop are animals, and the Hidden? They might as well be devils.”
The model clicks, confirming the speaker’s identity. Lady Barmaki says, “There’s just no reason for the Councils to accept the Null living aboveground.”
Another voice intrudes. Dr. Rahima Rugaam says, “There must be a way, Salima. The solution may not be obvious to us now, but with more of us working together, surely we can think of something. Aren’t there others in the Reform bloc who’ve advocated for the Null before?”
“Yes, but—”
Hallon Nilsdotter says, “Inertia has power. Once the Hidden are living in No Town, it’ll be easier to leave them there, especially if the Below and the fields around the city are flooded.”
Lady Barmaki argues back. “That’s assuming there will be floods. Fortune telling—”
The rest of her words go unheard, because—Hallon!
Milo opens his eyes to find her sitting beside him, holding his hand. A great breath shudders through him. He’d been afraid for her—so very afraid so many times—and he wants nothing more than to sob in relief. His hand in hers anchors him though, and holds him steady.
She’s watching something nearby—people arguing with each other in urgent voices—and she is...interested and annoyed. Some motion—perhaps him squeezing her hand—gives Milo away. Hallon turns. Their eyes lock. Hers are so deep, he’s easily lost in them.
“Milo!” Hallon catches him in a hug, her arms tight around him. “You’re all right!”
The people nearby bustle and make noises, but Milo tunes them out.
“Yes. No. I’m not sure. What happened?”
Hallon laughs. “If you don’t know, then I certainly don’t. All I can tell you is that whatever was locking the weather has broken. There’s an incredible sandstorm raging aboveground.”
“Oh, I think I did that. Me and—”
My name is Nima, the wind says. She’d been there all along, playing in his hair.
And just past Hallon’s shoulder, one of Eratosthenes’s puppets stands watch. It ripples, and Milo feels the dragon become present, replacing the puppet with himself. He looks awful, and there are wounds all over his body.
Mercy bless us, Eratosthenes says. You’re both all right.
Of course they’re all right, Nima says. They have the winds of Dawrtaine at their backs.
Milo and Eratosthenes speak at the same time. “I have so many questions.” I have so many questions.
“You think you have questions?” Hallon snorts. Then her face softens. “No, of course you do. That’s only to be expected, but first, I assume Eratosthenes is here? Please ask about the Calamity.”
It’s been averted, Eratosthenes says, but we need to destroy the devices making up the Scholar’s circle of compulsion to be sure.
Hallon’s equations sag in relief, but all she does is nod along with the words. She asks, “Does that mean there’ll be no more poison gas attacks?”
The Scholar is dead, and so is the means by which the shadows were bound together. The source was a pre-Accord device embedded where his heart would be.
“That sounds interesting and dangerous.” A smile spreads across Hallon’s face, one of her dangerous ones. “It’s good that he’s dead though. Very good. What happened to his spirit?”
It got mixed up with the shadows.
Hallon’s smile turns even more fierce. “We’ll have to find it and burn it then. Once things settle down.”
“Is...is that something I can help with?” Milo asks.
Hallon blinks in surprise. “You’re my student, so yes. I’ll teach you about ghost burning, along with everything else. But first we have to disrupt the circle of compulsion.”
You won’t have much time. A massive storm is approaching Dawrtaine, and there’s a good chance the Below will flood.
“We already know,” Hallon says. “There are priests of Atu who’ve foretold as such. They’re negotiating now for a place aboveground.”
“If it’s going to flood, won’t that take care of the devices?” Milo asks.
“It’s always better to tie up loose ends, just in case.” Hallon stands and helps Milo up too. “If you can handle a trek, we’ll take care of the devices now, before the ruins flood.”
“I...I’m tired. Exhausted really.” The processes watching over Milo’s body signal that his reserves are critically low. In addition, there’s a tickle in his lungs from when he’d breathed in the siloxin. “I’ll need a checkup later. But for now, I’ll do what you need me to.”
Hallon frowns. “What I need, my student, is for you to take care of yourself.”
“I properly calculated my condition,” Milo says. “I’m well enough to help with one or two of the devices, which should disable the magic, correct? That’s assuming it acts like a machine, which is maybe a mistake—”
“No, you’re right. Removing a node or two from the formation should ease any immediate concerns.”
Milo nods. “Ah, good. I’d hoped.”
“You’ve given thought to this?” Hallon asks, surprised.
“Of course. Disabling the circle of compulsion is clearly an important part of our plans. There wasn’t much time and space for me to dedicate to the task before, but assuming a mechanistic approach—” Milo stops himself. “Perhaps I can explain later, when we’re not short on time?”
Hallon pats him on the arm. “You’re a good student, Milo Nasser Rabbit. I—” She hesitates, her equations saddening. “I need to tell you—”
“No,” he says quickly. “Don’t. Not yet. I don’t...I don’t know how I’ll respond. So...so let’s just deal with the devices for now. And later, you can tell me whatever it is you need to tell me.”
Hallon’s voice is so gentle. “Okay.”
Milo takes a breath and widens his attention. The Standing Goat’s residents watch his conversation with Hallon. He knows their models well enough to recognize their bemusement and confusion. There is the Barmaki household and the Hidden too, their equations in flux. Milo wonders if he should give voice to the stray thought from earlier—to ask about what’s happening.
“Is everything all right?”
Hallon follows his gaze and tilts her head, thinking. “Eventually, it will be.”
Comments
3seed
Glad to hear it. :D
Alexander Dupree
Thanks for the chapter. I'm enjoying this conclusion.
