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.
Nate Chen Publications 