Chapter 52

  DX: How’s things?

  AC: Everyone will come.

  AC: Even Jeronimy.

  AC: That could be a problem. I believe he understands his position.

  DX: eh

  DX: That’s fine

  DX: This time he can get left behind while watching the rest of us escape

  DX: A reversal, if you will

  DX: I don’t really care

  AC: You have made that clear. But for the others it will not be easy to leave him behind.

  AC: I myself am unwilling.

  DX: Well we don’t have a choice, do we?

  DX: He’s got no angel

  DX: No second self like Akkama

  DX: He’s not getting out of here

  AC: I suspect Fiora would prefer to remain here with him, rather than leave.

  DX: Very perceptive, Acarnus! I’m impressed!

  DX: We can’t let that happen

  DX: Anyone who stays here is doomed

  DX: ETA on Dark World fleet?

  AC: They are bearing for Skywater, coming in hot. Perhaps an hour.

  DX: Okay

  DX: I’ve got one other thing to do before I meet you there

  AC: A question for you, Derxis.

  DX: Shoot

  AC: Could you not have accomplished your goals with Akkama—relieving her of her medallion—without dying? Seeing your sigil go dark alarmed me.

  DX: ah

  DX: well

  DX: I wanted another chance to see the books

  DX: The Burning Books

  DX: And I wanted to wake up to Fiora’s song

  DX: Just once

  AC: I see.

  DX: No you don’t

  *

  From Skywater Citadel, Zayana took them through the green door, composed of living branches and vines, aflourish with blooming flowers. They stepped through onto the swaying platform overlooking Fiora’s city in Quelk. Waves rolled through the island, causing the eight-doored platform to heave and toss. Rosma’s door of deep blue ice and metal was immediately adjacent; Akkama assisted Zayana as they stumbled drunkenly over to it across the swaying platform. As Zayana had predicted, Rosma had not bothered to lock this door. They fell through, into a place as different from Quelk as could be. Rhamnusia was dark, cold, still, and quiet save for the rushing winds and the storm and the distant crashing of waves.

  Rosma’s platform of black ice held only two doors: hers and Fiora’s. Zayana shivered and stepped closer to Akkama for warmth. She created a thick cloak against the sleety gale. Akkama looked out at Rosma’s bitter wasteland of a moon. “What’s it like?” Zayana asked.

  Akkama squinted out at the storm, the metallic coral in countless shapes lost against the darkness of distance, the thick seas washing on black shores. “You’re not missing much,” she replied. In truth, a part of Akkama liked Rosma’s moon. Much too cold and wet, true, but it reeked of danger. Of challenge. The monsters here were metal, and thus probably more formidable opponents than the origami creatures of her own moon.

  “She’s not far,” said Zayana. She reached an arm out to point the way. “Down there. By the beach.” A tiny white spider scuttled out of her sleeve and onto the tip of her finger as though to help show the way.

  Akkama sighed. She rolled her shoulders, stretching. She wanted to stall, maybe to ask if Zayana was certain about this. But Zayana was certain indeed. Akkama had seen it. There was one way out of this Narrative for Akkama.

  “All right,” said Akkama. She pasted a false, unseen smile on her face. “Let’s do this. I…I’ll see you soon.”

  Zayana nodded firmly.

  Akkama took a breath and marched away, carefully navigating the slick steps down from the platform.

  In minutes, flown by much too swiftly, Akkama laid eyes on Rosma. Up ahead, her back turned to Akkama, Rosma was doing something in front of a fleet of small colorful nautili that bobbed in the air as though flapping invisible wings. The nautili moved together, chirping and piping in a strange harmony like a bizarre choir conducted by the stern outline of Rosma.

  A flash of lightning illuminated a towering figure hunched on a great dark slab of steel above Rosma. Its indistinct shape loomed brief and menacing in the light. It seemed that the presence of this creature was a surprise to Rosma as well, for she looked up and stepped back in alarm. The nautili dispersed at once, scattering like confetti and fleeing into tiny nooks and crevices in the nearby coral.

  Rosma gazed up at the creature, then spun around. She saw Akkama. Her spear came up at once, ready to kill. “Why hast thou come?” she demanded of Akkama. “Wishest thou for death?”

  Well, yeah, actually. But instead of saying that, Akkama drew Nemesis and put a nonchalant smirk on her face. “We have something to finish.”

  Another flash of lightning, fortuitously positioned against the darkness of the sky, outlined another looming, hunched creature perched atop a curled formation to Akkama’s left. Another flash, to the right, revealed a third creature. They became almost invisible once the darkness closed again, but their presence was not lost on Rosma.

  “Know ye not that I have sworn a blood oath against thee?”

  “Oh, I know. That’s why I’m here. Time to end that oath.”

  “Indeed,” replied Rosma, in a voice so low and dangerous that Akkama hardly heard her.

  And that was all. Rosma charged, and Akkama braced herself. Rosma took longer to reach Akkama than anticipated. She was slower now, somehow. And as she came, more flashes of lightning, in rapid succession, revealed more watching figures; a ring of them now gathered on the looming metal all around the two heroes.

  Yes, Rosma was much slower. Akkama almost laughed at the thought that she was about to allow herself to be—

  The angel, the white shark, dove from the skies behind Akkama with such speed that she barely had time to react once she perceived the threat. The deadly teeth of the shark snapped on empty air, but the impact of its bulk threw Akkama rolling onto the ground.

  Except she didn’t roll. The icy slush on the metal sand clung to her, froze her solid, trapped her to the grainy black sand. Akkama struggled; she burned with heat to melt the frigid grasp of the ice, but it wasn’t fast enough.

  Rosma stepped forward, every inch of her body coated in tiny chips of shimmering blue light.

  Something red in the sky overhead caught Akkama’s attention. The clouds above parted, by sheer chance, to reveal a small window of the sky beyond. It took Akkama a moment to realize that she was looking at Tengami, her Paper Moon, ablaze in the distance among the stars. A pyre for Emmius.

  Akkama accepted her fate. She had come here to die; the death was deserved.

  Rosma did not hesitate. She did not pause to consider Akkama or to rethink her actions. She stepped up and rammed her spear into Akkama’s chest. She yanked it out, making Akkama shriek in agony, and then finished the job.

  *

  Zayana watched the red light wink out. She sighed.

  A door opened behind her. Nothing came through. Nothing she could see, at any rate. “Derxis?” she said.

  “You got me!” he laughed. “Come on.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Follow me!” His voice came from a different place, reminding Zayana uncomfortably of how much she relied on the ability to see arda. Derxis was entirely invisible to her now.

  Yet she followed him, carefully, down from the platform and through a field of coral. Her spider showed her the way, as usual when she traversed a new place.

  They soon came to Rosma, who stood unmoved from where she had slain Akkama.

  “Rosma,” said Derxis. He used his authoritative voice; Zayana heard the faint muffling which indicated that he had donned a priestly mask. “I, as a Color Priest, declare your blood oath fulfilled. Do you find this acceptable?”

  “I do,” she replied.

  “Excellent!” Just like that, the officious voice vanished, replaced with the giddy near-laughter voice of Classic Derxis. “Um…who are they?” He now spoke with a bit of nervousness. Combined with his laughter, it came out like a hint of hysteria. Zayana tilted her head, listening and looking with all available faculties, but she could not tell of whom Derxis spoke.

  “Watchers,” said Rosma. “They are no danger.”

  Derxis hooted with uncertain laughter, the tone of which indicated that he wasn’t so sure about that.

  “Well,” said Derxis. “Let’s be off, then! Eh, Rosma? Back to the Citadel. We’re all meeting up. You’ll need to bond to your angel as well.”

  “Thou dost not seem much upset at the demise of Akkama. Nor thee, Zayana.”

  “Listen,” said Derxis. “We don’t have much time. I was right about the Champion thing, yes? Trust me on this. We need to go.”

  A pause. “Very well.”

  “We’ll go on ahead, Zayana,” said Derxis. “You can have a minute with…her.”

  “What about your mind stone?” Zayana asked.

  “Don’t want it,” he replied. “Don’t need it. The best color priests would never even use their power. That’s what it was all about, right?” Zayana didn’t understand this, but she remained silent.

  They left. Derxis prodded Rosma along while she pummeled him with questions. Zayana approached the body. The orange light of the mind stone, Derxis’s light, played tricks on her. She instinctively saw this corpse as alive thanks to that light. More, she saw it as Derxis.

  She took the mind stone from Akkama, struggling not to get emotional about touching the corpse of her best friend. Not really dead, she told herself over and over, a mantra. Not really dead. I’ll see her soon.

  She took the journal. She picked up Nemesis, hesitated. The sword glimmered with light in her mind almost as if it was arda. Derxis had hinted that this blade did not have a mind, but it did have something sort-of like one.

  This sword had killed Thaevrit. And Emmius. And even Derxis, although Zayana wasn’t too heartbroken about that one.

  Zayana made up her mind. She would take the sword back to Skywater. She would show the others. She would leave it there on top of the Citadel. Akkama did not require such temptation, such a weapon of death. They would abandon it here in this Narrative.

  So decided, she stood and turned back to Rosma’s platform, where the blue light was just about to go through the door.

  A rustle of wings like wet canvas sounded around her. The mysterious Watchers? Let them watch, then. Zayana left Akkama on the cold iron sand, and she returned to the doors on Rosma’s platform.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  *

  Acarnus’s sense of smell, which had always been keen, now threatened to overwhelm him with information. The nose of a wolf, and the spines on his back more thickly matted than ever, like bristly fur. He had given up any attempt to wear a shirt, but a loose coat remained manageable. Other small physiological differences: elongated feet, his fingernails now vaguely unguiculate, his facial features more canine. Minor detail. More material were the psychological variances. He was aware of data that he had not previously had access to. Instinctive knowledge of the angels, his for the taking. He knew, for example, that he could simply leave this Narrative if he so desired. He could swiftly and silently vanish away. If he did so, there would be no coming back. The Narrative was closed off, as it was meant to be. By whom? This remained a mystery.

  Anthea waited with him atop the pinnacle of Skywater Citadel, gazing up at the sky. She had never stopped searching for that spark of beauty which had once thrilled her, even when it was hopeless. A particularly bright cloud would occasionally break out from the others, and she would flinch away in reflex to protect herself from sighting the books.

  They did not speak to each other. There was nothing to say. She had not bonded to her angel. The white eagle soared overhead. Acarnus wondered about this, but said nothing. The bonding took but a moment. If she was not yet ready, she had time.

  The door of defective mirrors swung open, and Jeronimy slunk through. One glance told Acarnus that Jeronimy knew. He was coming to this meeting only to watch them leave. With no angel, he could not himself escape.

  Anthea turned her gaze down from the skies to watch him with her pale, narrow eyes. Her wings clattered as they rustled together.

  Jeronimy hunched away, ignoring her—his typical reaction to Anthea. He had never accepted her fate, her songlessness.

  Anthea spoke. “I met Anzu,” she said, her voice, as always, dull and dead. “Our true home has a name. The name is Icarus.”

  “Great,” muttered Jeronimy. “Fucking great. Thanks for the tip. Really gods-damned useful.”

  Anthea, undisturbed, continued. “He seemed to think it important. I thought you should know. Since I will not be leaving with you.”

  This got their attention. Jeronimy and Acarnus shared a look of concern, then turned to Anthea for further explanation.

  “I will be of little use to you,” she said. “Each of you, with a song, with a heart and a soul, is greater than I. You will all need each other. But I…” Her wings rustled again, a cascade of clinking, glittering glass.

  “That is incorrect,” said Acarnus. “You alone command the respect of us all, and that by itself is an invaluable asset to our…group. When you speak, everyone listens.”

  “You will listen to Rasmus from now on,” she said.

  “This is fucking idiotic,” said Jeronimy. He leaned toward her. “Listen, I’ve had about enough of your fucking pity party. It sucks what happened, really, but you are literally the only person who thinks you’re useless, which means you are fucking wrong about that, and you need to get over yourself and think about the rest of us for a change because we still need you.” Jeronimy turned into a black void during this speech; his shadowy form seethed with racing shapes along its outline.

  “Do not give up, Anthea,” said Acarnus. “That is what Rasmus would tell you, is it not? A solution to your condition may yet be discovered.”

  She gave him a faint, sad smile. “And Derxis would say ‘believe.’ I know. But I am done believing. And I am giving up. I was a fool to harbor a spark of hope this far.”

  “You can come with us,” said Acarnus. He avoided looking at Jeronimy, who could not. “It’s not over.”

  “For me, it was over at Prax,” she replied. “I have decided.”

  “So you’ll just…just fucking stay here with me?” Jeronimy clearly wasn’t sure what to think about that idea.

  She shook her head. “I am doing this not only for you, Jeronimy, and not only for Fiora. But for everyone. You are necessary, child of the Voidlight. Believe that.”

  Jeronimy threw his hands into the air in exasperation. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “This.” She didn’t move, but a bright light descended upon Jeronimy; it struck him like lightning. A white eagle sunk entirely, in one swift stroke, into his dark being.

  Jeronimy fell to the elderstone floor, which shimmered in expansive ripples of light. He gasped, in pain but too out of breath to scream. He shivered; he blackened into deepest shadow.

  His form melted into a void, nothing more than a black outline. The shape swelled and shrank, bloomed and collapsed. Acarnus saw a feathery wing, an insectile leg, a clawed appendage, an aquatic tail, all rendered in pitch, all lasting only a moment before melting, subsumed back into the stuff of raw change.

  It was strangely silent, but for the pained gasping of Jeronimy. Acarnus smelled the horror, the panic. He thought he heard Jeronimy whisper a useless negation: no…

  And then, in less than a minute, it was over. Jeronimy’s form resolved back into his normal form like some tarry liquid collecting into shape and cooling into a solid. A pair of feathery wings, ebon on dusk, sprouted from between his shoulders. He knelt, still gasping, on the excited elderstone.

  A sound from Anthea made Acarnus turn to look at her. She was crying. Milky tears slid down her cheeks. She tried to speak, but could not. She turned away. “Goodbye, Acarnus.” She stepped up to the edge of the platform. “Tell everyone…”

  But she never finished. She leaped out into the empty air, spread her wings, and disappeared from view. And Acarnus saw her no more.

  “Fuck,” Jeronimy muttered behind Acarnus. “Fuck fuck fuck.” He sounded near tears himself. “Not again. She can’t…she can’t just…just save me again like…fuck.” He sniffed, trying to control himself. Acarnus pretended not to notice.

  Acarnus retreated into his mind instead, staying his emotions. So it would be Anthea left behind, not Jeronimy. Derxis wouldn’t like that. Would anyone? It shouldn’t present any real problem, though. A simple rearrangement of who could escape via angel.

  A door opened. The scent of metal, leather, sweat, pollen, crushed leaves and bruised flower petals. Rasmus and Fiora. Acarnus sighed. He would have to be the one to explain all of this.

  Fiora, predictably, gasped and ran at once to Jeronimy’s side. Jeronimy, predictably, shoved her roughly away. Acarnus saw that Fiora had not bonded to her angel, either. She held it in her hands, a little white tree frog cupped gently as though she had caught it in the wild and feared its escape. Ah. Anthea had not been the only one to consider giving their angel to Jeronimy. Though Fiora, presumably, would have asked first.

  Acarnus explained the situation in brief. Jeronimy, now in possession of an angel, would be leaving the Narrative with them. Anthea, sans angel, would not.

  Fiora chastised him for his lack of emotion on this matter. Still holding her frog, she declared her intent to go find Anthea and give her her angel. Acarnus pointed out that Anthea did not want to be found and would not accept the angel. Fiora broke down in tears about not being able to say goodbye to Anthea.

  Rasmus grumbled and rumbled like a distant storm. He paced. He looked up at the skies. He took out his medallion, crushed it in his fist, and dropped dead on the spot.

  More sobbing from Fiora; cries of alarm and amazement from Jeronimy.

  Acarnus sighed. He smelled a new presence, a pleasing, flowery scent, and observed Lord Fair watching from the stairs at one edge of the platform.

  Lord Fair shrugs his blossoming shoulders. Such is the way of things. Passion! Love! Ah, and friendship. Things not solely the province of youth, but flavored so sweetly by it. What else, he asks, can Acarnus expect from such a scintillant constellation as theirs?

  Fiora, beginning to panic, hopped back and forth next to the corpse of Rasmus. Jeronimy demanded to know what was going on. Fiora, in a sudden alteration of spirit, set her face with new resolve as though channeling the character of Rasmus. She rolled back her sleeves, ready to heal.

  And then Rosma’s door opened, and through it came Derxis, Rosma, and Zayana.

  Acarnus sighed. He explained. Yes, Rasmus is dead. Yes, Jeronimy has wings now. No, Anthea is not present. Yes, this means that Anthea gave her angel to Jeronimy.

  Derxis threw his turban to the elderstone floor in frustration. His pebbly skin turned bright orange and red. “Shit!” He laughed. “This is…” (he paused to control his enraged mirth) “This is the worst trade ever.” Derxis glared with undisguised hatred at Jeronimy.

  “Hey, what the fuck, man,” Jeronimy was too surprised by Derxis’s unexpected vitriol to be angry in return.

  Zayana fretting over Rasmus. Fiora, seeing Zayana with Nemesis and noticing that Akkama’s sigil has gone dark on their medallions, about to gnaw her hand off. Rosma, vaguely confused and unsatisfied.

  Acarnus glanced back at Lord Fair and saw that he had been joined by Lord Frost, who carried Lord Fish in his bowl under one arm. The three of them watched from the stairs without coming up entirely, curious to see what was going on with their heroes. Ice was slowly crusting over the water in the fishbowl.

  Lord Frost nods at Acarnus in approval for keeping his cool amidst the disarray.

  Rasmus gasped. His body spasmed for a moment and sent Fiora rolling across the elderstone. She was up in a flash.

  All eyes turned to Rasmus. Derxis took his medallion out of his robe and checked it like a pocketwatch. He looked up overhead, prompting them all to observe the fourth ring, yellow, which had appeared around Ardia. He groaned. His skin phased through greens into blue. “Why, Rasmus? You’re not supposed to become Champion like that!”

  Rasmus looked abashed. He flexed his hands, his arms, all of his muscles in turn as though reaccustoming himself to his body. “I am sorry, Derxis. I heard about the power to gain a wish…”

  “There’s an easier way!” laughed Derxis. “You can just go to the Bright World! Ah, whatever, we don’t have time. So you thought you could wish something for Anthea, right? To get her out of here.”

  Rasmus nodded.

  “And you found out that the Bright World can’t make angels, so you used your wish to be Champion instead.”

  Rasmus nodded sadly.

  “Well I already checked!” Derxis fell into a fit of giggling before getting himself under control. “It’s fine. Whatever.” His gaze fell on the newly winged Jeronimy. “Well, it’s not fine.” He subsided into speculation, his strange mind spinning, trying out new ideas.

  Fiora tugged at Zayana’s dress. “Zayana,” she whispered, loud enough that they could all hear. “What happened to Akkama?”

  “She’ll be fine,” said Zayana. “She’s waiting for us in the Museum.”

  “She is what?” Rosma demanded.

  Derxis cast a hand at her without looking. “Your oath’s been fulfilled. You did kill her. You accepted the closure. It’s over.”

  Everyone still had questions, objections, complaints. Derxis caught Acarnus’s eye. How long?

  Acarnus turned his gaze to the skies above. With enough magnification, he saw the fleet. The largest any of them had seen—the might of the Dark World marshaled against them in vengeance for the disappearance of their lord. Even if the heroes were all working together, it would have been a monumental challenge to defend Skywater against this retaliatory strike. With all of them leaving, Skywater was doomed. Yet without the dark key, this whole story was doomed regardless.

  Minutes, Acarnus mouthed to Derxis. A quick hand signal added: maybe five.

  Derxis went to Rasmus and whispered something in his ear. He had to prompt Rasmus to bend over first.

  Rasmus sighed, reluctant, but then he set himself toward what he had to do. He stood, and he spoke. His voice grumbled through the stones and rumbled their bones. It was a voice of gongs and thunder, a voice to guide lost ships at sea, to summon a storm, or to match the battle cry of a cosmic beast. It was the voice of a god, such a voice as they had seldom heard from him before, and it stilled them.

  “We must depart,” he said. His expression made it clear that he did not approve of this. He wanted to remain, to find some way to help Anthea. But there was no way. He had paid a great price only moments ago to discover this for himself.

  “Each of us must bond to our angels.” He had already done so, though it had altered his appearance little. Perhaps his great muscular bulk now conjoined itself with a catlike litheness. Perhaps the yellow arda-spikes that made for him a beard now seemed like feline whiskers.

  Rosma and Zayana bonded easily, the process complete in seconds, but Fiora hesitated. She still dreamed of sacrificing herself to save Anthea. She was the last of them to bond, and she did so in the end, after tearfully looking at each of them in silent entreaty. She didn’t want to leave Anthea. None of them did.

  Derxis approached her. He whispered in her ear. Her eyes widened.

  Meanwhile, fresh scents informed Acarnus that they were accumulating a small crowd of watchers. The Lords of Skywater gathered near the stairs down to the Citadel. Acarnus, with a quick glance, counted six: Fair, Frost, Fish, Friend, Fool, First. Lord Foe had died, Lord Fierce was no doubt preparing the defense, and Lord Foul’s activities were, as always, anybody’s guess. As for Lord Found, he remained lost. They had never found him. That had seemed of great importance not too long ago.

  Acarnus could not meet their masked gazes. The Lords had come to watch their heroes abandon them. It hadn’t been this way, he remembered. Long ago, in the most distant of the Chained God’s memories, all this had been different. They had opened the door, victorious.

  A bright flash, and when Acarnus looked back, he saw Fiora, altered in subtle ways, bonded to her angel.

  And so the moment came. Seven heroes among the doors. Nervous, uneasy. Even Acarnus felt it: the uncertainty, the trepidation. They looked at the Lords, gathered silently to watch. They looked around at the doors, up at their moons and the rings, up at the scattering of dark specks above that signified the Dark World fleet in its descent. And then, one by one, they looked at Rasmus.

  And Rasmus, who had never once in his life backed down from a decision that he had made, and who literally did not understand what it meant to give up because he had never done it, this Rasmus observed them with a deeply troubled gaze. Acarnus sympathized. This was hard for him. To leave this world behind, to leave Anthea behind. Rasmus would rather stand and fight, to the bitter end.

  Acarnus understood, in a flash of inspiration, that Anthea had prepared Rasmus for this. Her act of donating her angel had not surprised Rasmus; he had only attempted to aid her afterward. Yes, he had known. Anthea had made sure of it. He had to leave. They all did. There was nothing left here. No answers. No salvation. Only elsewhere might there be hope. Only elsewhere, outside this peculiar construct of a pocket dimension, might they find a way. Perhaps, Rasmus would be thinking, even a way of rescuing Anthea. She had probably insinuated to him that only if he escaped would he have a chance of helping her. Clever.

  Rasmus bowed to the Lords of Skywater, who returned the gesture with varying degrees of enthusiasm and sincerity, except of course Lord Fish. “Do not give up,” he advised them in his deep rumble. “Never.”

  And then he vanished. In a flash of light, just like an angel, he was gone. The others followed. Fiora took Rosma’s hand. They left together. Zayana raised up Nemesis and planted it with a powerful thrust into the elderstone surface of the platform. It sunk a foot into the stone. Then she disappeared. Jeronimy, muttering to himself, refusing to look at Acarnus and Derxis, lurched to the edge of the platform where Anthea had disappeared. There, staring out at the city, he vanished. His flash was bright and dark together.

  That left Acarnus and Derxis.

  Derxis slumped onto the elderstone floor.

  “Shall we?” asked Acarnus.

  “When we do this,” Derxis replied, “I’m going to forget everything. That was the price for the mind stone.”

  “I wonder what that is like,” said Acarnus.

  Derxis laughed a genuine laugh of mirth. He took something from his pocket and tossed it at the sword driven into the stone nearby. It was a medallion, and its chain caught the hilt by a crossguard. It dangled there, swaying. Acarnus saw that only three lights remained on the medallion: white, grey, orange.

  “Yeah,” said Derxis. “Let’s go.” He took a deep breath, and then vanished.

  Acarnus followed only a moment behind. Like stepping out, he vanished away into a dreamless darkness.