The ocean swirled in the lightless depths around the Aesir.

  Enoa followed the currents in her mind. She traced the motions of unseen life. There were strange shapes outside, lives that swam or squirmed through the darkness.

  “Power cells significantly depleted.” Ruby spoke and the cabin lights dimmed with the words. “Power cells significantly depleted.” The emergency lights remained lit and the dashboard displays with them, but nothing more.

  “We can’t take too long to fix this.” Jaleel stood at the ‘Condensator’. He pulled one of the spindly arms away, revealing blackened copper beneath. The wire stank and dripped a thick oil onto the floor. “We have to be faster next time.”

  “Next time?” Max asked. “You’ll be more than lucky just to make another opening long enough to escape.” He leaned his chin against his right fist. “Your machine works. The technology does, anyway, but it is not powerful enough to fight their flagship at the source. It is not.”

  Enoa could sense the Eye of Balor, far above. It was immense, like a distant mountain, but it could not touch them in the deep. The Liberty Corps could not reach them where life and water moved so far outside their power. Even the light from the alien Eye was just a single, strange candle compared with the might of the full ocean.

  “I’m afraid he’s right, Jaleel,” Dr. Stan said. “I believe we may need to regroup. Work to evacuate the islanders that we can. Then create a single gap to escape. I hope the prototype can be repaired even that well.” At her touch, the sensor console let out a sickened whine.

  “Oh man,” Jaleel said. “Orson’s gonna kill me if we don’t die." He looked over his device. The other spindly arms seemed to droop, like leaves that could not recover from the first autumn frost. “But you guys probably know best.” He balled his hands into fists. “Ugh! I just hate them winning! They can just destroy whatever they want with that Eye! They’ll be worse than ever if we run away!”

  “They will be emboldened no matter what we do,” Max said. “Would you rather live to face an emboldened enemy or die for no reason?”

  “Even if we escape...” Enoa began. “The Liberty Corps will use this everywhere.”

  Enoa gripped the deep currents outside the ship. Those were ancient cycles that she held. She could sense their age. Like tracks worn into a dirt road, the cycles followed their age-worn paths where they’d flowed since before civilization, before humanity, before life on Earth.

  Enoa felt nearer to the pattern there, as if she could follow the motion of the sea as it curved around the world, wrapping itself around all lands. All lives moved with the pulse and power of the ancient flows, and now Enoa had found the source.

  Maybe it was the nearness of Knightschurch. Maybe it was the danger from the Liberty Corps. Maybe it was a lifetime of learning and living that had finally ripened in Enoa’s mind – but her focus was effortless. In the black, the Aesir floated at a wellspring of power and life on Earth. And Enoa had lived a life trained to guide that power.

  “Do you have an alternative in mind?” Max asked.

  “Maybe,” Enoa said. She felt the force of the cycles around her, felt her own will among them. And far above, she felt again how small even the Eye of Balor seemed compared to what waited in the ageless dark all around her.

  “Not maybe,” Enoa corrected. “I do. I do know. I was scared before, really scared, that we were going to lose no matter what. Like, there was no right choice that I ever could've made. If I’d come here right away with Archie and hadn’t learned to fight, I would’ve just been killed. If my aunt had taught me to fight earlier, I might not be here at all to help stop the Liberty Corps. But things... worked out. I’m here and I’m ready. I know the Eye, and I know how to destroy it.”

  “You want to do the Bullet Rain plan B?” Jaleel beamed. “Yes! You’re gonna magic epiphany them! I love when you magic epiphany the bad guys, Enoa!”

  “That Eye hates the water,” Enoa continued. She fought a smile that tugged at her lips. “I could feel it burning away when it reached under the ocean at us. Enough water can drown it. The cycles of the world can break it. And that’s really ironic, because the Hierarchia forced Aunt Sucora to study weather. They tried to make her learn all the things they thought our people might know about the world, what power they might be able to steal from our culture. Well, she found a power, and she taught it to me. Now, I’m going to show them what we learned.”

  “Do you have any specifics?” Dr. Stan asked.

  “I'm working on that.” Enoa reached out to the power of the primordial water all around them. The water answered. When she fought, the ancient source would rise with her. With just a thought, she could carry them back into the sky, carry the Aesir and the deep cycles with it. She could call on the wellspring of life and bring it to battle against the Liberty Corps and their alien Eye of Balor.

  “Get ready,” she said. “I think we’re still going to need that missile, but the Liberty Corps literally only scratches the surface with what they’re doing to the ocean. When I carry us back up there, I’ll bring a power they’ve never touched.”

  * * *

  Harper held her uncle’s hand until the weight of Sir Geber’s mind faded, until the enemy knight vanished from her mind as he died. Helmont screamed something in the sanctuary. His voice was distorted by the distance and by its own echoes.

  “These are strange people who have come here to help us, child.” Uncle Merrill pulled his hand away and leaned against the entryway wall. “Though it was good fortune that they did.”

  Harper still felt blood pounding in her ears, but strength and warmth returned to her limbs with Geber’s death. She would be ready to move again, but where could they go?

  The noises of the battle were muted in the entryway, away from both the brawl in the courtyard and the duels in the sanctuary. Both ways were blocked, and the damage to the spiral stairs left no room for escape, nowhere to run.

  “I do not regret turning against bloodshed,” Uncle Merrill said. His eyes were half-closed, but he seemed to regard her like they were in the middle of one of her lessons, not trapped in a battle for the fate of their homeland.

  “However,” he continued. “We could have stood against this invasion ourselves – if perhaps not their Eye of Balor – if had I raised the worthy of you to true knights. I’m so proud of you, Harper. You remind me of my own uncles, when I was a small boy, before they passed on, before I had to kneel to the Hierarchia to continue our tradition.”

  With his words and without the desperation of the battle against the Liberty Corps – Harper remembered the sword in her hand. Its blade now burned almost as long as she was tall, and it cast everything in emerald light. The walls came alive with the color. The ice took on the color of spring, the way sunlight makes the grass seem so alive when it returns after long winter nights.

  “Siress Harper and her knights could have fought for our homeland better than I ever could,” he said. “I was all alone when I first led our people to hide here. You, Taric, Doug, all of you knights.”

  “None of us are fully of the blood,” she said. “Taric could have been raised in times of war, perhaps. He’s close enough, but not Doug. Not most of us. Not me. You forget all the rules, Uncle, in your pacifism. I’m not a man of the full, old blood. I’m not a man at all, and half of my bloodline was on this island before Garrat’s Landing. I’m twice impossible.”

  “Only a knight can carry that.” He raised his hand toward the green fire, and the light changed so only she caught its full glow. Her armor gleamed like the images of old history, trapped in the cathedral’s story-ice windows. “And not just any knight. Only the Heir of Ascendant Flame can wield the sword of the unbroken line. You’re the heir, child. You needed it to save this old man, and it came to your call.

  “I planned for the line to be broken,” he continued. “I was glad my death would one day end it. Time for the Covenant to end. Time for the knights to end.” He smiled. “Perhaps the knights merely must change.”

  Uncle Merrill closed his eyes again. “It isn’t the old way that is challenging that baron. Ophion found a different way in his old age. Why can’t I?”

  Harper could feel the swords moving in the sanctuary, Liberty Corps rapier against Thousand Destiny. Baron Helmont’s power still towered above everything, as immense a power as the Eye’s light that clouded over all.

  Thousand Destiny – or whatever Orson Gregory had shouted it was now called – that blade danced in the strange traveler’s hands. Harper felt the sword stand against the opposing storm of fire, as Helmont wielded the Griffin Doom of the Twelfth House, the immense technique of the final ruling house.

  “How could Master Ophion teach a full mundane to fight against this Helmont?” Harper asked.

  “Ophion was once a full mundane,” Uncle Merrill explained. “That’s why they allowed me into Dreamthought. I had only the faintest trace of the spark, but he had none, and he’d already learned. It was always the Hierarchia’s hope that they might train mundanes to wield sorcery – their Shaping. Or at least they hoped to train mundanes to fight against sorcerers – what they call enigmas.”

  His slight smile broadened. “Old Ophion managed it with that one. He was contrary enough to make their dreams come true just to fight them. I’m not quite sure how he did it, and I'm not entirely convinced young Gregory is a full mundane, mind you, but he’s close enough to stick in Helmont’s craw. Can you feel how angry the baron’s becoming?”

  “Yes,” Harper answered. Helmont stopped fighting with just his blade. She sensed the baron’s mind tear two pews from the floor and hurl them at Orson Gregory. Harper heard the shattering ice as they tore free and felt the tremor the breaking sent through the floor.

  With a dive from Orson Gregory and quick flashes from his sword, one pew flew over the adventurer’s head, and the other fell into four melting pieces.

  Helmont howled something in the sanctuary, but nearer screams drowned it out. There came a sound from the courtyard, like the blasters that the Liberty Corps troopers carried, but repeating. Bolt after bolt of heat and light flew from something on the stairs.

  Harper sensed Poul and his own teacher, the armsmaster Kedo, each struck by bolts from the repeating weapon. Poul stirred, his shoulder smoking but his legs working. Kedo did not move again.

  The sensation had returned to her mind enough to feel the lives she knew, imperiled. She sensed their pain. She looked for many shapes that she could not find.

  “Your Ignition is strong enough to stop that volley,” Uncle Merrill said. “If you have recovered enough to fight again.”

  “What about you?” She asked. He looked like his stand against Helmont had sapped years from him. His skin looked drawn, his hair whiter. He looked so small in his armor.

  He would not be safe inside without her, not with Helmont so close. The baron intensified his attacks against Orson Gregory. The walls and floor trembled again as more pieces were torn free by the baron’s mind and pulled into a whirlwind that circled the combatants like the cyclones that sometimes formed between sea and sky.

  And there was more than ice in the circling storm. There were other shapes. Harper felt them spinning among the stolen pieces of her church.

  She tried to sense them, and then she saw them. She saw the sorcerous storm from above, as if all the living walls were a window for her to view the church in her mind.

  But she did not marvel at this new awareness, whether power granted by her exertions or by the family sword in her hand. Because she saw what else was spinning around the combatants, what more the baron had called into his attack.

  Baron Helmont was attacking Orson Gregory with the remains of his own dead. Bodies and body parts in the white armor of his own Shapers had joined the storm. Harper watched the fallen form of Sir Vergil tumble, the tips of his boots scraping against the floor, charging like a living thing to tackle Orson Gregory.

  Orson held firm. He was somehow aware of the body and cut it aside with his blade before it could strike him. He stood alone at the center of the baron’s power.

  But the onslaught from the repeating weapon continued outside. Harper held half a thought for poor Poul, cowering beside the body of his fallen mentor. Her sense expanded again, to friends, to neighbors, all fighting the Liberty Corps with blade and bow and stolen blaster.

  “I believe if you are up to it,” Uncle Merrill said. “You would be the most help with our own people. I will join you outside. I’ll be quite alright to evade the worst of the fighting. if you don’t mind lending me Garrat’s dirk...” He reached out his hand, and she took the small weapon from her belt. She passed it to him. “This is a useful tool, but it is no primary weapon for a knight like you.”

  “Uncle–” she began.

  “I will not be the last knight,” Uncle Merrill said. “I am not. The line remains unbroken, and the sword of the unbroken line is yours if you will take it. You entered the house of our worship as the greatest student of the last of the old knights. Will you leave this place as the first of the new knights? Will you lead our people, Siress Harper?”

  Only the fear that bled from her people and filled her thoughts could keep her concentration. Hers. The weight and responsibility, the honor, all of it was hers.

  “I will,” she answered. And she led her uncle back through the broken, outer doorway and toward the battle on the stairs.

  * * *

  Kol stepped over Sir Geber’s body. He returned the borrowed sword to its sheath and adjusted the old watch band, so it sat snug around his wrist.

  “Forgive me, Duncan,” he whispered. The watch was his to guard now, unless or until he could return it to its rightful owner.

  Until, Kol promised. He would see the watch returned even if he had to battle against the czar himself.

  Kol looked out the alcove doorway. He found the church sanctuary filled with a storm of swirling ice. Chunks broke free from the walls and pillars and the ceiling. They twisted in the air above the center aisle.

  There were other strange shapes too, forms of black and white. Kol squinted at one as it whipped through the air.

  It was a booted leg in Liberty Corps armor. Baron Helmont had added the dead to his attack.

  All spun around Orson.

  Before Kol could find Helmont, a man-sized piece of the ice flew free of the storm. It spun across the sanctuary at his alcove. Kol sensed the towering storm of the baron’s power seize the ice and launch it at him.

  Kol dove to the floor. The ice missile flew into the alcove and shattered against the wall beyond him with a noise like a bomb. The balanced scales fell to the floor.

  Kol did not know if he could form another projection. The last battle against Geber had taken so much.

  “You alright, Kol?” Orson shouted across the room. “You must’ve got the knight! Hey Grover, I forget, was he the last of them? I’m figuring your two guys over there aren’t knights. It’s not very knightly of them to hide like that.”

  “Geber is gone!” Kol rose into a crouch. He would be no help to Orson in his battle with the baron. He had too little left to give. He had to escape.

  “His sacrifice will be remembered.” Helmont shouted from above. Kol found him then, a thin shape that floated at the center of his storm. “My noble students gave their lives to make our power whole again. They died to return to us what is rightfully ours.”

  Kol felt Helmont’s will gather toward him. Three more chunks of ice flew from the top of the mental storm and blasted toward his alcove. It was ice enough to crush him. It was ice enough to bury the alcove, to bury him alive.

  Kol reached for his own power and felt the pains from his night of fighting.

  A small projection appeared at his arm, but that was all. Not enough. Kol fell again to the floor, shield over his head. He braced himself and waited for the baron’s attack to land.

  * * *

  Orson ran when he saw the ice projectiles swirl free of Helmont’s attack.

  A simple sword extension was not enough to save Kol, nowhere near enough. Even cut apart, the inertia of the massive ice could still bury the younger man.

  Orson needed the full decompressor. He needed to release the sword’s full flame. But how would he keep it from burning Kol or from burning himself? How could he release the fire without it being suicide? Helmont had his attention on Kol, but how long could Orson run without the baron trying to stop him? How much time did he have to stop the flying ice? Without his repulsor boot, how could he stop anything?

  Orson stopped questioning. There was no time for questions. He slid the decompressor onto the sword’s hilt. He had both disruptor and decompressor pressed near the mouth of the blade’s trapped flame.

  Orson had never tried this, never considered it – an explosion of free fire that he controlled. But because he had no time to consider it – and because he could not abandon Kol to be crushed – he triggered the disruptor and then the decompressor after it. He willed the fire to fight for him, to be his sword, for the stolen destiny to truly be his.

  Orson sent the flame to meet Helmont’s power with the same spirit that he’d once felt while stealing a glowing gemstone, hidden beneath the earth. He stole his destiny without time for a second thought.

  Fire and ice met with a burst of vapor that hid all combatants.

  * * *

  The attack Kol expected never came, but the flash of blue fire was so bright he could see it even through the other blue of his own small shield.

  He looked out and found Orson standing with a wall of flame in front of him. Helmont’s ice attack was gone. Everything had melted or steamed away. Nothing remained of the ice but a rapidly-thinning haze in the air.

  “You’ve managed an Ignition of your own.” Kol sensed nothing from Orson, no sound of Shaping. But he’d heard little even from Harper.

  “Nope,” Orson said. “Just another one of my sword-fire tools. I added a decompressor that releases the sword’s flame.” As he spoke, the fire of his sword shrank back in a rush until it returned. It was trapped again in the normal shape of the blade.

  “That sounds absurdly dangerous.” Kol had a brief flash of memory, of video in Governor Sloan’s tent, watching Orson Gregory in battle against a band of enigmas. When he’d fought the Five Point Palm, Orson had sent fire in all directions.

  “I’m trying to direct my ranged attacks a little better,” Orson said. “The thing is...”

  Kol heard no more. Helmont’s will reached out again. The air around Kol crackled. Energy around him charged like the moments before a lightning strike.

  “You may have betrayed the Liberty Corps, Kolben Maros,” Helmont called. “But you will always belong to us. Your life will always be ours to command.”

  Kol felt a hand catch him. Helmont’s grip closed around his entire body. It was like Geber’s attack on his body’s iron, but even deeper. The power reached until it held him by flesh, blood, and bone.

  The hand lifted him. Kol felt the floor fall away beneath his feet.

  “You will always serve the Liberty Corps!” Helmont yelled.

  Kol's body was not free, but his mind was still his own. His power was his own. He reached for his Shaping, and it felt like a blade had been pressed to the back of his neck, like he was cut down his spine and out across all his nerves.

  But he formed a projection. Kol formed a shield between himself and Helmont’s will. He shielded himself, wedged his own might between his body and Helmont’s grip.

  Kol fell back to the floor. His armored boots clanged as he touched the ice. The baron hadn’t drop him far, but he wobbled on his feet. His legs barely held him.

  But his power still held. When Helmont tried to seize him again, the unseen hand recoiled as if burned.

  “I will never serve the Liberty Corps!” Kol screamed. “NEVER! NEVER AGAIN! Not by my choice and not by yours, baron!”

  Orson came closer. “Get out of here, Kol,” he said. “I’ve got him on the ropes.”

  Kol nodded. But Helmont’s grip reached out again. The baron did not grasp at Kol this time. He stretched across the sanctuary and seized someone else.

  A man screamed as he rose from beside pews on the opposite side of the room. Kol recognized the armor of the baron’s ledgerman. The man held a large datapad to his chest, and somehow kept his arms around the thing as he flew.

  The baron threw his living servant straight at Orson Gregory and his outstretched sword.

  * * *

  Divenoll rolled away from Greenley when the man lifted from the floor.

  What was the baron doing? Throwing Sir Vergil’s body had been bad enough, but throwing living people! Reflexively, Divenoll reached for the side of the nearest pew, as if he could grip the ice and keep the baron from turning him into a projectile.

  Orson Gregory ran into the open, away from the alcove where Maros had killed Geber. Greenley swung in the air after him, but Gregory dodged aside.

  The ledgerman crashed against a pillar with another scream. There was a terrible clatter from the man’s armor and from the datapad as it fell to the floor.

  Helmont did not let Greenley fall. He threw him again, sent the man spinning around the column, whirling toward Orson Gregory, arms and legs grasping at nothing as if he were trying to swim in the air.

  And as the ledgerman flew, so did Helmont. The baron dove through his storm of ice and flesh. His rapier was drawn, and his cape billowed out behind him.

  Divenoll considered running. Helmont’s focus was divided. There may be no better time to leave the room. But he surely could not leave without Helmont knowing it. He sensed everything. He had total control.

  But if he had total control, why had he resorted to using corpses and now living men as projectiles? He couldn’t really fear losing to Gregory, could he?

  Greenley spun toward Orson Gregory again, but the ledgerman hit an unseen wall. Then a neon blue glow – not the glow of Gregory’s blade – spread across the ledgerman’s body. He lowered to the floor and sagged against the ice. Helmont’s dive halted in midair.

  “You’re real loyal, aren’t you, Grover?” Orson Gregory shouted. “You really bought into the whole nobility thing. You know, Sir Merrill didn’t act this way. He wasn’t liquefying his people or using them as bowling balls. Stop flying around like a big bat and using your morgue tornado technique and get back to this sword fight. What would the old houses think of this shitty fire dance we’re doing because you wanna fly instead? You know the real reason you’re stuck with me, Grover – you can’t beat me!”

  Gregory turned to Maros, who now stood with Greenley at the wall. They spoke in lower tones, but Divenoll could not focus on their words.

  Helmont seized him. The grip on Divenoll was instantaneous, and it was total. There was not one cell, not one molecule of him that the baron did not hold.

  But Helmont did not toss him across the room toward Gregory and his blade. He raised up Divenoll onto his feet and pushed him around the pews so he stood beside the sanctuary doors.

  “I am not certain what you’d hoped to accomplish on the floor, Operative Divenoll.” Helmont stayed airborne. “But your present task is focusing on Mr. Maros. I seem to remember a certain distaste you had for the young man. You went to such lengths to harm his efforts to seek the Dreamside Road, all but violence yourself. Take your chance. Now is your time.”

  Divenoll found Kol Maros again. He guided Greenley, as they walked. The ledgerman once again held his datapad. They rounded the other row of pews and Maros’s neon blue glow was about them.

  Divenoll ran as soon as the mental grip released him. He would not wait to be told a second time. He would not wait for Helmont to change his mind.

  He would command his fire and burn through Kol Maros and Greenley and anyone else in order to survive this night.

  “Kolben Maros,” Divenoll said. “You should have died at Orson Gregory’s hand. I would have burned you to ash that day, in that Pennsylvania forest, if I knew you’d live to join him.”

  “Divenoll!” Kol stepped away from Greenley, but Divenoll struck before Maros could move further.

  A gout of flame left Divenoll’s fist and burned toward Kol Maros and the flickering glow of his weakening shield.

  * * *

  Kol added his own screams to the noises of battle. Painful pinpricks danced along all his nerves. It had never hurt so much to make a new projection, but a shield formed in time to meet Divenoll’s fire.

  Kol’s new shield stood in the air, halfway between him and the operative. He felt a wash of heat when fire met his Shaping, but the pain was already so much that even fire was only a distant sensation.

  “Go into the entryway,” Kol said to the ledgerman. “If I save you here, you will come with me to the Pacific Alliance. Helmont has no loyalty to you. You will begin your penance with mine, ledgerman.”

  “Greenley,” the man said. “My name is Greenley.” He wavered where he stood. Kol wished he could see the man’s face through his helmet. There was a jerky motion to him. And his attention returned back toward the baron. But then he nodded, and he sprinted for the sanctuary doors, arms wrapped around his datapad.

  Divenoll sent another gout of fire after Greenley, but a shift of Kol’s focus sent his projection sliding across the floor. It tracked the operative’s fire and contained it.

  Kol took his own chance. He backed toward the doors, his shield and will still on the attacking operative.

  Kol did take one quick glance toward Orson. Helmont’s swirling storm had begun again, but that wasn’t what drew his attention. In one brief moment, Kol thought he heard two powers of Ignition fire. He thought he heard two Ignitions and saw two defensive auras, one violet, one blue.

  But then there was another gout of red fire against Kol’s shield, and he finished his retreat back into the entryway. The ledgerman cowered beside the broken outer doors. The fighting and dying was still intense outside. There was nowhere safe to run.

  “I should have killed you myself that night in the outreach base!” Divenoll’s voice wasn’t quite steady. It wavered from fear or exertion or some factor Kol could not guess.

  Kol let his shield vanish and raised another projection to block the sanctuary doors. He raised the energy between himself and Divenoll.

  “I thought the Gilford brother could do the job and no one would know it!” Divenoll almost spat the words. “No one would follow it back to me.”

  The sound of Divenoll’s voice didn’t give Kol the same strength of rage that Geber’s had, but it did wake him again. It gave him adrenaline again, enough to ignore the way his projections made him hurt.

  Kol thought of the attack from Jason Gilford. He thought of blades closing in all around him and the first revelation of his Shaping. It had been shape or die that night and Kol had found his power. Now – again it was shape or die, but the truth remained the same. He’d found hidden reserves against Lieutenant Gilford when he’d never known such things were possible. He would have to do it again, as many times as it took to survive this battle and right his wrongs and save Duncan.

  “And I should thank you, Divenoll,” Kol said. “Surviving that attack was my first lesson in Shaping. I feel sorry for that man you tricked into attacking me. It was you who threw his brother’s life away at Trolley Town, but I understand the wish to avenge your loved ones.”

  “We all should have killed you, Maros.” Divenoll stood on the other side of his projection. “But you were the Czar’s pet and Rinlee was screwing you, so you were protected. You were protected until you betrayed us.”

  "If the Liberty Corps were just.” Kol’s own voice stayed strong. “You should’ve been the one who was arrested. The lives of the people living in Trolley Town were completely innocent. They deserve justice too. How many lives will I be avenging when I bring you what justice I can?”

  Divenoll reached to his hip and drew a long, thin sword. In two motions, he sent a thick, black substance dripping down the blade. And he brought the blade along a case at his belt, as if striking a match.

  Divenoll’s sword ignited with its own flame. It was crude, a sword on fire, not a sword of fire. It smoked with a smell like burning rubber. It stung at Kol’s throat even through his shield.

  But when the crude flaming sword burned into Kol’s projection, his resolve was not strong enough to keep it from cutting through the shield.

  * * *

  Orson hoped he hadn’t weakened the protections on his sword. He'd never felt so warm holding the blade, not even as a teenager when he wasn’t used to fighting, surrounded by the blade’s heat.

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  And he very well might need his decompression trick again. Since Geber’s death, Helmont did not seem like he planned to meet him sword-to-sword. But how many times could Orson risk the decompression and not be consumed by the fire?

  Helmont made Orson’s choice for him.

  All of Helmont’s storm flew inward, like dying satellites falling to Earth. Every piece of ice pillar and wall, floor and ceiling, and every stolen bit of flesh – everything came at Orson in one attack.

  Orson caught a glimpse of Helmont’s billowing cape as the baron flew away from his storm. Helmont flew toward the altar.

  Toward the key!

  For the second time that fight, Orson acted without real thought.

  The sword wouldn’t burn him because it was his. He needed it to be an extension of his will, even if he was just a normal man. He needed the sword to answer his need.

  Orson hit the disruptor and the decompressor and burned through the storm ahead, turning ice to steam and sending charred flesh flying away. Orson charged as he cut. He ran through the gap he burned in the closing storm as fast as his boots could grip the ice floor.

  Helmont’s thoughts were elsewhere, because all the other ice and flesh slammed together behind Orson in a crash that nearly bowled him from his feet. But he kept running, legs pumping beneath him.

  Helmont descended to the floor, hand outstretched. The key’s sealed box floated to meet him, still wreathed in green flame.

  When his sword reformed, Orson did not return it to its normal size. He swung the extended blade and not at Helmont.

  He brought his sword around into the box, so blue fire met emerald.

  Green fire exploded out in all directions, and Orson withdrew his sword before the recoil could force the weapon from his grip.

  Helmont also fell away from the flame. The baron’s feet touched the floor beside the altar, just as Orson’s charge brought him to its lowest step.

  And Orson was on Helmont again before the baron could take flight. Orson had learned something from the baron and the Twelfth Form. He stabbed at the baron’s face, at his chest, at his hands. He sent many attacks. None would meet their mark, but none had to. They only had to divide Helmont’s attention, keep him from shaping, keep him from flying, keep him in range of Orson’s sword and more attacks to come.

  Helmont retreated and answered with stabs of his own, but these were the same moves he’d used at the start of the duel, overhand, wrist-raised. Helmont followed every motion of his traditional form, every motion Orson had seen on the scroll. Helmont’s attacks were perfect, but they were predictable.

  Predictability is weakness. Just like Orson had learned to fight Nine-flails and learned to fight Tucker and the World-breaker general and how many others – he learned to fight the Twelfth Form.

  The rapier’s range was still greater than Stolen Destiny at its normal length, but its edge was thinner. Orson attacked from side-to-side. He swung hard, not just wrists, but shoulders too. Each hit sent the rapier flying wide. Each hit disrupted Helmont’s balance and sent the baron retreating.

  Helmont backpedaled around the altar. And Orson drove him further still toward a doorway behind the altar, to a space where Helmont could not fly, where the Covenant’s Fyrsang might truly decide the battle.

  The risk of the rapier’s reach was worth taking away Helmont’s even greater reach of flight. Helmont’s lips twisted in rage. He knew he was trapped. In the moment before he crossed the threshold, the baron knew it was too late to change course. Orson saw that. It was again a fight of blades.

  Orson forced Helmont back into a space that was more tunnel than room. It was not the ornate holy area that Orson had expected, lined with relics and places for prayer and preparation for services in the sanctuary.

  There were those things, statuary and heavy wooden chests, rich with gold and jewels and embossed with runes. But there were swords also and spears and long axes. This was a hoard for the Fourth House as much as it had anything to do with the ceremonies that still happened in the other room.

  Orson saw a massive sheath that took up one wall that could only be meant for the immense great sword that Harper had carried away.

  The walls around the stored relics were rough and cavernous. It was like the passage through the island’s outer defensive ice. It was like this place was even older than the rest and somehow primitive, the start of the craft that later took up so much of the island.

  There was a walkway between the walls of treasures. There was room enough to fight. The dance of blades had returned to the place where the swordmaster sorcerers of the Dommik House had built their church.

  Orson saw Helmont’s eyes flicker around the room as he retreated. The baron was sure on his feet, and he did not hesitate as he moved. And he did not turn away from Orson or the duel.

  Orson heard a beep in his left ear. Helmont had found something his Tactum could summon and time to think and call to it.

  In the tighter space, Orson couldn’t turn his blade away from the fight, not long enough to stop a projectile. Instead, Orson waited until he heard a slight whistle in the air. Then he jumped aside. He stepped up onto a rich wooden box wrapped in red and silver.

  A golden statue in the shape of a bearded man tumbled past Orson in the air and almost collided with Helmont’s head.

  The baron blocked the statue with a forearm, and his armor crunched when it made contact.

  Orson attacked again as the statue and Helmont’s broken vambrace fell away. Orson had been too caught up in the new space. He could not let Helmont take another moment. He could not let Helmont take another thought.

  Overwhelm him. Break his thoughts. Beat his sword.

  Kill the baron.

  “I’m actually damned lucky you did the whole Liberty Corps thing,” Orson said. “If you did this when you were the real government, this would’ve been a pain in the ass. I would’ve had to hide out, and then I’d be a lawbreaker for real.”

  “You turned against the will of your own people.” Helmont sent a new flurry of jabs at Orson, but he sent only physical sword attacks – no more Shaping. “You turned against the destiny of humanity. We build an empire that is worthy of inheriting the universe and all its might. Anyone who stands against that is a traitor who must be culled. Your chaotic trickery is formidable but it will be culled!”

  Orson again struck the rapier broadside. He hit the other blade hard enough to almost jar Stolen Destiny from his fingers, but the clash jarred Helmont ever further.

  The baron stumbled back, just as the passage left the hoard and entered a long room lined entirely with the story-ice windows and their shapes of histories and heroes past.

  Orson struck out when Helmont staggered into the other room. Stolen Destiny’s blue fire cut through the white Liberty Corps armor, right along the baron’s thigh. The blade burned into skin beneath.

  Helmont howled. His feet left the floor, and he threw himself through the air, away from Orson’s blade. He crashed against the wall beside one of the windows.

  Both of Orson’s sensors beeped like mad in his ears, and he jumped through the doorway, even as the ice of the passage between rooms caved in behind him.

  One piece of breaking ice struck Orson’s own legs. It didn’t hurt him through his armor, but the inertia of the hit threw his feet from under him. He landed on his left thigh, but his right foot was under him, and he shoved himself from the floor. He was back running before Helmont could stand from the wall.

  “I’m lucky you’re just the Liberty Corps now, because I’d fight anyone who did this,” Orson said. “And you know what, it was only your Hierarchia who wanted your empire then. And the corporate masters who were on their knees for you. And the scum who always want to kneel to some worthless shitbrained emperor. But your empire’s not gonna survive in this new world. I'm killing it.” He would not let Helmont rest. He cut at the baron’s other leg.

  Helmont blocked the attack with a twist of the rapier, but he gave a shocked look at his wounded leg before he responded in kind. Helmont stabbed right at Orson’s face. Orson sidestepped the attack, but this gave the baron time enough to float from the floor.

  Helmont was still trapped in the narrow passage, but he no longer walked. He floated, ringed in fire that made the walls and floors weep.

  The heat also made the story-ice windows come alive. They sensed the Ignition fire, all of them, across the twenty or thirty feet of passage. Window after window now showed scenes of battle with those swords, green against red, or green against purple, or green against gold. History and lineage came alive to watch the latest chapter in their endless story.

  “I’d fight you no matter what this meant for my life,” Orson said. He halted his attack just long enough to observe Helmont’s aura defense. This truly was new, an Ignition at such close quarters, a last trick saved for great danger, or something born of desperation.

  Helmont’s face clenched in rage, but also in concentration. Helmont fought through whatever pain he felt in his leg, his mind bent on his sword and his Shaping. There was apparently nothing left for the baron to answer. And Orson spoke without response from the baron.

  “But now you’re just a bunch of bandits with good tech and freaky powers,” Orson said. “No loyalty. No honor. Just taking from everyone. Attacking everyone. The invading evil empire with their lunatic king hiding in the Quiet Zone. And heroes are made by fighting and beating men like that. I train every day to fight and kill men like you.”

  Helmont attacked again, still floating, rapier reaching out through the aura. And just as on the story-ice windows, Orson answered him. Just as on the story-ice windows, the blades met again and again and colored everything with their power.

  The windows still danced with legend as the fight moved past them, but Orson saw – before the duel entered a dark, winding passage beyond – that one of the story windows had changed.

  The figure on the nearest window wore a long coat, and his sword burned blue.

  * * *

  Divenoll almost fell into the entryway when Maros’s energy projection vanished. The smoke from the tar fire was thicker than in his tests, but it had done what he’d needed. It had cut through Maros’s projection, and it would do the same to Maros.

  But Maros was suddenly gone with his shield, surely back through the church’s outer doors. Divenoll stoked the flames along his blade. Then he followed.

  The light had shifted in the courtyard since he’d joined Baron Helmont inside. The red from the Eye of Balor had intensified. The aurora had been drowned out, save for thin bands, like pale arteries seen through skin.

  It was chaos on the broad stair and in the courtyard beyond. Smoke billowed from the remains of two tri-pod repeating cannons. The green light from the Dommik great sword could be seen burning through the smoke.

  Divenoll looked no further. Kol Maros waited for him at the top of the stairs, with Greenley and Sir Merrill, of all people, just behind him.

  “This isn’t like the day we met, Divenoll,” Maros said. “You’re not my superior, and I've faced a good deal worse than your weak fire since then.”

  “You were always so cocky,” Divenoll said. “You always had someone bigger and stronger protecting you. You had your brother and your friend, Racz. You had the czar and Rinlee, and you jumped right from them to Gregory. Now you have no one, unless that old man wants to fight for you. And he was too cowardly even to fight for his own people.”

  “You’d do well to put your sword down,” Sir Merrill said. “It’s becoming quite clear what the end result of this battle will be. Is it really worth throwing your life away for your disloyal baron? You’ll face justice if you surrender, but we won’t torment you or anyone. Put your sword—”

  “The result is clear.” Divenoll aimed his sword at Kol Maros. He did not have Ignitions, but he could use the blade to focus his fire. Maybe slicing Maros in half where he stood would shut up the cowardly old man.

  “Helmont will have your key,” Divenoll continued. “He’ll have Gregory’s. He’ll have Cloud’s, wherever she is. He’ll have all he wants, and he’ll destroy all the rest.”

  Divenoll focused his will on the fire, on the blade point made by the sword. He could send fire aimed by the point to cut through Maros and any defense. Maros had only a small shield projection now, no bigger than the islanders’ bucklers.

  A cheer rose from the stairs before Divenoll could act. Through the smoke, some figures in Dommik plate broke free of their death brawl with Liberty Corps troopers and turned helmeted heads toward the walls of the church above them.

  Divenoll reflexively turned back. He saw nothing but the church, the same ornate walls reflecting the light from above, the same damage from the falling ice ceiling. What were they cheering about?

  Then his eyes caught motion. There was new motion on the strange windows. Several of them showed familiar shapes fighting with swords that were not Dommik Green. A man with white armor and a violet sword battled the blue sword of a man in a long coat.

  Window-by-window the story of the duel spread, and window-by-window Baron Helmont retreated from Orson Gregory and his Stolen Destiny.

  The result is clear. No! Helmont could not lose to Gregory! And there was no way these islanders could fight against the Eye of Balor, a true power from the Dreamside Road trove. They would all die for fighting. They would—

  Kol Maros attacked while Divenoll’s focus was divided. Divenoll raised his sword again, but he had no time to focus his fire for a long-range cut. Maros was too close with his prosthetic fist raised.

  Divenoll swung his sword, and it met Maros’s shield.

  That time, Divenoll’s sword could not pierce the shield. That time, Kol Maros fought back.

  * * *

  Helmont’s map of fate and future had abandoned him.

  Before, most of the enemies Helmont had faced were simply no match for his sword’s Ignitions. When he’d set forth to recover some prize for his Pinnacle, under the Hierarchia or under the Liberty Corps – he never returned empty handed.

  The swords had been the obvious but true foundation of the Twelve House Covenant’s power. The Covenant had enjoyed the freedom to study the uncounted mysteries of the world because they could also subdue them. How many powers of any world could match the great Aether of the Covenant swords of fire? Resist them – some. Match them – almost none.

  Helmont had inherited that advantage when the sword of the lost Vuett line had become his, and he’d unlocked the Ignitions. Tactum had done the rest and led him to the kind of predictive power that the greatest Covenant knights once wielded. What enemy could win if you knew how they’d fight before they did?

  None. That had been the truth as Helmont had lived it. None could win against all of his maps and his Tactum and with his sword in his hand.

  But Helmont’s predictive map was useless against Orson Gregory. It showed him nothing but the motion of blue fire. Moments ahead, futures splintered away in all directions, but none were free of the opposing blade. Every move Helmont made, all futures showed only the blue blade. There were no other paths.

  Was this unpredictability caused by Gregory’s chaotic nature? Or was the enemy sword itself protecting him? Was Stolen Destiny protecting Gregory’s actions to come from Helmont’s map? No, he would not use Gregory’s name for the blade.

  Helmont’s other maps provided little more help. His map of flesh left him only his own body to call upon, to bolster his own strength and speed. But this did not win his arm an opening to strike Gregory.

  Helmont could attack so fast his own arm blurred in his physical vision – but it found no opening.

  Gregory knew too well when to defend and when to attack, when to pivot while fighting a faster enemy. And even without the Ignitions, Gregory had his own sword and the strange tricks he did with it. Even seeing what had been done to his destroyed frigate, Helmont had never imagined the speed of the changes Gregory worked with the weapon.

  Helmont’s maps of the elements and of deeper energy gave him command over the ice all around, but Gregory’s sword had proven too useful at destroying the projectiles Helmont had wrenched from the structure of the church. And Helmont needed his map of energy to bolster his Ignition aura and to probe at the passage behind him, to find his way as he retreated.

  Helmont’s maps, his Tactum, his sword – they'd given him the power to catch a Shellcraft, even as its unearthly rider still lived inside the beast. They’d given him the power to best a hundred enigmas from just as many cultures and traditions. While the formal Administrators of the Hierarchia had played spy games with inquisitive journalists or detectives or nosy politicians, their strength had atrophied from the day-to-day needs of ruling. Meanwhile, Helmont had sharpened his skills. Helmont had bested wizards and elementals, new-world mutants and non-human powers of older stock. He was the Hierarchia’s dreams made real.

  And now he needed all his maps, his Tactum, and his sword just to keep the flashing light of the blue fire away from him, and to find his way through the maze of passages around him.

  Gregory left no imprint on any of Helmont’s maps but the gray presence of his unmapped body and the power of his sword itself. Though he was just a mundane – to Helmont, Orson Gregory was the greatest enigma he’d faced at Knightschurch. Gregory’s sword work was a true mystery with no advantage from any of Helmont’s Shaping.

  As they fought, everything around the combatants flickered with a mad light of many colors. There was the pulsing crimson from the Eye of Balor, gold and green from the aurora, and all the shades of purple and blue from the swords and from the sparks they sent flying when they touched.

  Baron Helmont and Orson Gregory wove by sword-light through the skeleton of the church. The passages stretched from beneath the island to the summit of the cathedral itself. All of the ways were rough-hewn. There was something almost organic about them, like a giant anthill.

  Only the burn on Helmont’s leg maintained his resolve. He remembered the pain from his last prediction on the journey to the island. He would hold Sir Merrill’s key to the Dreamside Road, and his leg would be wounded when he did. His maps would show him the way to reach the proper future. He would simply need to be patient.

  Helmont was good at waiting. He’d waited through all the years of his testing and then his training. He’d waited through the indignities of the Hierarchia’s decline. He’d waited during the rebuilding under the Liberty Corps.

  He could wait and defend with his rapier and his Ignitions until he could escape Gregory’s obscene close-combat advantage. He could wait and defend long enough for order to defeat chaos.

  Helmont’s patience won him his first victory when the winding, flickering passage led back into the church sanctuary. Broad, ice double-doors melted behind Helmont’s Ignition aura and then he was finally back out, finally free of the constant, immediate danger of the blue sword.

  They emerged onto the grand balcony walkway. It was more ornate than it had appeared from the floor. The ice walls were complex and the windows there had complicated accents around them, swirls and twists that imitated the workings of gold. Many of these would be easy to turn into a new vortex.

  But Helmont bought himself time instead. He flew away from Orson Gregory, carrying his body away from the fight.

  “Did you think your swordplay was enough to beat everything I've ever learned?” Helmont sent out his Ignitions. Three arcs of fire burned from the rapier, each stronger than the last. All three flew at Orson Gregory. “You call me by my father’s name, but I am the result of his victories. The might of our tradition lives in me.”

  The first Ignition died on Gregory’s sword. Violet fire sizzled away when it met the blade.

  Gregory deflected the second. He struck it with the edge of his sword and sent it flying across the sanctuary until it cut partway through the balcony on the opposite side.

  Gregory batted away the third Ignition with the flat of his sword. It flew upward and blasted into the spire above the central aisle. Violet fire burned straight through the ceiling, and the building trembled.

  Helmont reached to his maps to be sure that the entire roof wouldn’t cave in. No. There was a new, ragged gash burned through the church’s central spire, but the rest stood firm.

  “Without Ignitions you have a clumsy defense,” Helmont said. “It must be so tiring. All the tested, orderly systems will be more than enough to overwhelm you in time, Orson Gregory. Your chaos ways are not enough.”

  “They definitely are though.” Gregory flashed another of his manic grins. “I was hoping I’d finish you for good back in those tunnels, but I did get to see you floating around in your aura thing like it was a big hamster wheel. So that was pretty fun too.”

  Helmont raised his sword, but before a new Ignition could leave his blade, Gregory’s own sword extended toward him.

  Helmont imitated Gregory’s move from their first fight at the Pinnacle Holdfast. He dodged the point of the blade and flew inside Gregory’s guard.

  Gregory tried to hit him aside with the flat of the sword, but Helmont dropped back to his feet, below the attack. He winced. His leg burned as if fire was still touching his flesh, but he endured it.

  “I was too rash to dismiss you.” Helmont was close now. He extended the rapier just enough to touch its tip to the floor as he attacked. When he stabbed at Gregory and Gregory parried the blow, the rapier was still long enough to nick the balcony’s floor and melt it. He sent four more blows at Gregory, each parried. Each burned into the floor.

  The floor was left wet at Gregory’s feet. The ice was slick. Gregory stepped with care. He would not move so quickly.

  “I will learn you the way the Covenant Knights began mastering the mysteries of this world,” Helmont said. “I will treat you as a mystery. You’ve earned that much, but even without my Tactum, I will learn you and that will let me kill you.”

  “I doubt it,” Orson Gregory said.

  But for the first time, Gregory retreated. He stepped away from the patch of weeping floor.

  “The thing is,” Gregory said. “For you, Grover, this is everything. This is your family business from your dad, Papa Grover. This is the Hierarchia shit you’ve wanted for decades. This is your current Liberty Corps plan. All of it rolled into one. But to me? Well, I do this all the time. There’s always a lunatic after the almighty bauble or another Hierarchia remnant I’ve gotta destroy. You took up more of my time than most guys I fight, but you’re ultimately just another one for the list. Another asshole I fought for a couple months. To me, Grover, you’re just my April-May bi-monthly wacko. And knowing my luck, there’ll be somebody after you in just a few weeks.”

  “It’s no wonder Ruhland once chose you as his pawn.” Helmont could almost hear the masked freak’s smug assurance in Gregory’s voice. “You have his hubris."

  And here was another gift of Helmont’s patience. Gregory took another step away, not a tactical move but surprise. And something flashed across his face – shock? Fear? Distraction, either way.

  Helmont extended the rapier’s blade again and stabbed it into edge of Gregory’s sword with force enough to send Gregory’s right arm away from his torso.

  With another curl of his wrist, Helmont cut again. He aimed to slice down the center of Gregory’s body. He took the man’s coat at the zipper, at his chest, aiming for his heart beneath it.

  Gregory jumped backward – almost too late! His coat flapped open above his chest. The shirt beneath was singed black and also burned open. There was a puff of smoke from the cloth or from the hair on Gregory's chest burning. But there was no mark on Gregory’s flesh, just a faded, old scar that twisted along his skin.

  Also unmarked was a small chain that hung around Gregory’s neck and a small pendant that now dangled in the open – the Key of the Forbidden Tower!

  Helmont flew at Gregory. Gregory had no Shaping to protect him. Once Helmont had mapped him, it was over. Then the key was his! Then both keys were his!

  Helmont reached out his hand to Gregory’s exposed skin and to the key, with Gregory still stepping backward. Helmont's fingers touched the loose, open edge of Gregory’s coat – and for an instant he held an image of an endless maze – but he was not attacking to map Ruhland’s armor! He was attacking to end this battle! Then all would be his!

  But blue fire exploded in Helmont’s face. He reeled back. He flew straight upward. His opening had passed. He felt fire licking at his cape behind him. With a thought, he released his cape from his shoulders. It fell away, burning.

  “Sorry, Sweetheart,” Gregory laughed, but there was weariness now in the words. “You’re not my type.”

  Gregory’s eyes flicked to the balcony floor, where one of the weeping cuts from the rapier had burned clear through. There was an open hole to the pews below. Gregory walked around the cut, attention back on Helmont. He angled toward the wall and the steps back to the ground floor.

  This was caution on Gregory’s part. Defense. Retreat. Fatigue.

  So Helmont took his time to gather what he’d learned. He’d learned how Gregory feared Ruhland. There was some deep-seated terror there. There was some weakness there.

  And finally, Helmont had begun his map of Ruhland’s armor. There would be more time to study when he peeled the coat and gloves from Gregory’s body. But even the hint of the armor filled his mind with a strange view.

  Helmont saw a labyrinth without end, a maze of endless levels that stretched on toward infinity at the microscopic level. It was a true enigma, as if the metal of the armor was worlds thick.

  Helmont sensed something else then – six other labyrinths had suddenly appeared miles away, at the remote edges of his map. He felt three great labyrinths, like endless holes in the earth. And there were three smaller labyrinths near them, smaller hints at the impossible maze Helmont had felt.

  So Ruhland had sent his pets to observe the battle, and why not? He’d known for days where Helmont planned to go. Well, Helmont would deal with them soon enough. Now, he had a new opening. He had the perfect weapon to destroy Orson Gregory.

  Helmont gave Orson Gregory a small smile of his own. “It’s a wonder you even consider Ruhland an enemy. He speaks well of you, by the way, Gregory, even the way you think you killed him. Do you hold him as one of your monthly enemies – whatever you called me? If you believe that, you’re sorely mistaken. However, I think he’ll be truly disappointed to learn of your death. And he’ll learn soon. He has his pets watching this battle even now.”

  “I cooked him,” Gregory said. But the doubt was plain to hear.

  “I believe you destroyed one of his acolytes,” Helmont said. “I don’t know how many there are or how freely he gives away sets of that armor. Though I assure you, I will learn. You’ll help me learn. Your armor will.”

  Gregory did not answer, but he reached the alcove that hid the stairs. Helmont let Gregory take the stairs, let doubt and fear linger in his enemy’s mind.

  There was fear enough to distract Gregory and make another opening. But would it be wisest to attack directly, to attempt a mapping? Even surprised, Gregory’s instincts were his best defense.

  No, Helmont saw a clearer path. Gregory’s strength was reaction, what he saw, what he learned. Helmont would fight him with the same, what he’d seen in their battle of Gregory’s outlaws versus Helmont himself and his knights.

  Orson Gregory emerged from the shadow of the balcony. He advanced slowly, and he held his sword to protect both his face and his bared chest.

  “You don’t know,” Helmont said. “You don’t know anything about Ruhland, this man you call your foe, his followers that he clothes like himself, or how they’ve wormed their way like maggots into so many world powers living and dead. He is no stranger to me, Gregory. I know more even than he is aware. His interests are political, surely. They always are, but he has his own interest in the Dreamside Road, as well.”

  Helmont paused before delivering his most devastating news. Then he spoke sweetly, as if in an idle comment over lunch. “As a matter of fact, I spoke with him just yesterday.”

  Gregory’s face was impassive, but he halted before entering the center aisle.

  “He watches the Dreamside Road Key-holders or its suspected Key-holders,” Helmont continued. “Although there is one we all know about. There is one all parties have watched for a long time. You know her well or once did.”

  “She killed your man,” Orson Gregory shouted. “I already know that.”

  “Still acquainted then,” Helmont said. Yes, Ruhland and Birgham were the paths to anger. This was good. Gone were the controlled answers and the pithy remarks.

  “The Truce rabble was always too trusting,” Helmont continued. “This isn’t the first time they’ve been infiltrated, as you know. Fools all. I always knew they would never outlive old Ophion’s tenure. Master – and I use that honorific very loosely – Birgham never stood a chance. Ruhland’s agent will have her.”

  Gregory’s hands tightened on his sword’s hilt. Fear and rage had him. Helmont had him.

  “Ruhland politically disagrees with the Liberty Corps,” Helmont said. “At least to some degree. Our cordiality likely will not last forever, but you know already that there is no room in his world for the Truce or its keeper. He will kill her, Gregory. He will kill her whenever he decides he wants her dead, but you’ll be long gone by then. Don’t worry, you won’t have to live to see her die.”

  Gregory rushed out into the aisle, hand raised the top of his sword’s hilt, aiming for a sword lengthening or that strange fire blast he’d been performing.

  Helmont acted first, but he didn’t fly at Gregory or send an Ignition at him.

  Helmont threw his sword. The violet flame exploded out from the blade as it flew. Gregory pulled his hands back, lower on the hilt, his attack abandoned. Then the expanding violet flame obscured him from sight. Then the flames surrounded him.

  Violet fire spread from the blade and formed a rough orb in the center aisle. Flames swirled around Gregory, trapping him.

  “Just as you had Mr. Maros trap Sir Tolem,” Helmont shouted to be heard through the new Ignition. “So too have you been trapped. I would dearly love to send you away with a similar blast to yours, but I won’t risk your key. I’ll let the heat take you or let the fire take your oxygen. That will have to be good enough. And it is a nobler death than you deserve. Although, I did learn this from you.”

  Helmont landed beside the altar. There, on the floor, the key’s box was still haloed by green fire, but Helmont knew how to battle Ignition flame. With the wave of his hand, the green flames parted.

  Helmont spared a last glance at his swirling fire. “Farewell, Orson Gregory.”

  Helmont pressed his hand to the box.

  * * *

  Orson saw nothing but violet fire. The color of his own sword took on a purple tinge. And the heat was enough to reach him even through his armor. His body beaded in sweat from head to toe. It ran from his scalp into his eyes.

  There was no sound but the roar of fire as it burned through the air. There was nothing else but his pulse pounding in his ears. It beat in tempo with his racing thoughts.

  Trapped. Helmont will have the key. Everyone will die. The Virus watches Sirona. She did not know! She would not!

  The Virus is alive. The Virus is alive! THE VIRUS IS ALIVE!

  No!

  No. No panic. No thought, just the newest puzzle.

  Helmont had him trapped. Helmont was today’s problem. This was another Ignition, and Ignitions needed their sword.

  Find the sword. Counter it. End the Ignition.

  Orson squinted through the flashing violet. The fire coverage wasn’t quite perfect. There were gaps at the ragged edges of the freed fire, as the tongues of flame curled to trap him.

  The Ignition of Defense made towering walls, billowing sheets of flame, hot enough to stop almost anything – but this orb wasn’t totally solid like those. And almost perfect couldn’t keep him from seeing out.

  Orson saw flashes of the room outside, glimpses of the white sanctuary or the glowing colors from the sky, suddenly there and then gone in the same instant.

  Orson had lost his bearings when the flames closed around him. He turned in a slow circle, looking for something closer – the source, wherever Helmont’s sword hung to deliver its power.

  Orson looked for the rapier’s thin hilt. He looked for the dark vertical line that could show where that sword floated in the air. He swept his soaked hair from his face and squinted through the haze of heat and his own running sweat.

  There – he saw the edge of the pews. Through a flicker he saw the shapes of seats. The sword had trapped him in the aisle and that meant...

  He caught the glint of light reflected off of polished stone.

  The violet fire made the gemstones in the hilt of the rapier shine, and Orson found that light as the flames shifted. He found the sword! He found the deep, solid fire that burned from its blade, pointed straight down.

  Orson raised his own sword toward the rapier. The Ignition fire was not like the trapped flame of the sword blades. It was diffuse. It was weaker.

  Orson stabbed out at the fire!

  His sword recoiled. It jumped in his hands, and he stumbled backward to hold it. The floor was slick, drenched from the melting ice. Orson slid and the fire roared up behind him as if welcoming him into its embrace.

  Orson leaned forward. He almost fell!

  But his boots found purchase. He stopped, the flame burning right behind him.

  He gasped, and the air did not fill his lungs. It was thinning at the edges and thinning fast enough that even his rebreather could not buy him long.

  He was running out of time. But hurry could kill him even faster.

  So with careful, measured steps he advanced again. He looked again through the flickering light. Again, he saw the glint of the gemstones – the rapier had not moved.

  Good. Then he would have to be slower this time.

  The swords’ heat shields repelled each other. Even the freed Ignition fire could stop most attack. But could his own heat shield repel the freed fire if he moved slowly enough? Could his shielded fire overcome the freed Ignition?

  Orson stabbed his sword into the orb in a slow, heavy stab. Fire met fire with a high-pitched whine, but the blade did not jump in his hands. And he saw the violet flames flickering and parting around the point of his sword.

  He took a deep breath and pushed. He shoved fire through fire, aiming for the glint of gemstones where he could be freed. Like a steel sword shredding through a wooden shield, Orson forced his sword through the swirling violet orb.

  Orson pushed the sword out and out until almost the entire blade had been surrounded by the billowing violet light.

  But he hadn’t felt the other sword. He’d hit nothing! Could Helmont have moved his rapier? No – the glint of the floating gems was still there.

  Orson’s reach was just too short. Just not far enough!

  WHAT NOW? Risk a sword extension? The sudden motion could cause recoil again. Brace himself to hold the blade anyway? Was that even possible?

  A horrible crack sounded in the room outside. It was loud enough even to bleed through the roaring flame.

  The box? Had Helmont just taken the key?

  Orson looked to the glinting gems. They could not be much farther. He just needed more reach. Now or never, he had to reach the rapier!

  He withdrew his sword and checked where his coat sleeves met his gloves, made sure the fireproof cloth was clasped tight against fireproof cloth. He made sure the armored coverings of his gloves held tight to his knuckles and the backs of his hands.

  Then he took a last deep breath and stabbed his sword through the Ignition.

  He reached, reached until his whole sword was through the violet light, but it still wasn’t enough.

  He pushed again and let the flames wash over his gloved hands. The heat was greater but not enough for pain, but it built and built and built. His gloves seemed to fill with sweat like water balloons, but still he pushed until the fire reached almost to his wrists.

  There! His sword tapped against something. It hit something! He’d found the rapier!

  Orson drew back and stabbed again, stabbed out. He stabbed the rapier’s blade with his own!

  The violet fire died! All at once, it billowed back into the hilt.

  Then the rapier fell. It buried itself point-down into the floor of the church. It was swallowed and only its ornate hilt remained above the surface.

  Orson thought of trying to slice the hilt apart, destroying the weapon, but he knew too little to risk it. So he jumped clear of the ring the fire had melted in the floor, and he ran toward the altar.

  Helmont looked over the first row of pews, but there was no box or key in his hands. The baron did not speak. His mouth twisted in a snarl, and two pews tore from the front and barreled toward Orson.

  Orson cut the first aside, but the motion of his blade made the hilt feel like he’d pulled it out of an oven with his bare hands. It burned him through the gloves and through the armor.

  Orson fell onto his belly and slid under the second flying pew. He buried his sword in the floor at the foot of the altar. Too hot!

  And even then, the burning did not stop. His gloves were too hot. They would also burn him. He could not keep them, and he tore them from his hands.

  Orson jumped up beside the altar, but the floor was wet and slippery from the box’s protective fire. He reached out to the altar to right himself, and the thin edge of the ancient ice sliced through the skin at his knuckles.

  Helmont had turned back to the box on the floor. It still glowed green, but its writing had died on one side. The baron shot a look over his shoulder, but he threw nothing more. He pressed both hands to the box.

  The green lettering died entirely, and the box broke open. Orson ignored the blood flying from his hand and rounded the altar toward Helmont.

  The box shattered into splinters and with a puff of green smoke. And when Helmont drew one hand clear of the smoke, his fingers were clutching a long, silver chain.

  Orson made his legs fight even harder, as Helmont reached out his other hand to the pendant – to touch the key. And the key began to glow in answer, even before the baron could place his free hand!

  But Orson was there before he could. Orson felt his own bloody fingers close around the chain.

  The little pendant hung tight between them, showing the fire in the crescent moon crest.

  “No weapons left,” Helmont said. “Only your bare fists.” He laughed. It was joyful. It was victorious. “I’ve seen this before, fool. My map of events to come showed me this moment. It’s finished. Which shall I map first, you or the key? It’s too difficult to decide.”

  Orson locked eyes with the baron, and he remembered then the mantra Sir Merrill had taught him. He remembered how the power of the Liberty Corps operative Larks had rebounded back on him, when he’d tried to take the box.

  Helmont’s Tactum had gotten him to the key, but Orson was still its protector.

  “I hold this key only for protection,” Orson said. “I hold it because someone must. I hold this key so evil cannot. I will defend it with my life. I will give my life for its protection.”

  Orson had nothing left but to hope. Because worthy or not, he was all that still stood between Baron Helmont and a key to the Dreamside Road.

  * * *

  Helmont actually laughed when Orson Gregory caught the key’s chain. His map of the future had charted the proper course. He’d arrived at his destination, his destiny.

  Compared to his Shaping-supported strength, Gregory’s bloody grip on the key was just as weak as the one on his map of the future had been. Even the melted floor, the broken walls, the scattered bodies – everything was perfect. Everything was right.

  And even without touching the key itself, Helmont’s map expanded. Yes, yes, why hadn’t he thought of it before? Properly energized Cobalt Nine would appear differently on his maps. Cobalt Nine that was made to bridge power and bridge worlds, it was already connected.

  All Helmont had to do was look, and he could see all the keys. His map showed him a key outside the island in the water – Cloud's – and another in the Pacific Northwest – Birgham's – but also the other keys across the world. Another was somewhere in the British Isles. And the last three were right along the pacific rim, in Japan, in Southeast Asia, and along the coast South America.

  There were other energized powers of Cobalt Nine, in the Quiet Zone – of course, near the Arabian Peninsula, and somewhere in the eastern United States.

  But the keys held his focus. The keys were all.

  He saw them all! He’d mapped them all!

  “This is already enough to see, Orson Gregory.” Helmont ignored whatever mantra the fool was rattling off. It was too late. Even the key at Gregory’s chest began to glow in answer, to glow in anticipation of Helmont’s own ascendancy.

  “...hold it because someone must,” Gregory repeated. “I hold this key so evil cannot. I will defend it with my life. I will give my life for its protection.”

  “I will have all the keys in days,” Helmont said. “I will find the Dreamside Road trove in days! The quest is over!” Helmont opened the spare comm buried in the collar of his armor.

  “Sir Jarod, hear me,” he said. “It’s nearly finished. Recall my ground forces into the cathedral and send a drop ship to retrieve us.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Sir Jarod’s voice spoke faintly from his collar.

  “When we are clear,” Helmont added. “You will use the Eye of Balor, and you will kill every living thing on this island.”