I her soul, Sil knew she should seek forgiveness for her earlier words and attitude, for the distrust and the growing hostility. Who was she to demand anything of a being like Panacea, whose work had kept humanity from perishing on Vas’s inimical rocks?
If she accepted that in her soul, her reasonable mind was harder to convince.
Tallah had her plans. Vergil had his issues. The world at large was uncaring and vile, held together by the thinnest strands of camaraderie and dogged determination.
The goddess… she plotted, lied, and kept her servants in the dark.
Sil was tired of feeling like the instrument of an uncaring hand. What stung worst was that she knew she was but an instrument, and she could do nothing about it. It was enough to drive a woman to suicidal recklessness.
“Do not abuse. Fatal. Can’t see you. Keep this hidden. More to come.” Those had been the words carved into her arm.
“I lie.” That had been written beneath her breast, after the battle, while everyone was celebrating survival. The sudden pain had scared the wits off her.
If Panacea was watching, she would have much to answer for. In Grefe she could claim ignorance of the horrors inflicted on Erisa, though Sil had her reservations even on that. Here, in the wide open, in the heart of the empire, how could that creature have stood by and let the situation unfold? It was unconscionable.
So many dead… and for what? Sil was no closer to figuring that out than on the day of their arrival. Now, she held herself off from praying, for she knew of no one listening. Instead, she took a page from Tallah’s book… and gambled.
The daemon swung. Claws raked torchlight. Sil shut her eyes, spread wide her arms, offered her heart for the monster to rip out.
Now or never, creature.
She braced for pain. To her shame, she couldn’t help cringing with the anticipation of death.
Agony.
The insides of her eyelids turned bright red, then pitch black. All of her was aflame, as if doused in burning oil. She opened her mouth to scream, but it died in her throat as the pain dissipated, leaving behind a deep chill that reached all the way into her soul.
In Grefe, her torture had been long, her agony deep. Now, it had come and gone in a flash. It barely shook her.
“Gotcha!” A familiar voice spoke. “Finally got hands on one of you worms. What fun we shall have.”
“Sil!” Vergil’s voice called out.
She opened her eyes and, through the hammering beat of her heart, she realised she hadn’t fainted. She hadn’t even fallen, her legs solid beneath her. Blotches of colour swam in her sight, but she saw clear enough Vergil approaching at a dead run.
And, right ahead, so close she could reach out and throttle the creature calling itself a goddess, stood the adolescent chalk-white figure of Panacea. The daemon knelt in front of her, still towering over the lithe incarnation; bands of blinding light held it bound, squeezing so hard that its shape bulged around the constrictions.
Panacea turned. She wore the same shape as she had in Grefe. Lithe. Androgynous. Red eyes too large for its chalk-white face.
She regarded Sil with a mixture of exasperation and incredulity.
“Are you mad, daughter?”
Granted, those weren’t the first words Sil expected to hear from her deity. A greeting, maybe? Some acknowledgement of her struggles? Praise for her courage?
What did I hope for?
“You knew…” Sil said, heart sinking. A single look in Panacea’s eyes told her she’d been right: the goddess had known what was happening, all along.
“Of course I knew,” Panacea said.
To her grace, she didn’t duck, nor did she prevent in any way Sil striking her. A bright red palm-print blotched the white cheek.
Sil’s palm stung. She almost wished she’d used the mace.
“Are you done?” Panacea asked as Sil shook her pained hand. “Can we get on with things?”
“Why?” Sil fought back tears. Of anger, pain, or betrayal, she couldn’t say.
Vergil skidded on the dust, stopping just a pace away. To her shock, he embraced her. He was shaking, though she couldn’t imagine why. For all the blood soaking his clothes, he looked unharmed. His grip on her was bone-crushing.
Vilfor was approaching not far behind, leading a squad of soldiers, ragged and wounded. They were crushing the daemons running away from Panacea.
“Vergil—” she wheezed out. “Too. Hard.”
He let go suddenly, his movements jerky and abrupt. It hadn’t been a fluke. The helmet was active, and he was handling it on his own.
“Who’s powering you?” she asked, too dazed to know what to prioritise anymore.
“Daughter, this is hardly the time,” Panacea said. “You should take two steps back.”
Soldiers were staring at them, openly gaping, as the sunlight failed above. Sil did as instructed, her body moving on its own.
A flash of light. A pop of displaced air. And Tallah stood in the gap between Sil and Panacea, a group of people surrounding her.
“Blast,” the sorceress said. “It’s here too.”
She took a quick scan of the situation, raised an eyebrow at Panacea, then at the white-faced daemon, then at Vergil. She donned her mask.
“Good, you’re here too,” Panacea said. “Now—”
“Shut up,” Tallah interrupted her, raising a hand. She reached out to Sil and dragged out the shard around her neck. “Get inside somewhere. Find one of your healers. Have them set this down and channel through it. There are at least a hundred more at the Anvil. We are bringing them all over.” She spoke quickly, her hand moving to shush in turn Panacea, Vergil, Vilfor, and finally Sil, as each of them tried to speak.
“But—” Sil tried to rally her wits, explain what had happened and how bad the situation was.
Tallah shook her head, impatient. She yanked on the string and a spark of fire broke it off entirely.
“You’re right. I need you here.” She threw the shard to Vilfor. “Get it done. Now. Liosse is holding the gates, but there’s a whole army outside her walls.”
“Liosse is alive?” Vilfor asked. It was like a mountain had dropped off his shoulders. Sil marvelled at how his back straightened and his chin rose.
“Yes, but won’t be for long,” Tallah snapped. “Not unless you move and do as I said. Go.”
Vilfor, to his credit, turned and rushed off at a lopping run. The soldiers that had arrived with Tallah all followed him, smashing into the rows of daemons filling the courtyard.
There were bodies falling from above, balls of beastmen thrown over the walls to rain down on the defenders.
“Sorceress, do not shush me,” Panacea said, her tone dangerously close to anger. She gestured with a finger and all the falling beastmen were reduced to gore. “I have important business with the three of you.”
“Get bent,” Tallah said, not paying any attention to the creature. “Sil, status report.”
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Sil could only gesture at the overcrowded courtyard. More and more monsters were pouring through the tunnel, some of them making for the iron gates, aiming to breach. “Do I need to say anything?” she asked, mind racing to get up to speed and figure what she should be angry with first. “Vergil’s channelling somehow. This… thing’s here. She’s been watching us. And I… I…”
“Clear enough,” the sorceress said, not a hint of hesitation in her. “We need support here.”
Tallah pulled off one of her gloves, reached out, and pressed her hand to Sil’s mace. Blood trickled from the wounds as she squeezed her fist shut. She allowed a puddle to form on the ground. Then the blood mud churned and rose, forming into the shape of a young girl. The child stared at Panacea and grinned.
“You know where the vats are?” Tallah asked it. “Should be within range of this spell.”
“I may get lost,” the girl answered. It spoke in Anna’s voice—Sil recognized it from her nightmares. The girl turned her head to Vergil, body moving in grotesque fashion. “Escort me, boy.”
“Do it,” Tallah ordered before Vergil had a chance to protest. “You’ve taken bodies there before. We need the blood we’ve been saving up.”
Her tone did not broker disagreement. Vergil leaned over the child, scooped it up in his arms, and took off at a run. He rammed his horned helmet against one of the smaller daemons that tried to bar his way. A thin line of blood connected the child to Tallah, her colour fading as it got farther away from her.
The sorceress opened a rend and took out a bloodberry tonic, drank it in one gulp, then turned to the goddess. The bound daemon reflected in her silver mask.
“I need this thing to answer some questions. Hand it over,” Tallah demanded.
“I do too,” Panacea protested, raising a hand in warning. “It’s why I’ve been waiting for you girls to drag one out. I almost gave up hope you would.”
“I fought one early on,” Tallah said. “Where were you then?”
Panacea pointed a thumb at Sil. “This one was drunk and asleep, her senses dead. I couldn’t use her then. And the next time she had a decent encounter, she overloaded my systems by channelling my power twice in quick succession.”
Sil felt her ears burning. She’d been tired on that day, when the first encounter happened. And fighting the smoke-filled skins had been a near, desperate thing. How was she to know the goddess expected things of her?
Tallah waved an arm and fireballs filled the air above them, blinking into existence in messy rows. Dust burned in the air, filling the courtyard with acrid smoke. There was a wide perimeter around them, all the creatures keeping distance from Panacea.
The sorceress stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled a series of calls. Immediately, the line holding back the invasion moved several steps back from the tunnel mouth.
Tallah turned from Panacea and the daemon. “We’ll talk after people are safe. Help or stay out of my way.”
Sil drew a step away from the fuming goddess, almost feeling as if she hid in her friend’s shadow. They had people to save. She tested her channelling and found herself unfettered. A deep breath. Drew illum in. Started weaving.
The daemons found their advance stifled, barriers set in their wake, with nothing as big as the rhino to smash them.
Tallah loosed her fireballs. They shot out towards the tunnel, curved downward, and slammed with earth-shaking booms into the mass of daemons. Three. Four. Seven blasts. Gore rose into the air and rained back down, filling the air with blood mist, turning the earth to blood. The soldiers cheered, drew a much needed breath, and waded in just as Sil dropped her barriers.
Panacea huffed. When she spoke, her voice overpowered the noise of battle, “I have much to discuss. Pay attention, you two. Things are at a crossroads and I don’t have time to explain. Ort knows I’m here now. He will move against me.”
“Aerum,” Tallah demanded, her attention entirely consumed by the invasion.
Sil drew strength from her friend’s easy dismissal. She’d hoped the goddess would intervene, and hoped her misgivings had been just that… products of an overactive, overtired imagination. But no, the goddess was every bit the monster Sil was growing to believe she was.
“What’s going on?” she asked as she dug into her rend.
“We need to get out of the Cauldron. Tonight. With all haste. Where’s the spider?” Tallah downed the aerum and looked about. “Please don’t tell me it got squished.”
“I thought it was with Vergil,” Sil said. “Haven’t seen it.”
“Call it—”
A white shell went up around them, interrupting both their conversation and the sounds of battle. Both Sil and Tallah snapped their gazes towards Panacea.
“Lovely,” Panacea said. “Now I can have your attention. Will you listen now?” The goddess crossed her arms, regarding them with a mixture of barely-contained anger and—to Sil’s amazement—panic.
The daemon was in the shell with them, head bowed, body straining against its bonds. It seemed to deflate somewhat. Its bonds were pulling it inward, like the steel jaws of a torture rack.
“You will pay for this indignity, made-thing,” it said, voice soft, calm beyond its circumstances. “The master will not forgive this insolence. He will come and rend the meat off your artificial bones, rip the thing you call soul from your husk, and piss on it.”
Panacea rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “If Ryder had the gall for that sort of overt action, he’d be here himself. But I’m guessing the Radiance are on him like flies on shit after his last cock up.” A short flick of her fingers had the creature squirming, the bands tightening, constricting the daemon into an even more compact shape. “Be quiet now. Adults are talking.”
A vein pulsed on Tallah’s temple. Sil saw her friend’s fist turn white, glove still gripped in it. Flickers of illum turned to sparks as she struggled against Panacea’s blocking field. They’d felt it before in Grefe and been unable to weave inside the white shell.
“People are dying,” Tallah said, voice tight. “I don’t have time for your cryptic nonsense. You did nothing to help in Grefe. Unless you mean to turn the tide, get out of my way.”
“You can’t save these people, Tallah Amni.” Panacea scowled, speaking slowly as if to a child. “We have what we needed from here. Now it’s time to escape.”
“You can’t be serious!” Sil snapped at her, finding the courage to voice her frustration. “You can help. Y-y-you can save them all.”
“I cannot and will not. It’s far too late. It was too late even the moment I sent you here.”
“Then why are we here? What was the meaning of all this?” Tears stung the corners of Sil’s eyes. This was one step too far for her, a final rock crumbling under her feet. “Why have we been fighting through this?”
“Sacrifice hundreds to save millions would be my guess,” Tallah said. “Something to that fatalistic effect?”
Panacea shook her head, not moving away from her captive. “I will sacrifice thousands to save millions yet unborn. You do not understand just how large the stakes are. I have waited a hundred years for this moment, and did unspeakable things to bait this outcome. Things must progress. There is no other way.”
Sil felt herself dragged forward, her head wrenched so she could look into Panacea’s face. The red gaze was pitiless, as cold as a snake’s, utterly alien.
“Daughter,” the creature spoke low and calm, “we are not fighting a battle. I have recruited you into a war we’ve been losing for thousands of years. This is just its latest iteration.” Panacea’s gaze swung away from Sil, to Tallah. “I need your help to break this cycle. I am willing to pay the cost in lives. I know you will be too, once you understand.”
Sil’s legs held her up almost against her will. She heard her own voice like a distant thing, barely audible above the noise of her faith shattering. “We’re healers. We should heal. Of the many and the few. For the many and the few.”
“For the many,” Panacea corrected. “The many trump the few. The long result calls for the sacrifice of blood.”
“Let me out,” Tallah said, donning her gloves. “I don’t care for your games. I said before that I won’t be a part.”
“This is not a game, Tallah Amni.” Panacea finally moved, approaching the sorceress, hands balled into fists, the mask of calm breaking away. “I want to bargain for your compliance if nothing else will work.”
“Let. Me. Out.” In spite of the barrier, Tallah’s hands crawled with fire. Red sparks danced between her fingers. “I am not letting them do as they please. Not when they claim to work in my benefit.”
“They’ve already done what they aimed to do, you daft child. There’s no stopping it.”
“Why? Why won’t you do anything?” Sil couldn’t stop the tears now. This wasn’t what she was. This wasn’t what she’d sworn her soul to. She could not sit idly by, or run, or hide.
“I can’t act that overtly. Not without coming in person.”
Tallah opened her mouth to answer.
So did Sil.
Panacea shut them both up with a flick of her fingers. Sil’s jaw clamped shut so suddenly that she bit through the tip of her tongue.
“This is wasting time you do not have,” the goddess snarled. “Capturing a dreg was my goal here, using you as bait. You were the only resources that I could throw at this problem and get back a result.” She dragged the monster forward. It was half its original size now, the bands continuing to compact and break its body. “Your mission here is done. Come to my School. We have a counterattack to prepare.”
Sil’s hands reached for her mouth. She wanted to rip her jaw open just to deny what was demanded of her.
I’d rather die here than run.
“Tallah Amni, your sister endures,” Panacea said.
Tallah froze, her entire body going as still as stone. Sil turned to her friend but could read nothing on her face except her own reflection in the Ikosmenia.
“She is too precious to waste. Catharina uses her soul to spy on you. There are soldiers en-route. They will not arrive in time. The plans that have gone in motion here will overwhelm us if we do not move now.” She came to stand between Sil and Tallah, utterly certain of her declarations.
Tallah already knew all this. Panacea had just, very willingly, grabbed a wasp’s nest and given it a shake.
“Daughter Sil, your lover is travelling with prince Falor. I trust you know who he is. Mertle Mergara is heading into great danger. You cannot help her by dying here.”
Sil’s knees buckled. Tallah’s arm slipped under hers, and they mutely stared at Panacea.
“I have your attention now, don’t I?” Her face was a mask of rage, pink dotting her cheeks. “I do not want to sell these lives for this. I do it because the alternative is far more terrible. Do you understand me?”
Sil did not. She barely heard the words.
Mertle was heading into danger. Sil had put her on that path, that night.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see for the tears. Her body shook.
In the crashing silence, the daemon brayed a long, blood-chilling laugh. Panacea snapped her fingers and the monster was folded in two by her power, its laughter turning into howls of agony.
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