Previous Chapter

Roy lowered himself down onto a blanket spread on the sandy beach just south of Riker’s Cove. The sun was setting but he felt wide awake. After spending an entire night in Heinrich von Nighburg’s shallowing that felt like only two or three hours the people who entered the lighthouse took some time to sleep and recover from their exertions. The next day Roy and Johan went back up to retrieve the steel frame of the wizard’s mirror.

They offered part of it to the Fairchilds but, as Cassie candidly told them, her quest was to find a way to make steel not just grab some of the metal for themselves. Other than that, the first half of that day was spent pursuing their own ends. Roy sent to Oakheart Manor to see if there was any new business he’d have to attend to before they left. The Fairchilds found The Strongest Man and followed him about for a change. Proud Elk and Johan spent time making their own arrangements to leave town and Samson Riker enjoyed seeing his daughter for the first time in months.

They all came together again for the funeral. Hank and Chester Tanner had both died in the last few days and after some deliberation the Hearth Keepers had decided to give them a dual funeral on the beach rather than separate funerals in the town Hearthfire’s cramped crematorium. Roy did his duty and placed timber for Chester. He hadn’t known the boy at all so he refrained from visiting that funeral at all. Sooner of later he’d have to tell Chester’s sister his last words but the moment didn’t seem right.

Now it felt like all his responsibilities were in hand for the moment. He just had to wait for the sky train the next day and he could be on his way. There was just one problem and his name was Nighburg.

“He’s not dead,” Roy said.

“No, he’s not.” The Strongest Man in the World sat down next to him, legs crossed in the Sanna style, adjusting his tachi higher so it would not get in his way. “That’s his way, I’m afraid. He’s very good at last minute escapes and planning for his own failures. I prefer it that way, actually.”

“Oh?”

“You’ve seen what he accomplished here. Do you really want to see what he’s like when his back is against the wall and he has no way out? I don’t.”

“I thought you were the strongest in the world.”

He chuckled. “The Sanna call me that and maybe, in the past, I would have agreed with them.”

“How about now?”

“The only thing more foolish than thinking you can recognize the strongest in the world is thinking you are him. Far be it from me to try and dissuade a fool from his folly.”

Roy watched the waves for a moment in silence. “Why are you here?”

“Longstanding grudge with the man in question. Interested in the story?”

“Not what I mean, browncoat.” Roy leaned back against a chunk of worn stone half buried in the sand. “How did you know von Nighburg was here? I didn’t look for you and I’m pretty sure Samson didn’t go looking either.”

“Does it matter?”

“No.” He rolled the word around in his mouth like it had a sour taste. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Well as it would happen I was in Hexwood for the funeral of Sam Jenkins a few weeks ago. Saw Tad Heller there. He was about as happy to see me as you were so I told him what brought me to the West and he passed me your message when he got it.”

“Now you’re my problem, eh? So what do I owe you this time?”

“What did you charge the town?”

“I didn’t. I’m here because I owe Jonathan Riker and taking from his town while paying him back doesn’t sit right.”

For the first time since he sat down the Hodekki man turned to look directly at Roy. “What makes you think I’m different?”

“What do you owe Jonathan?”

“The same thing I owe everyone who’s suffered at Heinrich’s hands since he got away from me the first time.” He reached into an inner pocket on his worn coat and removed a bronze plate a few inches square with a strange symbol stamped on it. “Speaking of, if you hear tell of him again I’d appreciate it if you let me know.”

Roy made no move to take the piece of metal. “What was that thing he was tampering with out there?”

“That I don’t know.”

“You got rid of it easily enough.”

“Luck is a part of strength. That said, I have an deep bench of knowledgeable minds I can draw on to figure that out and I’d be happy to share anything I learn with you when next we meet.” He put the plate down between them. “If it makes you feel better you can consider it repayment for informing me of Heinrich’s whereabouts if you meet him again.”

“No. I don’t want to get sucked into keeping score with you. Something tells me that’s a game you’ll always come out ahead on no matter what I do. I think I’ll just avoid von Nighburg in the future.”

A mischievous smile twisted his lips. “I find that hard to believe. When we parted at Tyson’s Run you said something similar about wendigos but that lasted about two weeks from what I’ve heard.” His good humor vanished. “More than that, you’ve glimpsed something that crossed over the horizon, Roy. Then you fought with it. That kind of thing changes a man on a fundamental level. You’re not as firmly rooted here as you were a day ago and that’s going to have consequences down the line. You’ll see things others can’t. Many of those things will take special note of you as well, so even if you wish to avoid them and their servants you may not be able to.”

“You make it sound like I’ve got a price on my head again.”

“It’s worse, in some ways.”

Roy grunted. Dodging Tetzlani firespinners for three years hadn’t exactly been a picnic. Then again it didn’t hold a candle to the trouble von Nighburg had given them over the past few days. “You tell the others about this?”

“You’re the last. I figured you could fend for yourself for a day or so, given all you’ve been up to since the Summer of Snow.” The Strongest Man in the World got to his feet, leaving the metal plate sitting there. “Take care out there, Harper.”

“Wait.”

The Hodekkian paused, one foot forward, already in the process of walking away. “What?”

“Did the Fairchilds ask you anything about steel?”

He chuckled. “That they did, although I’m afraid I don’t have much I can tell them that’s useful. You’re right. My sword is made of steel, perhaps some of the finest you can find anywhere. Unfortunately I’m not a smith. I didn’t have a hand in making it and the secrets of forging any kind of steel are outside my expertise.”

“Dust and ashes,” Roy muttered. “So much for that lead, I suppose. Did you tell them where they could find the person who made it?”

“I’m not sure where he is now, if he’s even alive. If I ever find him again I’ll mention their names to him but I can’t do much more than that.” That time Roy didn’t see fit to stop him as he left. He left in the direction of the graveyard, disappearing from town as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Roy wasn’t the only one watching him go. The sheriff stood a few paces off, arms folded across his chest. “He doesn’t seem as bad as you made him out.”

“Only because you don’t owe him anything. I have two years of debt outstanding and I’m not looking to rack up any more.”

“Two years of what you make? That’s some serious silver.”

“Not how it works.” Roy gingerly picked up the metal slip and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “You don’t look like you were here to talk to him so what can I do for you?”

Avery dropped a sheaf of paper on the ground in the place the Hodekkian’s plate had been a second ago. “I thought you should have this. About three years before the war broke out, while I was still a squire and not a full knight, I went north and fought a Sanna creature with a very similar mode of attack. Much less power but similar feel. I didn’t make the connection at first because von Nighburg had so many other techniques he used. Blighting the cove. Twisting the flesh of children. All outside the kinds of magic Sanna spirits typically use, very Teutonic stuff, pretty disconnected from the mindscape. Point is, I figured you’d want a copy of my notes from them to give context to what we saw when you write up this incident.”

“What makes you think I’ll be writing it up?”

“I’m not stupid, Harper. I saw you transcribing the Journal while you were in the jail a few days back. Didn’t mean much to me at the time but we saw each other’s memories yesterday and I couldn’t help but notice you’ve met Master Oldfathers. That’s when it clicked.” Avery gestured to his notes. “If you’re going to be keeping the Stone Circle’s oldest record of monster hunting up to date then you should have every scrap of information we have on hand. Just because Morainhenge is gone doesn’t mean we’re absolved of our duties.”

“No, I suppose not.” Roy took the papers and thumbed through them, making sure the sheriff’s handwriting was something he could interpret without help, then folded them once and stuck them in his inside pocket. “Have to say I’m a little surprised. I assumed the typical druid would be upset to hear a Columbian Regular inherited one of your old artifacts.”

Avery shoved his hands into his pockets and stared out at the sea. “I’m not happy about it, if it helps. But the tools and armaments from the old Reliquary choose their own users and complaining about their choices never changed them. I’ve just got to assume the Journal picked you for a reason. If I’m being honest, with your reputation I’d be more surprised if it didn’t stick with you given the chance. I hear you kill a new wild beast every couple of months.”

“Not quite, but I’ve certainly seen my share of strange things.”

“How is the old man, anyway? He keeps pretty much out of sight these days. I didn’t even know he was still alive.”

“He’s passed out all the relics and settled down to start something different, I believe. If you want to get in touch I can see if he’s interested but otherwise it’s not my place to give away his home.”

The sheriff shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve had a lot of time to think over the last decade, Harper, especially since I got here. Riker’s Cove is normally a pretty quiet place, believe it or not. Anyway, a few years back I realized something important. The Stone Circle never lost a war before Morainhenge fell. Arthur established Stonehenge about the same time he was crowned King of Avalon and since then his Knights have taken the lead in making his nation one of the most powerful on Earth. Losing isn’t something we’re used to. We haven’t figured out how to come back from it yet.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to work it out together instead of spreading yourselves to the four corners of Columbia?”

“I think we’ll hit on the solution faster if we aren’t getting under each other’s feet all the time. Even in the old days we worked best alone or in small groups.” Avery shrugged. “Then again, you’re pretty much an initiate to the Circle yourself with that book you’re carrying, do you want to stay here for a while and work on the problem with me?”

Roy laughed. “Touche. I have my own business to attend to and I’m sure that’s true for all you druids as well.”

“Exactly. We’ll get in touch when our duties demand it or we’re drawn to the same purpose or place but that hasn’t happened yet.”

“If it ever does I’m sure Oldfathers will let you know.” Roy got to his feet and offered Avery his hand. “If we don’t meet before that I’ll be sure to find you and say hello. In the mean time, let me know if Riker’s Cove ever needs my help again. I’ll drop by and do what I can.”

The sheriff accepted the offered handshake. “Thank you, Mr. Harper. Coming from you that means a lot.” For a moment it looked like he was going to leave then he stopped himself. “One last thing. What happened to Brennan?”

Roy pursed his lips. He’d kind of hoped Avery wouldn’t bring that up again. “I can’t tell you, Avery. It’d break a lot of promises I made to him and other people. If you’re wondering whether he’s still alive then the answer is no. He lived through the war but died a few years after. To my knowledge he remained dedicated to upholding the trust placed in him as best he could until the end. That’s about all I can tell you, though.”

“Well, I suppose knowing that is better than nothing at all. I suppose I should get back to the funerals, then. If I don’t see you before you leave town, may the Lord watch over all your paths and bring you safely back to your hearthfire.” The sheriff touched the brim of his hat and headed back into town.

“The Lady stoke your flame until you face the winds again, Sheriff.” Alone with this thoughts again, Roy looked back out to sea and settled in to enjoy some much needed solitude.

The sun set and rose once more, another iteration of an eternal cycle. The statue of Jonathan Riker greeted the sunrise with its usual aplomb. It watched as the Sanna man Proud Elk rode out of town bright and early, followed a few hours later by Roy and his party headed to catch the skytrain. The last week had been an eventful one for Riker’s Cove. Strange and horrible things had happened as if they were everyday occurrences but now life was returning to normal.

The statue was unimpressed. It had stood through Low Noon and the twisted time that came with it. The town was still there. The statue would watch it until one of them ceased to exist. But there probably wouldn’t be as much to see around the cove for the next few years. So the statue settled in to wait until the next significant moment it would have to bear witness to. In the meantime, if there was nothing else to do, who was it to complain?

Just a statue. And statues don’t complain, they only keep watch. So that was what it did.

Previous Chapter

The change to the surface of the water was stomach churning. The reflection of the sky writhed and rippled in the waves left by von Nighburg’s immersion and Roy could swear he saw dim reflections of the strange mouths and twisted limbs that were the hallmark of the wizard’s otherworldly patron. “Dust and ashes,” he muttered, backing away from the edge of the tower. “Must be some trick to killing him dead.”

When he’d fought the wendigos with Proud Elk and the rest they’d quickly discovered the foul flesh of the beasts had to be burnt or they’d just eat it and regrow themselves again. The dark spirits of the Tetzlani blood cults could be trapped in gold. According to Pellinore’s journal, Avalon was once plagued strange creatures called the Seelie that could only be killed by driving rowan wood through their head or heart. Generally when fighting such creatures the goal was to find these killing techniques before facing them on the wild. With von Nighburg they’d never had the chance.

The Tetzlani expedition had been forced to work out their solution while hostilities were ongoing so it was something Roy had done before. On the other hand, the expeditionary force had lost almost half its men, so not the best example to follow. A quick glance about assured him at least he wouldn’t have to handle it all alone. Johan and Riker were slowly pulling themselves back together, shaking their heads and wiping dirt from the ground off, whatever strange force had left them paralyzed now gone. For that matter, Roy felt his own moment of clarity passing.

With it came the sudden realization that he had completely dismissed the safety of Jennifer Riker the moment he’d concluded there was no practical steps he could take to help her. Annoyed with himself for not trying a little harder, he darted around the beacon to check on her. She was still tied up and a nasty bruise was forming on her forehead from her fall when Tanner pushed her but otherwise she looked fine, physically speaking. Roy quickly cut her ropes with his falcata, glad he’d never gotten around to lighting it. She yanked her gag off. “Who are you?”

“Friend of your grandfather’s, came here with your father.” Roy pulled the girl to her feet and she bolted over to her dad, already starting to dissolve into tears.

As Samson Riker wrapped his daughter up in his arms Johan frantically pushed the two of them back towards the center of the lighthouse, his gaze fixed on the skies overhead. “Something’s coming through, Roy. I think von Nighburg got what he wanted.”

Even as he said it the blackguard burst up out of the water, still covered in burning oil in some places, and shot towards the sky. Roy cursed, joining his friend to stare at what was happening in disbelief. The wizard’s whole body writhed and contorted in unnatural ways while unintelligible sounds poured out of his mouth in a constant, wordless expression of emotion. It was hard to tell if he was laughing or crying, wracked by anger or despair.

For a brief moment it looked like the wizard was flying. But as his twisting body climbed higher the eclipsed sky seemed to warp and draw down towards him and that was what made Roy realize he wasn’t flying, he was being pulled. Whatever it was he’d called down was now physically anchored to him.

Proud Elk and the rest he’d been tending to finally emerged from the lighthouse, still ringed by his water ward. Avery took Riker and quickly hustled him and his daughter back towards the stairs. “Get down and out of the building,” he told the father. “We’ll do something here.”

“Something’s the word,” Johan muttered, holding his head in one hand. “Question is, what?”

“We’ll take out the anchor,” Roy said, stretching out to the last dregs of burning oil on von Nighburg’s body. He was damp but Roy’s gift could keep the oil going long enough for his clothes to catch.

Or so he thought. When Roy stretched his mind out to touch the flames he ran into greasy, chilling fear instead, a voice screaming in horror and panic that he thought would become the entire world. Blinded by terror he pulled back. His legs gave out and dropped him hard on the ground beneath the lighthouse’s roof.

“Not like that,” Avery said, grabbing him by one arm and pulling him back to his feet. The sheriff held one of his candles out to Roy, who took it in confusion, while digging what looked like his entire supply out of his belt pouches with his other. “Listen, we had a few minutes to work out what those things are doing. We think we found a countermeasure.”

Roy peered out from under the roof of the beacon room, watching the sky warp and change anxiously, the sudden surge of fear still lingering in his mind. “Make it fast, Warwick. We don’t have a lot of time before something goes completely wrong out there.”

In response Avery shoved his stack of candles into Roy’s hands. “Of course. You can make a thing burn faster than normal and you can make a flame burn with nothing to sustain it. Can you also make a thing burn without burning up?”

“For a while.”

“Then burn the wax off the thistledown then let the fire suffuse the wicks without burning them. That will give us enough power we can all enter the mindscape at once.”

“Are you-” Roy stopped short when Brandon stepped past him, fully transformed by the power of his yew, and yanked out one of the metal supports holding up the lighthouse’s tin roof. “Are you crazy? We’ve been totally lost each time we went in there. We only got back out because we had people on this side calling for us, why would we take everyone in?”

“You’ll understand faster if you let the candle’s magic carry the explanation.”

Roy glanced around at Brandon and Proud Elk, who were systematically tearing the roof off of the chamber, then back to Cassie, who was helping Johan get his bearings. He’d hand picked most of this team but that didn’t mean much if he couldn’t trust them. Whatever plan they had would have to be good enough. He took hold of the lit candle flame with his mind and spread it to the other wicks he held, then forced the wax to burn while leaving the threads at their core behind. In less time than it took to tell he was left with a burning ball held together by mind and magic. With the slightest twinge of trepidation he let his focus slip deeper into it and enter into the mindscape once more.

When you look into someone’s mind you see a lot of foolish things. It’s the practicalities of life and the fear of discovery that keeps most people from implementing their wildest ideas and your inner thoughts are free of such confines so the strangest notions run rampant there. Avery Warwick had grown accustomed to the absurd and bizarre a long time ago. He wasn’t sure if that made Heinrich von Nighburg’s decision to try and trap him in a perpetual state of hilarity ingenious or short sighted.

It had worked, true enough, but once Proud Elk came and warded them all Avery recovered quickly. Better yet, he had a unique insight into what had happened. He wasn’t a humorous man by nature and he was trained to recognize when his thoughts changed due to outside influence so when the fears of shame and embarrassment that usually kept him from ignoring his duties vanished he took note of it even if he had no idea how to restore them. Proud Elk’s magic reduced the influence of the wizard’s spell upon them but didn’t negate it entirely.

That was the perfect environment for him to work out a counter. Now, with Harper stoking the magic of thistledown to the strongest Avery had seen it since the war, they were finally in a position to try it out on a large scale. The only question was whether it would be large enough.

Harper was concerned about reentering the mindscape but that was because he didn’t know all the different ways you could use it. What they needed was to enter it just enough to see when von Nighburg’s patrons moved against them. Once the creature’s fell influence was in play he would surge the concentration of the magic to create a counter. Proud Elk’s ward would hopefully slow it down enough they had time to work and Cassandra’s song would allow all of them to work together.

Harper holding the largest concentration of mental magic Avery had ever seen it was child’s play for him to pull the six of them a half step into the mindscape and establish a telepathic connection between them. As soon as it was complete he got a mix of notions from the group. Van der Klein was concerned about letting the Rikers leave before the battle ended but Avery project confidence that they’d be safer on the ground than in the midst of the magics about to take place. Proud Elk added his agreement to that sentiment. Unsurprisingly, Harper continued to insist on knowing how they were going to counter von Nighburg’s monsters.

When he learned Avery planned to starve them he was less than impressed.

There wasn’t any time to debate the wisdom of that plan before the wizard made his first move. In the halfseen shadows of the mindscape the human form of Heinrich von Nighburg merged seamlessly with the braided limbs and gaping mouths of whatever foul thing gripped him and he directed their mental influence towards them as effortlessly as flicking his fingers. With the roof halfway removed Proud Elk was able to draw up more water to slow the questing tendrils of thought. It wasn’t much but it was enough that Avery could identify it and push Brandon to the front of the mindscape.

The voice that pierced the waters screamed in envy, calling out to every petty jealousy and small grievance that existed in life. The time Avery was denied a Seat in the Founder’s Circle because telepathy was suited to logistics and not leadership. The time Johan was voted down as unit lieutenant in favor of a old kid named Roy, four years his younger. The time Brandon was told he could only ever sing harmony for his sister.

Brandon’s roots dug down though the roof of the lighthouse. He’d dug dangerously deep into the yew, layering himself in layers and layers of the tree until his body was as wide as three men and his arms spanned most of the beacon chamber. That kind of physical growth shouldn’t have made a difference in the mindscape. Yet Brandon’s presence there loomed just as large, as if the physical grounding had increased his confidence and determination in the face of the wizard’s influence.

With a faint smile, Brandon waved the voice off and the mindscape twisted. They changed from the ghostly memories of Brandon’s fifteenth birthday to the same place years later, as he prepared to leave for Columbia. “Remember you place, Brandon,” his father said. “This isn’t some simple errantry for you to prove your mettle or advance your career. This is a serious calling. And it’s not yours.”

A sense of purpose and direction came along that brushed aside the envy and hurt those words provoked. “I know, father. Your life has been center stage and Cassandras will be no different. Maybe even more so, with her calling. You understand that all too well, and I’ve learned not to hold that against you, but you’ve never known what it means to be the boards that make up the stage. The beams that hold the ceiling or the shingles that keep the stage dry. There’s more to this world than melody and harmony, father, and if my place in it is just to hold up those on stage for all to see then so be it. But never imply that it’s not my calling.”

Brandon’s contentment, his pride in his place, came down and quashed the voice of envy and it withdrew outside the chamber, unable to gain a foothold. The creatures were some kind of mental parasites, trying to draw out emotions and feed on them. However, properly amplified through Avery’s magic, Brandon’s own resolve in the face of his personal jealousy was enough to fortify their whole group against the interloper. Roy signaled his understanding of the strategy but Johan took it a step further. He sent Brandon an idea.

A second tendril spun down out of the writhing sky to test their defenses, this one slicing through Proud Elk’s barrier with a wail of grief. This time the Sanna man pushed himself forward to answer. During the Summer of Snow he’d watched many braves die in the clutch of the hungry winters then endured weeks of their voices, stolen by the dark creatures that besieged them, calling to the survivors for help.

In response Proud Elk, Many Herons and the others had devoted themselves to remembering the lives of the fallen. They’d broken ice free from the river in Tyson’s Run, melted it over their watchfires then poured it out one drop at a time, sharing memories of the lost with one another rather than listening to the cries of evil outside. At first only the Sanna had done this. Then, as the numbers dwindled and the Columbians had no bodies to burn on their traditional pyres, all had joined in. Honor and camaraderie joined together and prevailed over sorrow.

As von Nighburg’s second attack recoiled the defenders dug in deeper. Johan and Brandon stripped the beacon’s reflectors from their mounting and quickly turned them into a crude but effective lightbox of gigantic proportions. Then the Son of Harmon threw his sunstone into the roiling mass of power Harper was maintaining. With a few adjustments the light from the firemind’s burning orb focused out and up, and with it went the mental power Avery could project. He’d never heard of such a thing before, but then lightboxes were entirely new to his experience.

The beam of light sent the wizard’s two tendrils of power slinking backwards but, with the light of the candles focused in that way, left plenty of room for others to snake around to the sides. A spear of shame sliced through Proud Elk’s wards next. Cassandra’s voice rose to meet it. Her counter was an oddly mixed thing, old memories of a first performance mixed with the lyrics of Tyson’s Nine, a song she’d only known for a few hours. With it came the understanding that a song wasn’t for the performer or even the music. It was for the listener.

No matter how poor the performance or how exposed you felt, no matter how the words or the sounds made you feel, if the audience was made better for it then the song must be sung. Avery sensed a nudge at Harper, there, but the firespinner seemed to ignore it.

The last attack came fast and harsh so Proud Elk drew more water from the bay, trying to thicken his ward, but they were running into a problem. Harper was struggling to control the flame. There was a side effect of channeling so much mental energy this way Avery hadn’t considered. A firespinner could control and even stoke fire with his mind and with so much mental power running through Harper’s mind the fire tied to it was growing out of control. Already it had gone from an orb the size of two fists together to a globe larger than a man’s head. It showed no signs of stopping and the heat was already evaporating the water ward, slowing down the Sanna man’s efforts to grow it.

Still, it stood stronger than before when fear struck at them. Johan easily drowned the errant emotion with memories of his wedding day and his single minded devotion to a woman more important to him than life itself. That was the ward’s peak strength. When glee struck the water’s power was already waning but thankfully Avery had already perfected his defense. Terrance Harwick had taught him the secrets of the candles but he’d also taught him to value of stewarding even those who seemed most ridiculous. No matter how poorly a person took to magic or how disastrous their efforts proved he never once laughed. Instead, he took joy from their constant efforts to improve.

For a brief moment, as the tendril of hilarity withdrew, Avery thought they had the formula worked out. If they could just outlast von Nighburg’s creature it would starve and return to wherever it came from or, better yet, devour its summoner instead. Then the wizard struck with his last two tendrils at once. Guilt and rage rent the water ward, stripping almost half the defense away as they charged through to batter their mindscape.

Avery thought they would be pulled all the way in. But instead the most potent memory yet surged to the fore, a brief glimpse of a Sanna man and a Columbian boy walking into a house, hand in hand. The image was oddly mirrored, for an identical pair of people walked opposite them. Which didn’t make sense to Avery, the mindscape shouldn’t create illusions like that, especially when exploring memories. He forgot about the contradiction when the next pair of people passed by. One was a tall woman, beautiful but tired, and the other an older man leaning heavily on a cane. As he passed the man paused and looked back at them, hand raised in farewell, and Avery recognized him as Master Oldfathers. He had aged a great deal in the last decade but the sparkle in his eye was clearly recognizable.

After all his failures and burdens, all the loss and disappointments of those children and that lady, in the end they had found something good. Nothing could be done to change the past. Nor would furious purpose or frantic energy carry the future. Not if one couldn’t first acknowledge and celebrate the fact that good things still grew out of the the sins of the past so long as you set your heart on the well being of others.

It was surprising to see Harper turn away the wizard’s attack so easily. Avery had expected anger, especially, to be a weak point for him but perhaps, as the sheriff had long mastered mirth Harper had long experience with rage. What Avery saw at that instant was that it wouldn’t be enough.

Up above them Heinrich von Nighburg was drawing in even more power, his features distorting even further as his binding cinched him tighter and tighter to his patron, and the two together were rallying for another attack. They’d repelled everything he had so far but Proud Elk struggled to refill his ward. After an hour of constant use, Cassie’s voice was sounding hoarse. Brandon could only live in the yew for so long before the wood would claim him, Avery’s concentration could only last so long and who knew what kind of limits there were on Johan’s abilities.

Still, he didn’t think any of those were the limiting factors. Every candle wick drew up melted wax as fuel for its flame but, at the same time, the wick was not immune to the fires that burned on it. Eventually it would be used up. As their combined mental powers battled von Nighburg’s, the flame Roy Harper used to power that battle grew ever larger. Now it was as big as a barrel. Although he had pushed the fire back from them as it grew Avery knew even a firespinner couldn’t withstand that kind of power forever. His hands were blistering. Steam rose from stray drips of water than had fallen on his clothes and wisps of smoke rose from the cuffs of his sleeves. Soon enough, Roy Harper was going to burn away.

Previous Chapter

To the human eye the lighthouse must have looked normal for most of the night. While the eclipse should have ended and given way to a normal night once the lighthouse’s master cast his spell that was not entirely what happened. While the rest of the world continued forward to the next morning, within a hundred paces of the tower the eclipse still reigned. With the beacon burning the subtle change in the stars within von Nighburg’s spell was not clearly visible. Likewise, the fact the beacon’s light wasn’t flickering in the sea breeze was not something most would notice. The bright flashes and explosions of light that came with a pitched battle, slowed to the glacial pace of time inside von Nighburg’s pocket of unnatural reality, might have drawn notice if anyone had been awake to see them.

But by the time the people of Riker’s Cove began to stir those most obvious signs were gone and past. Very few people had any idea what was happening in the bay that night. Only Jonathan Riker’s statue saw it all. Whether it knew what those strange lights, moving at their unnatural speeds, might mean for the fate of the town was something it kept to itself.

Such an unnatural occurrence couldn’t go unnoticed forever. Even for the simple fishermen of the Cove a place where magic had prevailed over the march of time had to draw attention eventually. As men headed down to their boats to set out they couldn’t help but notice that part of the waters of the cove were locked at high tide even as the rest of the ocean ebbed to low tide. People began to gather at the docks, murmuring in dismay.

A few went to the jail to try and locate the sheriff. When he couldn’t be found there his candles were lit across the town. Once it was clear that even these talismans weren’t sufficient to conjure Warwick someone went to the mayor’s house and pounded on the door. Mayor Hughes emerged, his eyes red and bleary like a man who had slept little the night before. His attempts to calm their sentiments fell on deaf ears. Too many strange things had happened in Riker’s Cove for simple words to have an effect.

No one wanted to set sail in the face of the unnatural magic that wracked the bay but in spite of that the whole town wound up on the docks, watching the lighthouse with bated breath. Perhaps the candles they held bound them together in their anxiety. Perhaps not. Whatever drew them there, it had no effect on the statue of Jonathan Riker. It remained by the Riker family crypt all through that long night and that was where it was when the first streaks of dawn crept over the horizon behind it.

Roy picked himself up off the ground, his ears ringing. For a brief moment he wasn’t sure what was going on but his hands knew their work. By the time they’d retrieved his sword Roy had rallied enough to remember he’d been fighting Heinrich von Nighburg and there was a good chance Tanner was dead or dying. Roy’s first impulse was to return the favor on Tanner’s behalf but there was a wrinkle to that. The old sailor had sacrificed himself to keep Jenny Riker alive. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to leave her thrashing around during a fight with magic flying around all over the place after that. Could undo all Tanner’s hard work.

So Roy got to his feet and took one step towards the beacon. It was like walking into a whirlwind. Turned out his ears weren’t ringing, that was just the pressure on them from the ungodly wall of sound coming from the mouths in the beacon’s reflectors. The pressure was immense. At least it felt that way to Roy, von Nighburg moved about the lighthouse with the ease of a man out for a stroll. He raised his staff and pointed the end at Roy then spoke a word that echoed over the other noise. It wasn’t a word Roy understood but that was nothing new.

There was a moment of deja vu as the world snapped from the top of the lighthouse to the top of a skytrain. It was that weird mind place again. Except instead of being there in the dubious company of Avery Warwick, Roy’s companion for this little jaunt was Heinrich von Nighburg. The wizard threw an embroidered blue cloak back over his archaic tunic and stepped forward, his staff still held forward in offensive position. “Even in the mindscape you’re able to function normally.” Von Nighburg spoke Avaloni with a clipped, slightly nasal accent. It sounded like something European but Roy didn’t know the Continent well enough to guess where the exact point of origin might be. “An unexpected complication. I thought anger would capture you quite well, especially after your initial reaction when the T’aun began synchronizing with you. My intention was to enter your memories at the battle on the ridge. Or perhaps the sawmill. How did you divert us here?”

Roy raised his own weapon to the forward guard, debating whether he should engage with the question or just kill him. There was a lot going on here he still didn’t understand. On the other hand, bandying words with bloody handed murderers rarely resulted in learning anything useful. Mostly it was a waste of time. Occasionally it muddied the waters or gave the blackguard a chance to gain some kind of an upper hand.

“I believe it’s actually because I’m still here.”

There was a small sliver of satisfaction seeing von Nighburg’s surprise when Jenkins drifted down alongside the train. “A geist. Nothing in your reputation suggested you were a necromancer, Herr Harper. You are full of surprises.”

“Now look what you’ve done, Sam,” Roy said, sparing the ghost a glance. “I’m being accused of necromancy.”

“And still no anger about it. Very interesting.” With that von Nighburg snaked his weapon upwards and around Roy’s blade and snapped it down in a beat attack.

Roy disengaged around the staff and extended, trying to hook the weapon with the weighted tip of his falcata so he could trap it in a bind. The wizard flipped his palm in a hooking motion and swatted the blade back before Roy’s motion completed and they pulled back into a ready position again. “I don’t think you can hurt him here, Roy,” Jenkins said. “He’s just a thought in your mind right now.”

“What’s that make you?” Roy wasn’t really interested in the answer he was just making noise to keep von Nighburg distracted while he tried to find an opening.

“I suppose I’m a memory, although not what you’d think of as a memory. It’s all very strange, looking back at life from my side of things, and neither of you really have the frame of reference for it.” Jenkins drifted between the two of them, his semi-transparent body making life difficult for both parties. “Of course I’m only able to contact you because the barriers are weak right now.”

“Also surprising,” von Nighburg said. “I hadn’t intended to bring the world of the dead closer to ours but rather the world of the mind.”

“You planned to kill a person to do it.” Jenkins didn’t say it in anger but rather in the manner of a patient adult trying to explain something to a child. “Did you honestly think you could do that and not bring Eternity closer to you? I know the Mated Pair don’t speak much to what happens after death but certainly the great and learned wizards of the Teutons have some inkling of the mechanics involved.”

Von Nighburg frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that when a man dies he has to go somewhere, doesn’t he? But no one knows where. So how are we supposed to go on to the next place unless someone shows up to guide us?” Jenkins pointed along the roof of the train. In the past, when Roy had met Jenkins on this train, the ghost army had been guided onwards by Cassandra Fairchild and her gift with stonesong. However she wasn’t at the end of the train here in this memory. There was something else there, instead. “If we’re distracted by things in this life sometimes a soul can’t hear their guide’s summons until those distractions are dealt with. But once we answer those summons an accounting must be given.”

Both men followed the ghost’s finger and saw the thing there, a towering figure that seemed like it would swallow the sky. It gleamed orange and brown, like autumn leaves or lacquered wood. The shape was vaguely like a man but power rolled off of it in waves, obscuring all features and leaving the thing little more than a glowing silhouette that implied rolling robes and a crown or hair that rose around its head like roaring flames. The thing was so colossal they’d blocked it out of their perception, the same way a man ignores the sky unless he thinks about it. Except it wasn’t an empty space. It was aware and the full force of that awareness was currently focused on the man that stood before it at the fair end of the train. Roy squinted and realized it was Chester Tanner.

“Gotterdammerung,” von Nighburg whispered. “They’re real.” Then he spoke another word and vanished from the mindscape.

“What is going on there?” Roy demanded.

“Tanner is making his last appeal to the King of Scars,” Jenkins replied. “Once in a great while they send someone back for a second chance but it’s pretty rare and, as someone who’s had their chance at it, let me tell you it’s not an easy thing to do. Of course, I wasn’t really interested in going back.”

“You’re here now.”

“I had duties in the here and now, which is why I was allowed to come along when Hank and Chester’s time came, but I think Chester will be taken away soon and I’ll have to leave with him.” Jenkins was looking over Roy from head to toe. “Dust and ashes. I can’t find any sign of the T’aun attached to you.”

Roy pulled away from the ghost and gave it a horrified look. “Are you saying that thing is death?”

“Not as such although as I hear it the King of Scars and his peers have a lot of sway over death. Listen, Roy, there’s not time to answer all your questions. I’ve been trying to figure it out since the last time we met and I’m still finding new things I don’t understand.” Jenkins began to drift down the train towards Tanner. Roy still found his attention shying away from the immense presence that was interrogating Tanner but even out of the corner of his eye he could tell that the man was turning transparent much like Jenkins was. “I’m sorry, Roy. I thought I could work out what kind of magic that fellow was using but we’re too far removed from one another now. The cost of being dead, I suppose.”

“It wasn’t working on me anyway,” he replied.

“So it seems, but he was probably trying to correct that when he entered your mind. Don’t let him bring you here again. There’s not going to be anyone here to help you anymore. Just hold out! He’s almost out of time!” The strange autumn light from the presence suffused Jenkin’s form and the ghost vanished.

Roy flicked his attention out to the end of the train. For a brief moment his eyes met with Tanners ghost. The old sailor waved to him once and called out, “Tell Hannah I’m sorry!”

Then the last ghost vanished and the titanic presence beyond faded from existence, taking the mindscape along with it.

The snap back to reality was no less abrupt than last time. Perhaps more so given that the head of a staff was plunging towards his face, about to take him square between the eyes. Roy watched it approaching him with preternatural clarity. He could try to push it up and away, sway back to let it pass over him or parry with his weapon in any number of ways. With his unusual moment of awareness Roy chose to sidestep to his right, saying behind his guard.

Von Nighburg’s thrust slipped past him over his left shoulder and the wizard automatically countered Roy’s sidestep as he recovered. In the process he tripped over Johan’s leg as Roy intended. While his opponent was staggering Roy rushed forward, grabbing for the staff with his left hand while hacking at von Nighburg’s hands with his weapon. Unfortunately he didn’t take the nature of his opponent’s weapon into account. Iron’s nature somehow disrupted and absorbed magic in ways that were poisonous or even lethal to most living creatures. Steel retained some of that effect and, as Warwick had suspected, von Nighburg’s staff was shod in that mysterious metal. When Roy’s fingers closed around it they started tingling. It wasn’t as bad as your average iron burn but as soon as he felt it he yanked his hand back.

The sudden reversal threw his balance off, spoiling his strike and allowing von Nighburg to back away unharmed. The blackguard held his weapon in an unorthodox stance, gripping it a bit like a spear but with a wide grip in the last third of the shaft. It should have been confusing. The Columbian Regular Infantry was a modern fighting force, equipped entirely with sulfurite weaponry. Spears had little place in their formations. Swords did a much better job directing flame accurately and pole axes propelled via channeled flame hit much harder than spears, making them more suited to breaking formations. As a result Roy had faced off against a spear maybe twice in his life.

Yet when the wizard lunged with his staff Roy saw the correct counter instantly. Parry across. Push up and step in, try to trap the weapon high and out of position. Von Nighburg tried to choke up on the weapon to escape the bind but Roy took the opportunity to flick a cut at his hands once the bind weakened. The wizard backpedaled to the edge of the lighthouse. With the moon hidden by Low Noon and his cloak pulled forward his body became difficult to see. The hypnotic gleam of the beacon’s light on his staff and a series of weaving, unpredictable movements made reading his intention even more difficult. It was more like watching a quicksilver serpent than a rod of steel.

“You know, of all the people I had to deal with I thought you would be the easiest,” von Nighburg said, his tone conversational. “Everyone in the West has something to say about you.”

“None of it good,” Roy replied. He pressed forward with a few snap cuts to keep the wizard too distracted to pull them into the mindscape again.

Von Nighburg deflected the cuts easily. “As you say, everyone agreed on a few basic things. You arrive in a town in pursuit of whatever fanciful thing has your attention on that day, you grumble and bully the locals until you find what you need to get it then you burn and kill you way to success. It’s quite admirable, really, except right now you’re in my way.” He adjusted his grip to hold his weapon near the middle and went on the offense, striking rapidly with both ends of the weapon as he tried to create a little more room between himself and the low wall that ran around the outer edge of the roof. “Yet as predictable as that was, I don’t understand your attitude. Where’s that famous temper of yours, Herr Harper?”

The wizard had finally missed a bet. The extra reach his staff gave him had been his biggest advantage in the fight so far and sacrificing it for a higher tempo of attack wasn’t a wise move. He was pretty skilled with his weapon but Roy was a lifelong fighter. He parried the first attack easily, read the second, disengaged from the bind before von Nighburg could take his weapon out of line and blocked it as well. The third attack became an attempt to beat his weapon aside but Roy had the stronger wrist. The bronze edge of his weapon rolled from the force of the blow but his guard didn’t waver and by that point Roy had pressed in close enough to trap the wizard’s arms and prevent the fourth strike. He allowed himself the ghost of a satisfied smile and said, “I’m a professional. What did you expect me to do, throw myself down on the ground and scream like a child with a tantrum?”

Von Nighburg gathered himself to try and pull free from Roy’s grip. However, even with the wizard’s steel weapon between them causing his magical senses to buzz uncomfortably, the remarkable awareness he’d had since leaving Jenkins made seeing through that simplicity itself. As von Nighburg pulled Roy pushed. The two steps they’d taken away from the edge vanished as he did and von Nighburg’s back slammed into the wall. For a moment the wizard flailed, trying not to tip over it.

At the same time a sinister smile crept across his face. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet, Herr Harper.”

“Why do you care so coalstoking much about whether I’m angry or not?”

Von Nighburg braced the butt of his staff against the railing on the wall and levered himself forward, pressing the steel shaft up against Roy. The metal did more than tingle this time. Roy could practically feel it sapping life from his body but even so he didn’t feel threatened by it, which he knew was odd. There was no time to analyze it, so he focused on getting leverage over his opponent’s arms or torso. Somehow the wizard managed to keep his staff between them the whole time, foiling him. “It is impressive that you struggle so hard without anything to drive you.”

“You claim you know my reputation and think I’m not driven?” Roy would have laughed but at the moment he couldn’t muster the least bit of humor at that misunderstanding. “Not the brightest fella, are you?”

“But you don’t have ambition or drive anymore, Herr Harper, nor joy or grief or jealousy.” The wizard scowled and tried to break to one side but a half hearted strike from Roy’s weapon cut that idea short. “The only thing left for you should be your temper. You, a man famous for flying into a rage whenever you’re questioned by strangers. Where is it now?”

Roy smiled, not because he was amused but because he knew it was inappropriate for the situation. “You know the stories about me but you don’t know me. You think I get mad because people ask me questions? I get mad because I hate showing up a day late and short of silver!”

Von Nighburg froze, a look of astonishment writ across his features, then he glanced away, his attention drawn to where Johan still sat in a heap on the floor, muttering to himself. Roy wasn’t sure why but it was enough of an opening to finally get around the other man’s guard. The stalemate broke and suddenly Roy had the wizard by the elbow and wrist of his left arm. With a twist and a shove he flipped the wizard around and slammed him into the wall again. They teetered precariously.

“It’s too late, Harper,” von Nighburg called. “The spell’s already done!

“That’s the worst part, blackguard,” Roy replied. “I’m a firespinner. People don’t hire us until everything’s already gone wrong!”

“So why bother at all?”

“Because I’m Roy Harper.” He took a half step back, planted a boot in the wizard’s back and kicked him over the railing. As the man tumbled away, taking his staff with him, Roy’s sense for flame sprang back and he felt the beacon burning behind him once again. It was a simple matter to force the flame down into the oil reservoir then pull out the resulting fireball. He took half a step up and looked down at the wizard falling. “Out here in the West, I am the closest thing there is to vengeance.”

Roy sent the roiling ball of flame streaking down to strike von Nighburg. “If you didn’t figure that much out I don’t know why you bothered to look into me at all.”

The black hearted wizard burned all the way down to the surface of the water but, until the moment he parted the waves, he didn’t make a single sound. At the moment the water closed over him the place where the moon hung hidden in the sky began to laugh.

Previous Chapter

“Bright Coals, have you considered why The Blackguard has not released the daughter of Samson Riker, the Cliff Over Waves?”

Roy felt a twinge of amusement when he heard the obvious formality in the way Proud Elk said the word blackguard. He wasn’t sure how the Sanna made it so clear they were saying a name, not just a regular word. However he never had any doubt when they were. “I assumed von Nighburg thought having that man’s granddaughter as a hostage would give him more leverage over the town than the other two boys.”

Proud Elk pulled the end of his whip club out of the lock on the chest he was working on and it popped open. They’d discovered von Nighburg’s bedroom down a short hallway and were ransacking it. Under normal circumstances Roy would have just looked under the bed and in the closet for potential ambushes then moved on but Proud Elk’s lock breaking skills opened new possibilities. As he rummaged through the contents of the chest Proud Elk said, “Your theory makes sense at first glance. The problem is Cliff Over Waves. He does not have a disposition that encourages defiance. There are many people in this town that would be dangerous to cross, the sheriff and the mayor not least among them, yet he strikes me as the hardest to placate. In this he is like his father.”

“That’s so. Not everyone rides out to destroy famine incarnate at the age of fifty eight.” There was a bedside table with a small pile of books on it beside von Nighburg’s bed but Roy didn’t see anything unusual in the titles of the books he could read. Two had titles in Cyrillic characters and those he couldn’t read. He set them aside for later examination but he didn’t want to drag them all over the manse when he needed his hands free for fighting.

“It seems to me there must be some significance to choosing to provoke that man’s son in this way.” Proud Elk had emptied the chest of a pile of clothes and boots and now he took the container and turned it upside down and gave it a hard shake. Something rattled. He put it back and started prying at the bottom with a knife.

“You think he has some beef with the Rikers, father or son?”

“No, no, I’m afraid I did not state my point correctly.” The Sanna man paused with the point of his knife buried in the wood, his gaze focused in the middle distance for a moment. “I believe there is a point to choosing that man’s granddaughter. I think the advantages she offers surpass those of all other hostages and The Blackguard thought those advantages were worth provoking Cliff Over Waters.”

Roy paused rummaging through von Nighburg’s wardrobe long enough to give his friend a thoughtful look. Proud Elk was getting at something but he couldn’t figure out what it was. “This one of those famous Sanna intuitions you have?”

“In a way. It is something more likely to occur to us than to a Columbian, even a well educated one like Sheriff Warwick.” The bottom of the chest popped out and Proud Elk carefully set it aside and pulled out a thin metal case. “I have heard several people call the missing girl Jenny. This is an abbreviation that makes it more difficult to properly name a person, is it not?”

“It’s a nickname, sure. We don’t really use them to create confusion, kind of the opposite in most cases, but then we treat names differently than your people.” Roy thumped the back of the wardrobe carefully and stopped when he heard a hollow noise. “In most cases Jenny is the shortened version of Jennifer.”

The Sanna man gave him a meaningful look. “That is the name of the first queen of Avalon, is it not?”

“Yes.” Roy found a knot in the wood that served as a place to hook his thumb and pulled a narrow door open. It revealed a small compartment that could hold a sword or staff. At the moment it was empty. “Your people deal in names, Proud Elk. What’s the significance of that?”

“That man founded this town, Bright Coals. His son is a man of some importance here and his granddaughter shares a name with a queen who founded a kingdom. If you wished to work a magic that involved the life and death of this town, her life and name would be very powerful.” Proud Elk opened the case and removed a ring on a thin metal chain. “This… this is something I could not guess at.”

“Metal rings can do a lot of things depending on the alloys and patterns on them,” Roy said. “Better put it away. That’s a mystery we can spend more time on when its safe.”

“I defer to your expertise, Bright Coals.” Proud Elk put the ring away, closed up the carrying case then tucked it into his belt. “And the girl?”

“Your logic has a lot of merit to it but there is one thing I think you’ve mistaken.”

“Which is?”

Memories of irrational laughter and stifling anger flitted past. “Whatever von Nighburg is dealing with here it far surpasses the life and death of a town. Perhaps even a kingdom.”

“Let us hope you are the mistaken one on that score.” The Sanna man stood up and headed back towards the door. “Shall we explore the stairs next?”

Roy took his thistledown candle off the top of the wardrobe and followed him. They’d discovered a set of stairs leading up to a second floor, which wasn’t that surprising given that he’d seen when Warwick burned his revealing candles and showed the place from the outside. The top floor was dominated by some kind of astrolabe. The brass contraption was easily fifteen feet from one side to another and featured seven long, twisting arms circling the central sphere. Unlike most astrolabes it didn’t look like the solar system.

In fact as he peered through the slowly revolving arms Roy thought the centerpiece looked more like a globe representing the known world than anything else. Maybe it wasn’t a traditional astrolabe. Proud Elk walked around the outside of the room and found a few telescopes looking out but reported there was nothing to see through them but odd swirls of color. There were large stacks of paper covered in unfamiliar letters on the counter that ran around the outside of the room but both men ignored them. Given the circumstances it was just one more thing that would have to wait. Roy was about to suggest they try looking through a telescope while wearing the ring they’d found when Warwick interrupted.

After a brief aside about forges, steel and back doors Roy returned to the moment. “Johan and his group found a bottom floor but it looks just as empty as this one which tells me we chose the wrong doors at first. Von Nighburg is through the last one.”

“Why do you think he hasn’t retaliated against us so far?”

“I think what happened in the central room twenty minutes ago was him doing just that in the same way Hank Tanner was a response to the Fairchilds saving Stu Strathmore.” Roy was briefly tempted to dance around the issue of Hank Tanner but it didn’t help at the moment. He knew the Sanna recoiled from naming the dead and in most cases he deferred to that sensibility when dealing with them but it didn’t bother him at the moment. “Whatever von Nighburg uses to do that is his best weapon against superior numbers.”

Proud Elk shifted in discomfort and Roy felt a brief twitch of irritation but it quickly faded. The man couldn’t help how he was raised. “You have a point, Bright Coals. Did you have a chance to consult with the book you said might explain what it was he did?”

“I managed to spend an hour on it, yes. Unfortunately I didn’t find a record of anything like what we encountered in Pellinore’s Journal. Part of that may be my ignorance. The first entries are supposedly seven or eight hundred years old and the language in them is very different from what we speak today.”

“Many Herons is gifted with languages. He has spent much of his life tracing dialects of the Sanna back to their roots and trying to unify them into a single tongue again. He may be able to help you untwist your book.”

Roy felt a flicker of amusement at that. Most Sanna were gifted with languages, speaking six or seven of their own dialects plus Avaloni, but Many Herons knew some fifteen languages outside of Sanna dialects. Columbians as far east as Hancock knew him as a learned man. He was certainly likely to understand High Avaloni easily enough. “I think he’d be an excellent choice but there is a problem – Pellinore’s stories are to us much as creatures like the cold ones are to you. They are ours and not meant to share.”

Proud Elk broke eye contact and stared at one of the telescopes. For a brief moment Roy wondered if he’d made the other upset somehow, even though it was the kind of logic he’d expected a Sanna man to immediately understand. It was out of character, which was when he understood. “Proud Elk, this is going to sound strange but take stock. Are you feeling alright?”

The Sanna man froze and, although he still avoided eye contact, Roy could clearly see he was running through his own thoughts from the way his lips pursed and frowned. “No. There is something strange about my thoughts right now. I do not feel anger, even when I think of the captured girl, nor do I feel worry or fear when I think that I may die in the same way as the dead child from this morning. I only feel that I am watched and that is unsettling.”

“In the morning we laughed and just before we got angry. Now you feel embarrassed. Definitely seems like its the same thing… better let the others know before we decide what to do.” Roy tried to get Warwick’s attention via his candle but it didn’t work. In fact he no longer got annoyed at sensing the background hum of Cassie’s singing, either, and when he tried to get some response via the tap beads nothing came back that way either.

Proud Elk watched the proceedings with growing discomfort. Finally he said, “We should go down and check on them.”

Roy nodded his agreement and the two quickly retraced their steps to the central chamber only to find the guard team in complete disarray. They spent a few seconds trying to snap the trio back to normal. Proud Elk had brought a canteen of water from the bay and worked one of the most powerful dousings Roy had ever seen, sending globes of water circling around himself and Warwick in a large scale version of the soothing beads he’d bought with him. That broke the power of laughter enough that the sheriff came back to himself.

In the mean time Roy slapped Brandon out of whatever strange funk he’d fallen into. Both men told him they didn’t remember much but they had the impression that Johan and the others had left through the mirror room. Roy ran through a quick assessment of what had happened and came up with their next move. “Proud Elk, keep that ward going and cover the others in it. Brandon, snap your sister out of her panic and grab anything you can in the time it takes the sheriff to rig the Array.” Roy passed his lantern and its two siege grade sulfurite crystals to Warwick. “I trust you used these in the war?”

“I know the drill.” Warwick dragged himself to his feet and started working on the Immelmann Array.

“What will you do?” Proud Elk asked, spreading his water ward out further.

“Johan left the manse for some reason and I got one guess as what it is. I’m going after him.”

The transition back to the lighthouse seemed to take forever but when he stepped out into the tower he could still hear footsteps climbing the metal stairs overhead so he couldn’t be that far behind Johan and the others. It was a long climb up but Roy made it as fast as he could. As he ascended Roy took stock of his options. He had his falcata, sulfurite still unused, and the small crystals in his cufflinks that would give him a few sparks to throw around if his sword went out. Pellinore’s Journal rested in his inner jacket pocket. Unfortunately, while the book was a powerful piece of magic he didn’t have time to peruse its pages in a pitched battle.

There was the lighthouse beacon itself, far up above. It had a five gallon oil reserve he could ignite if he really needed extra firepower. Hopefully there were three other people he could count on. That was pretty much all the thinking he had time for, dashing up the stairs two at a time. He drew his falcata, ignited it and used it to catapult a fireball through the opening ahead of him and followed it straight up into the beacon room.

Two men – Samson and Johan – were collapsed right at the top of the stairs. Samson was sobbing so Roy guessed they were both suffering the influence of von Nighburg’s techniques. He made this guess as he leaped over the two of them to avoid tripping, so there was a real chance he was just imagining things. Two others fought by the beacon.

From the archaic dress and long staff he was using, Roy recognized one as Heinrich von Nighburg. The other was Chester Tanner. A thrashing girl was tied up and laid out atop the unlit beacon, the five reflectors intended to focus the light out towards the sea instead all pointed in at her, like a hand of glass was reaching down for her. A strange collection of mouths, twisted flesh and flailing limbs were visible in them. It was like the mirrors had turned into windows but rather than showing the ceiling above or the seas outside they looked into nightmares.

Roy landed heavily and cursed, distracting Tanner. Von Nighburg proved the more disciplined duelist, taking advantage of the opening and tripping the other man with the fast moving end of his staff. Tanner went down on one knee. The blackguard snatched up a sword that was laid out beside Jenny and raised it up to run her through.

It was at least fifteen feet from the stairs to von Nighburg and Roy did his best to cross it in the time he had but even as he lunged forward he knew it wasn’t enough. Tanner plunged the point of his cutlass into the ground and pushed up, diving across the beacon. He pushed Jenny out of the way, sending her tumbling to the ground with a panicked shriek.

Von Nighburg pinned him to the top of the beacon with his sword and every mouth in the mirrors opened wide in howls and screams.

Previous Chapter

The town was quiet through the early evening. For a moment, if a man looked at the Cove through the corner of his eye, he might think everything was normal. The statue of Jonathan Riker had no such grace. Its eyes stared straight down on the town, unblinking, and watched the people head home early and bar their doors. The Mayor walked the streets every hour, making sure things were quiet. The full moon rose overhead, its bright, baleful light casting the streets in unsettling shadow.

It was a bad night to be about and all could sense it. When the dark shadow of Earth moved over the moon’s face even Mayor Hughes went home and locked the door. Only the statue was there to watch as Low Noon moved it. The fell mood didn’t bother Jonathan Riker in the least.

It watched as the sky slowly turned dark without flinching, heard the wild laughter without answering and saw the lighthouse bend and stretch up towards the sky without comment. The world changed in the small circle of the bay. When the moon slipped entirely out of view the strange voices echoing faintly over the water grew more numerous and more varied. Then the the lighthouse and the water around it for a hundred feet froze, locked behind the irregular facets of an otherworldly prism.

The second room of Heinrich von Nighburg’s hidden fortress was circular, like the lighthouse it was connected to. Stone floor and ceiling sandwiched tall shelves stacked with books, tools and paraphernalia. Bronze lines, about the width of a man’s hand, ran across the floor in every direction. Seven of them converged on the table at the center of the room where the strange geometric lattice, mesh globe and golden orb sat pulsing with arcane power.

Experience told Roy it was best to work out what to do about the mad wizard’s magic before anything else. “All right, Warwick,” he said, stepping through the doorway from the portal room to the Array. “I think it’s finally time a druid explained what’s so coalstoking dangerous about these things.”

Brandon cleared his throat. “Maybe you could explain what an Immelmann Array is, first?”

“It’s a shield of winter,” Avery said.

Roy felt himself start in shock, a rookie response he immediately regretted. “You’re not serious.”

“Isn’t that one of the godly weapons of the Mated Pair?” Proud Elk asked, studying the array with a skeptical eye. “This does not look very godly, Bright Coals.”

“We say the Lord in Raging Skies carries winter as his shield but I honestly don’t know what the connection is between one of these and the saying,” Avery replied. “However, there are ancient records in the Stone Circle that say Arthur Phoenixborn took a magic weapon much like this into his last battle with the Seventh Son of Eternity. Whether or not he actually wiped out Eternity’s Armies in one day, Arthur’s victory was decisive. The Forever Wars ended very soon after with Eternity’s allied nations on the Continent surrendering two years later. By that point the Circle’s Founders had already forbidden anyone building a shield of winter.”

“Why?” Roy asked. “They sound pretty handy.”

“Well, if it’s true that Arthur swept the Armies of Eternity from the world all at once and if he used a shield of winter to do it, the prevailing theory is that the shield is actually a kind of key.” Avery waved a hand to encompass the strange space around them. “The records suggest Arthur used it to lock out or lock away the Seventh Son and his forces and placed himself in the doorway to ensure they never came this way again. The concern is that using another key will reopen that door and pave the way for them to return. While there’s questions about the veracity of those records the possibility that someone could start up the Forever War again is daunting enough the Founders didn’t want to take the chance.”

That seemed like a reasonable enough motive to forbid them to Roy. “Is there a way to turn it harmless without doing that?”

“Not that I know of. Our Founders taught us to recognize them but Morainehenge was setup in a rather informal way and we didn’t have complete details on… well, anything. If there’s a safe way to deal with an Array, the secret stayed in Stonehenge.”

All eyes turned to Brandon. He held up his hands defensively. “No help here, lads. I’ve never heard of Immelmann Arrays or shields of winter and I honestly don’t think most knights ever do. That sounds like something usually confined to the Founder’s Circle. Our Founders, that is. Why did yours think it wise to spread the knowledge to the whole rank and file?”

Avery’s expression turned surly. “We couldn’t be sure Immelmann hadn’t produced them by the dozen and turned them over to the Columbians! We had to be ready to counter them.”

“He wasn’t a weaponsmith, Warwick, he was a skytrain engineer,” Roy snapped. “He was just trying to improve their furnace design. I don’t know that turning one into a weapon every occurred to anyone, unless you count skytrains as weapons.”

“Which you could,” Brandon said.

Roy shot him a glare. “Not my point.”

Avery jabbed a finger at the Array. “That is not something you create accidentally while trying to innovate on a skytrain furnace. He was dabbling with something he shouldn’t have, just like von Nighburg, that’s why we had to step in and confiscate the Array.”

A pulsing flash of anger shot across Roy’s vision and took up residence in the front of his mind. “You robbed a man of his life’s work, over the objections of your own druid there in town-”

“Harwick?” Avery practically spat the name. “He turned his back on the Circle and never showed his face again. Who cares about his opinion?”

A brief glimpse of a man, dead on the side of a lonely mountain in a forgotten corner of Tetzlan, rose from Roy’s memories. It was already fading when Roy closed his grip on the front of Avery’s coat and pulled the man down to eye level. “Brennan Harwick was a better man than you could ever hope to be.”

Roy’s own fury was mirrored in the other man’s eyes. “Then maybe he’ll find the fortitude to come back and answer for his actions!”

A dozen acid tongued replies rose up but before Roy could pick one a double loop of blue and gold painted beads dropped around his neck and the unnatural pressure on his emotions vanished. He hadn’t realized he was being manipulated a second ago. Now that Proud Elk’s beads were around him it was obvious that something similar to the laughter from that morning had come over him.

Brandon was prying the two of them apart as the Sanna man looped another set of beads around the sheriff. The same shock and disorientation was clear on his face. Roy cleared his throat. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Avery replied. “I supervised some of Brennan’s training when we were squired, I always thought he was a man of respectable intentions. I didn’t understand his choices after the Avengard incident but I was never angry about them. Except just now. It was like I couldn’t feel anything besides anger… I don’t understand it.”

“But you use thistledown candles,” Cassie said. “Surely you were exposed to all kinds of magic that inflict confusion and arouse unnatural emotions as a part of your training.”

“I was. There was still nothing like this among what I experienced.” The sheriff shook himself and straightened up. “Something very strange is going on here.”

Roy shook himself off, clearing his head, and loosened his falcatta in its sheath. “No doubt. Otherworldly forces and all that. Proud Elk, how long is this going to protect us?”

The Sanna man gave a helpless shrug. “This is something far beyond my experience as well, Bright Coals. A Calming Shoal necklace prevents powerful emotions from overwhelming your mind but it doesn’t remove them and it isn’t meant for creatures that prey on feelings in this way. I made them after what we saw this morning but I wasn’t sure they’d work. I don’t know how long they will keep working. We could have minutes or hours before they fail or are circumvented by the enemy.”

“Wonderful.”

Avery straightened his jacket and cleared his throat. “We’ve felt this twice now and there’s a real sense of change in mental equilibrium when that thing moves against us. Everyone be alert for it. If you feel that change again try pricking a finger with a knife – physical pain can counteract mental influence. Once we have the link through the candles established Miss Fairchild’s song may provide some level of defense, too. I’ll try and counter any influence from the mindscape as well.”

“We’ll cut through the problem, then,” Roy said. The room had four doors out and he picked one of the three they hadn’t been through yet. “Proud Elk, we’ll start by going that way. Johan, take your boys and go the opposite. We’ll meet in the middle if we don’t find what we’re looking for or move to support Avery’s team if they get in trouble. Let’s go.”

“Wait.” Avery gave him a curious look. “You said Brennan-”

“Not now.”

For a moment the sheriff looked like he would protest but then he nodded his agreement. “When this is over, then.”

Roy left the obvious caveat unsaid. Instead he held up the beaded bracelet Proud Elk had given him and said, “Final check, make sure the taps are coming through.” Suiting actions to words, Roy tapped the large, central diamond in the bracelet’s pattern and waited until he felt answering taps from the beads on the opposite side, matching the taps Brandon and Samson made. “Everything’s working here. Miss Fairchild?”

She began to hum the slow, mournful notes of Tyson’s Nine under her breath as Avery lit his candle. Roy had initially been grateful to learn she didn’t have to sing the words to make her magic work. Now he found it didn’t matter. The melody brought the first lines to mind unbidden.

When spring turns to winter face the bitter hard truth

’bout the gnawing teeth of the famine

No woman or man has the strength to withstand when

icy cold fear puts its hand in

Roy had always found the rank sentiment and simple lyrics of the song distasteful, to say nothing of the way it seemed to miss all the things that had actually made the mill in Tyson’s Run frightening, lonely and miserable. However, as the smoke of Avery’s candle wafted into the air he found other opinions mixing with his own. Brandon found them quaint and charming. Tanner didn’t quite understand what all the fuss was about, since the tune was far older than the West and the words were the kind of thing sailors sang at sea all the time. Johan found Roy’s annoyance far more amusing than anything about the lyrics.

Most interesting of all, Samson took profound satisfaction from them. Roy thought he caught a brief glimpse of a younger Jonathan Riker in an unfamiliar house, speaking with a woman he didn’t recognize. Then, something directed their thoughts away from that memory. He had a sudden sense that he’d seen something private and anyway, there were more pressing matters at hand. “It’s two hours until the eclipse starts,” Roy said. “Whatever else happens we have to cripple the plans von Nighburg has for Low Noon. Sheriff, if he takes out our group and Johan’s, or if Low Noon comes and we’re not back, destroy the Immelmann Array and go back to the Cove. Hopefully that sends us over the horizon and into whatever place Arthur put the Seventh Son. It’s not a perfect solution but it’s likely better than the alternative.”

“Count on it,” Avery replied.

“Should I stand ready to assist you or Johan if you wind up over your head?” Brandon asked.

“Normally I’d be thrilled having a Knight of the Stone Circle as our reserve,” Roy said. “But after what just happened I’m not sure you should. I think it’s more likely that you’d be lured out by some kind of phantom sensations like what we just experienced than that you’d actually hear us in distress and respond in time to assist.”

“We can’t spend all our time worried about the enemy’s stratagems or we’ll never act when we have the chance,” Johan said. “Let the man stand ready if he wants.”

Roy hesitated for a moment, thinking it over. “Very well. If that’s what you want, Brandon, be ready to back us up if needed. But stay here until you get a message from us by candle or tap, understand?”

“I understand.”

“Stay safe.” Roy turned to the other search group. “Johan, Samson, Tanner. Good hunting.”

Then he and Proud Elk turned and headed down their own route into von Nighburg’s fortress.