A heavy sound struck through the catacombs. Like a giant fist had been slammed against the upper level. Dust was dislodged.
'That doesn't sound so good,' said Ilkar.
'We're as safe as we can be,' said Sharyr, spreading out texts on a bench and beginning to pull them open.
'There is no comfort in that,' said Diera.
Sol took Diera's arm and turned her away from the awkwardness she was generating.
'I cannot let you disrupt this. I need you to be strong for the boys. Make them understand.'
'How can I make them understand what I do not?'
Sol smiled. 'You understand perfectly well. You just don't like what you're hearing.'
'Well we agree there.'
'There will be time for us. Before I . . .' Sol trailed away.
It wasn't just for her he could not finish his sentence. He was only just clinging on to his own courage too. Diera sagged and let herself be drawn into his arms. Sol looked over her head and saw the mages getting to work.
'What will happen afterwards? When you go into this opening or whatever it is?' she asked.
'I really don't know. I know where we will end up but not how it will feel to travel.'
'I don't mean that. I mean what will you actually be able to do.'
Sol was silent just a heartbeat too long. 'It's all about belief.'
'What's that supposed to mean? That is the lamest answer I've ever heard you give.'
'But that's the point, isn't it?' Sol began to find himself. 'Those with the belief can function. Can achieve what they intend.'
'So this is just one big leap of faith, is that it?'
Sol shrugged. 'Yes.'
He saw Diera contemplate a retort but she changed tack instead. 'How will they, you know . . .'
'The Xeteskian library of nerve toxins is extensive. It'll be quick and it'll be painless, I promise.'
'Promise me one more thing.'
'Almost anything.'
'That I give it to you. Give you the cup or whatever it is. It has to be me.'
'Why?'> She stared up into his eyes. 'Because every moment with you is a lifetime's worth.'
Densyr watched Sol and Diera's embrace. He saw the pain and the tenderness, the strength and the fear. His own mind was in turmoil. The appearance of the five Garonin machines had sent him into a spiral, he could see that now. He had rushed here, defaulted to the wisdom of The Raven and Auum as so often in the past.
'This is reckless,' he said. 'Surely it cannot work.'
Vuldaroq's shaking hands paused in the act of turning a page.
'When all other options have been exhausted, what else is there but desperation?'
'I arrested him for his own good. To stop him walking to his death with his eyes closed. Now I'm about to give him a helping hand along the road. Diera is right. I am weak.'
'What difference does it make now?' said Ilkar, moving close to him and dropping his voice. 'No way out but this. You do see that, don't you?'
'I don't really know what to think. I still don't see how doing this will get you to a new cluster of dimensions or anywhere but oblivion. I can see the conviction in your eyes and in his but I can see the sorrow in Diera's too, and I will have to face that once the ritual is complete. What can I say to her?'
'Nothing,' said Ilkar. 'Except to trust that we are right.'
'But this isn't like Sol marching off with his sword strapped to his back. He is going to die and she will never know his embrace again.'
Ilkar bowed his head, unable to hold Densyr's gaze.
'Yet it is the only way for her and the boys to live.'
Densyr's heart was pounding painfully. 'I have to be sure that is true.'
'What's done is done, Densyr, and you cannot undo what you did to us and the cost of delay. But know that we are not changing our position. We have not ever since we were thrust back here. The pain grows every day. The longer we are kept here the more attractive the prospect of letting go and disappearing into the void becomes.
'We have never looked to defeat the Garonin and we are not suddenly seeing this as our last option. It has always been the only option for the populations of Balaia and Calaius. We were never here to live again on Balaia.
'Densyr . . . it's me. Ilkar. And it's Thraun, Sirendor and Hirad too. We need your help. You've come so far down the road. Don't turn away from us again.'
Densyr looked beyond Ilkar and saw Diera. Her gaze implored him to step back. Outside, the pounding was relentless. It echoed through the catacombs and sent vibrations through the stone beneath his feet. He fancied he could hear screaming but that was surely a trick of the mind.
'We are ready, my Lord Densyr,' said Sharyr quietly, his voice clanging like a bell in the silence that had fallen.
Densyr acknowledged him with a curt nod. He bowed to Diera and looked square at Ilkar.
'Let's get started,' he whispered.
Dystran sought the purity Septern had achieved. He was only dimly aware of the pounding of weapons against the walls of Densyr's tower. In all his years he had never been so deep in the mana spectrum. He felt almost as if he were swimming, his mind was so free. It was as frightening as it was uplifting. He was unsure if he would be able to find his way back to himself.
Perhaps that should not scare him. Returning to his body was probably pointless. He could cruise here in the embrace of the Heart of his beloved Xetesk or he could die as the tower inevitably collapsed. Here he felt safe though he could not entirely divorce himself from his physical bonds.
And that was what Septern had been able to do. His soul had been clinging on to an alien body, always in pain, always at risk of being swallowed by the void. But he had found a new place to go and had used himself to focus the Heart as a weapon.
'Are you still here?' asked Dystran. 'Are you truly gone or are you part of the Heart now?'
Silence.
The Heart of Xetesk was beautiful. The hourglass shape of infinity. Glorious deep blue mana coalescing and moving in the dance of power around the dark stone. A sight only a mage could ever see. Hundreds, thousands of lines disappeared from the core. Links to everywhere and to mages drawing on the bedrock of their talent to cast. And all in defence of their college.
Dystran felt a gentle buffeting. The remains of Septern's grid were still dangerous. The power held within was not bleeding away as he had hoped; rather it was building up at critical nodes. It was an irritation in his search for a way to repeat what the master mage had done.
The fluctuation from the Heart took him completely by surprise. A mass of mana, like a skull trailing fire, burst from its centre, upsetting the dance of power. It scorched the edges of his mind as it plunged deep into the ground. Dystran tried to track its movement but it was gone so quickly. Someone was casting something ancient and terrible.
The Heart had not regained its placidity before huge shapes appeared on the periphery of his senses. Spasmodic with clashing mana and reaching towards him with tendrils that became arms ending in claws, opening and closing, grabbing. Five of them.
They were seeking him and soon they would find him.
Dystran retreated within himself and called out for aid.
Chapter 34.
The next impact cast Suarav from his feet and sent him rolling down the shattered steps of the tower complex. He scrabbled upright and backed away a few paces. His team had been scattered but all seemed to be moving. The brief hurricane of air had been forced out of the broken doors, catching them square on. Left and right, other teams still stood under their shields while mages tried desperately to shore up the weakening bindings of the towers that made up the circle of six and the seat of the Lord of the Mount.
Tower Prexys was teetering. A hole had been driven through it on a diagonal from upper chambers to servants' quarters. The pinnacle was rocking. Slate and stone was tumbling onto what remained of the complex's dome.
'Oh dear Gods burning,' breathed Suarav. He began to run. 'Cover. Cover! Prexys is falling! Shields now.'
In the darkest moments of the worst nightmares of any Xeteskian, the towers of the college would fall, signalling the end of everything. So it was that Suarav felt tears welling as he shouted his warnings. He could see it with his own eyes and still he didn't believe it.
In front of him, mages were casting. No longer were there any hands on the stonework of the complex, feeding binding spells into the towers. Instead, shield after shield ghosted into existence, hoping to shelter men and women from the falling tower. Suarav ducked back under cover by Chandyr, who sported a deep cut on his left cheek from a flying piece of debris. His expression was bleak, his eyes betraying fading hope.
'That we should see this day,' he said.
'Strength, old friend,' said Suarav, wiping the tears from his face.
Prexys bulged a third of its way down as the weight above defeated the compromised structure below. The rending sound ricocheted across the courtyard. Beams snapped, steel supports sheared. Bricks and slabs of stone broke free. The pinnacle collapsed inwards. Wood and slates thundered through the weakened structure causing fatal damage.
Slowly, desperately, Prexys toppled. Showering loose stone and glass, the top section fell to the east, its ragged end cannoning into the bottom section, ripping away what little support remained. Every head turned to watch. Chandyr clutched Suarav's shoulder.
Three hundred feet tall. Over a thousand years old in its current form and a survivor of wars, the mana storms of the last days of the One magic, and the worst nature could throw. Tens of thousands of tons of stone, flashing with the breaking of bound mana, came down. The two sections struck the complex roof one after the other, bursting through or sliding from it. A torrent of crushing weight followed by a storm of choking dust. And a barrage of noise so deep and intense it drew a scream from Suarav's mouth.
Around the edge of the complex, far from the collapse, people hugged each other until it was over. Inside the damage zone, mages fought to keep their shields strong enough to deflect even the largest slab of masonry. Not all succeeded. The sheer mass of stone sent a shock wave throughout the whole complex. Thirty yards to Suarav's left, the wall of the dome blew out, simply sweeping away the team that had been standing there. When the dust cleared enough to see, there was nothing to show that they had been there at all.
The echoes of the fall rippled away. Stones still tumbled over one another inside the dome. Everywhere was coated with a thick film of dust and more fell all the while. In the sky, the Garonin machines readied for another assault.
'What do we do now?' yelled a mage into Suarav's face. 'Look what they've done. First of seven. First of seven.'
'Control your fear. We cannot afford to lose anyone to despair,' said Suarav.
'So much for binding the walls and forcing a bottleneck at the catacombs,' said Chandyr. 'They're going straight through the ground, aren't they?'
Suarav nodded. He dared a glance up. One of the machines was all but prepared. Above it, the sky was dark with a swirling cloud, but beneath it, right below the carriage suspended underneath, a dazzling light shone. It was coiled about by mist and fog. While he watched, the light moved from yellow to white, the mist thickened and a beam struck down. It bored through the dome roof where Prexys had been and caused devastation in the catacombs that he was scared even to consider. The beam moved in a tight circle and then shut off, leaving an edge around his vision.
'We cannot reach them,' said Chandyr. 'Their foot soldiers are dispersed through the city, hunting down our people. We should try and protect those we can.'
'Our duty is here,' said Suarav.
'But we can do nothing.'
'We can bind the walls more strongly, we can invest in the stone of the catacombs. Spread a shield across the whole damned place. I don't know, but we have to find a way. I am not leaving here without the Lord of the Mount.'
But as he watched the machines in the sky and saw the cloud pillar moving ever faster as yet another detonation built within it, he wondered at his own mind. Because this didn't smell like mana collection any more. More like straightforward annihilation.
' "Where the door lies, the elders know, yet their voices are silent," ' intoned Densyr, reading from one of the scripts Sharyr held for him.
' "Entry is only granted to those free of their mortal shackles. Free to travel, free to find rest. Their Gods shall guide them and their souls shall know peace." '
He waved the parchment away.
'So speaks the lore of Xetesk.'
Densyr knelt on the stone floor facing Sol and Diera. Young Hirad and Jonas were still in the room and Vuldaroq had managed to move close enough to them to offer any comfort he could. Auum's Tai had not lifted their heads from their prayer.
Densyr's back was straight and his hands rested in his lap. From what Ilkar could gather of the technical part of the lore Densyr had read out, this casting was as much meditation as mana shape building. Another day, in another life, Ilkar would have been fascinated by the whole process. But right now all he wanted was for it to be over.
From the moment Ilkar had known Densyr was actually prepared to perform the ritual, the pain in his borrowed body had deepened and the gale trying to snatch his soul away to the void had strengthened. To such an extent indeed that he found it a challenge to hear anything that was being said and harder still to concentrate. A quick glance at Sirendor and Thraun told him they felt the same. Hirad surely would not last long with his defences so low.
'I will now perform the ritual. It has no words but it requires peace. Please, then, do not speak until I do. Sol, Diera. When the ritual requires its soul of free will, the shape will be stable enough for you to have the time you need.'
Sol nodded. Diera looked blank and confused.
'If it is a lengthy process, we may need to stabilise Hirad again,' said Sharyr.
'Do it quietly, then,' said Densyr. 'I-'
The chamber shook. Braziers rattled in their brackets. One of the chalkboards broke free at a corner and leaned out from the wall. The workbenches juddered. Ilkar clutched at Sirendor to steady himself. The vibration went on and on. The sound of a huge rock fall reached them and the rumble echoed away like thunder in the Blackthorne Mountains.
'What was that?' asked Jonas.
Densyr and Sharyr both had the same thought. Sharyr put it into words.
'I fear the circle of seven is broken,' he said, his voice small.
Densyr brushed dust from his clothing. 'Then I have no time to waste. It begins.'
There was the slightest reaction on Densyr's face as he tuned into the mana spectrum. His mouth moved silently, reminding himself of the process he must follow. His head fell slowly forward towards his chest and his hands came to his temples. He pressed in with middle and forefingers.
Ilkar saw each tiny twitch in Densyr's eyelids as he drew the shape of the casting together. Ilkar had always loved to watch a consummate mage at work and Densyr was certainly one such. Efficient, economical and accurate. Every movement was precise, every slight error corrected without pause or panic.
The temperature of the chamber began to decrease. A deep grey mist formed slowly above Densyr's head.
'What-'