The mist was just as Hirad remembered it. Like dust across the sun but this time on a day plagued by showers and a cold wind. The dreary light merely added to the sense of wrong that the mass of static mana Septern's ailing rip generated.
But the weather was not all that was different. In front of the ruins of the Septern Manse stood Styliann and the Protector army, visible as a dark mass of barely human stillness through the mist and five hundred yards of distance. And to Hirad's left, riding so slowly he barely moved The Raven on at all, was The Unknown Warrior.
During the four days of their ride to the Manse, his mood had changed by degrees from one of hard determination to tetchy introspection, and now angry confusion. And as The Raven neared the low barn where he had met his death, his lack of focused thought led to snarled exchanges with Hirad that were merely exacerbated by the nearness of the Protector army.
'You should just ride on by,' said Hirad. 'Put it behind you.'
'And that demonstrates exactly how little you understand.' The Unknown jabbed a finger at the Protectors. 'They know. They understand but they cannot say anything.'
'Would it help if they could?' asked Hirad a little shortly.
'Yes, damn you, it would,' snapped The Unknown, reining to a halt. 'Try and get your head straight. Have you really no conception of how I might be feeling?'
Hirad shrugged. 'But you're here,' he said. 'Here and breathing. Under the earth there isn't you. It doesn't have your soul.'
The Unknown flinched as if struck. ' "Soul?" Gods in the ground, your mouth will be your undoing one day,' he growled. 'You know nothing about my soul. By all that's right, it should be with those of my ancestors. At peace. Not back in a body that isn't the original and exposed to all this . . . this shit!' He swept his arms about him expansively, taking in everything: the Protectors, the Manse, The Raven.
'If you want to leave, go right ahead,' said Hirad. 'Desert the only true friends you have. I won't stop you.'
'For God's sake, Hirad, listen to what he's trying to tell you,' said Ilkar before The Unknown could speak again. 'Unknown, you need time alone. I suggest the barn is the right place. Hirad, we have Styliann to deal with.'
Hirad felt his anger surge but he kept it in check. Ilkar's expression had hardened. The Unknown simply nodded at Ilkar, shot Hirad a withering look and urged his horse to a walk towards the barn and the grave he should never have had to face.
'Hirad, we need to talk,' said Ilkar.
'Now?'
'If Denser and Erienne will talk to Styliann on behalf of The Raven, I think now is a very good time, don't you?'
Hirad raised his eyebrows. 'You think I've been a little insensitive? '
'You haven't lost your gift for understatement, have you?' said Ilkar. 'Ride with me, Hirad Coldheart. Ride and listen.'
The Unknown Warrior slid from his horse well before the long barn and let the animal wander away to trail the others to the ruins of the Manse.
Memories flooded into his head and his heart beat loud and wild in his chest, neck and ears. He pictured the Destrana war dogs running at him, their teeth bared, their saliva dripping and their eyes rolling. He felt his sword biting their flesh, the hot breath on his face, the clamp of fangs on his shoulder and the blood pouring from his torn throat.
He clutched at his neck with a gauntleted hand, his vision dimming as it had done before, the taste of his death in his mouth, the sounds around him diminishing. He fell to his knees and forward on to his free hand, gasping for breath, tears fogging his eyes. He coughed and retched, took the hand from his neck and stared at it while his vision cleared. No blood.
No blood, no dogs, no death. He raised his head, saw the barn dimly but found his gaze locked solid on the raised mound of earth just to the side of its doors.
'Oh dear Gods,' he said. 'Save me from this.'
But there could be no salvation. For while The Unknown lived and breathed, his body still lay there. He retched again, bile flooding his mouth which he spat to the cracked earth.
'Why couldn't you let me have my death?' he growled, hauling himself to his feet. He cursed Xetesk. His home for his youth but the place that had stolen his death from him. Given him a hideous perversion of life behind a mask. He cursed the city and its masters, the mages who still retained the abominations that were his brethren.
With his every footstep like wading through thigh-deep mud, he ground his way to the grave, his eyes stuck on the dusty mound, unmarked save for the vague imprint of The Raven symbol burned into its surface - mostly gone now, eroded in a few short weeks by the incessant breeze.
And when at last he stood there, gazing down at his own lonely grave, his tears fell unchecked from his cheeks, patterning the dirt at his feet. He knelt down and brushed his hand across his grave, knowing he could touch his own bones, see his own body and face. Take a good look at the true Unknown Warrior, whose body lay where his soul wanted to be. At rest. Free.
He breathed deep and closed his eyes, placing both hands on the grave. He dropped his head to his chest.
'By north, by east, by south, by west. Though you are gone, you will always be Raven and I will always remember. Pity me that I breathe while you do not.' He fell silent, unwilling to move. Knowing he had spoken the mantra to a soulless bag of bones but finding a curious peace in the Vigil he held.
Eventually, reverently, he stood up and backed two paces from the grave before turning towards the Manse. In front of him stood a Protector, Cil, and behind him, all of them. Silent ranks of understanding and respect, impassive behind their masks but with their minds ablaze at the wrong The Unknown suffered.
Unable to speak, Cil placed a hand on The Unknown's shoulder and squeezed, his head inclined very slightly. The Unknown locked eyes with him for a moment, then looked past him to those behind, a shiver running through his back at the power standing there in utter quiet. His eyes misted again, this time in gratitude.
'You can escape your calling,' he said. 'But the price is high, believe me. The pain of separation is great. I can still feel you though I can't be with you. Your choice will come.'
He walked through the Protectors who turned and followed him back to the Manse. His choice was made but, leaving his grave without another glance, he realised he had another but he had no idea whether he had the courage to make it. Time, as always, would tell.
'If you think you're taking hundreds of Protectors through the rip, you're wrong,' said Hirad once Denser had summarised thus far his fruitless discussions with Styliann. The former Lord of the Mount had flatly refused to let the Raven mages have sight of Septern's texts and Hirad considered it was only a matter of time before Styliann decided he could create and cast the magic himself. Hirad, like the rest of The Raven, was uncomfortably aware that they were hopelessly outnumbered.
'I would be keen to hear how you propose to stop me,' said Styliann.
'It isn't a question of what I can do now,' said Hirad. 'It's a question of what the Kaan will do when you arrive. They don't need your Protectors and what they don't need, they tend to destroy.'
Styliann gestured around him. 'Destroying almost five hundred Protectors isn't easy.'
Hirad stared at him. He felt a constraining hand on his shoulder. Ilkar's. He nodded and breathed deeply before speaking.
'You saw the size of Sha-Kaan, Styliann. He could do it on his own and you know it. I am just trying to save you wasting their lives, such as they-'
The Protectors moved, came to attention and marched slowly away towards the long barn, Cil at their head. Denser and Styliann stared slack-jawed. Hirad, when he realised where they were going, chuckled.
'Perhaps they won't listen to you anyway,' he said, breaking the spell of silence.
'Come back!' ordered Styliann. 'Now. Cil, you know your calling. Return to my side or face your nemesis.'
'I don't think you want to do that,' said Denser quietly.
'I beg your pardon?' Styliann stared on at the retreating backs of his erstwhile Protectors.
'You heard me,' said Denser. 'It would make The Unknown very angry. And right now, you're very much alone. They'll come back.'
And come back they did, with The Unknown at their head, his face set, his determination returned.
'I take it we're ready to go,' he said. 'Styliann, you may take six Protectors with you. The rest will guard the Manse.'
Styliann's jaw moved but no words came. His face, flushed and reddening, quivered with rage.
'Guard against what, exactly?' asked Hirad.
'I may? Who, by the Gods bleeding, are you to tell me what I can and cannot do with my Protectors?'
'You will understand soon enough,' said The Unknown shortly.
'Unknown,' said Hirad. 'Guard against what?'
'The Wesmen are coming here,' said The Unknown. 'They must not bury the entrance to the workshop or we will never get back.'
'Why would they do that?' asked Ilkar.
'Julatsa has fallen,' said Cil, breaking the conditions of his thrall. 'They know everything.'
'How could you possibly know?' demanded Ilkar of Cil. 'I have felt nothing.' His voice was desperate, his eyes searching that mask for any clue and his ears reddening as he fought the emotion that washed over him.
'And maybe you won't,' said Styliann. 'Your mages fell one by one under the swords of the Wesmen; their mana ripples won't combine. And we must presume the Heart was successfully buried. I am truly sorry Julatsa has fallen but perhaps you are the lucky one. After all, you are about to leave this dimension.'
'Lucky?' spat Ilkar. 'Those bastards have destroyed the home of every living Julatsan. Lucky, my arse.'
Denser cleared his throat. 'Styliann's words were ill-judged but accurate, I suspect. Any ripples through your spectrum at all are unlikely to carry as much force where we are going.'
'Well you'd better hope there's some, otherwise this spell, whatever it turns out to be, won't get cast.' Ilkar stared meaningfully at the sheaf of papers in Styliann's hands.
'Eh?' Hirad frowned.
'No ripples, no mana,' explained Erienne.
'It's all irrelevant conjecture,' said The Unknown. 'What we have to do is go. Now.'
'Not until I find out how you know Julatsa is lost,' said Ilkar.
'Cil, you may speak freely,' said Styliann, plainly interested. Cil was silent for a time, his breath controlled as he thought through his reply. When it came, it was short and efficient.
'The demons are watching. When we are together as one, we can sense what they see.'
'Fascinating,' said Styliann. 'The side-effects of creation are an endless surprise.'
'Enjoy them while you can,' said The Unknown, his face a blank to mirror the masks of his former brethren.
Styliann half smiled. 'Are you threatening me, Unknown?'
'Call it heartfelt advice.'
Hirad came to The Unknown's shoulder and demanded attention. 'All right, that's enough playing around. There're a few things you should know, Ilkar and Denser excepted, about what happens when we enter the rip.'
He reassured them about the pain of travel, the drop on landing and the devastation of the Avian dimension The Raven had encountered in their search for Dawnthief. He described the walking dead lest they should rise again, the silence though the sky boiled with cloud and lightning above and below, the disorienting height and the other platforms in the sky, standing atop rock columns. And he reminded them that it was Kaan dragons that had caused the destruction and that the same fate awaited Balaia should the Kaan falter or the spell, when it was determined, fail to close the rip.
Finally, he told those that mattered that they were Raven and that, strange though it may appear, not just Balaia but countless dragons depended on their success.
'And now,' he said, 'now we will go.'
But inside the Manse ruins, there was a new problem.
'What the hell has happened here?' Ilkar looked squarely at Styliann and away from the open entrance to Septern's dimensional workshop.
'It wasn't always like this?' replied Styliann, seeming genuinely surprised.
'No it wasn't,' said Ilkar shortly. He crouched by the entrance, set in the middle of the floor. Denser dropped to his haunches by him and was joined by Erienne.
'I don't think Styliann is responsible,' whispered Denser.
'So what has happened?' asked Erienne.
Ilkar scratched his head. 'Without a key or forcing, there's only one answer to that. Septern's spell has collapsed.'
'A consequence of the rip, you think?' said Denser.
Ilkar shrugged. 'Can you think of anything else?'
'What does it matter?' said The Unknown. The mages turned to him, plainly irritated at the interruption. 'The fact is that we can no longer seal the rip against the Wesmen. If they should defeat the Protectors, they can travel it too and I have no doubt that they will.'
'We can't afford a Wesmen force in the dragon dimension,' said Hirad. 'No matter the power of the dragons, they could still find and catch us.'
Ilkar rose and dusted down his knees. 'So what do you suggest?'
'Reinforcements,' said Hirad decisively. 'It's our only option. Darrick must be heading north by now.' He turned to Denser. 'Sorry, Denser, but we need a Communion from you.'
The Dark Mage sighed and nodded. 'What do you want me to say?'
The Raven stood at the rip to a new dimension under a boiling sky and in the remains of the devastated Avian village. Below them, far below them, harsh red lightning sheeted and flared. It was a rip through which only Denser had passed, returning in terror, jabbering about dragons. For Hirad, it was a case of already seen. His union with Sha-Kaan gave him clear visions of what lay before them and, with a memory of curious clarity, summoned a subconscious thought that had lain hidden since Denser's ill-advised journey. Even then, he realised, he had known he would have to travel the rip himself. To face his nightmares and beat the demons of his mind.
Hirad turned to the company, Raven to the front, Styliann and his six Protectors behind.
'Are you ready for this?' He really only asked it of two of them. Of Ilkar, whose courage in the face of the loss of his College was extraordinary but flawed. And of Styliann, whose determination to minutely examine the wreckage of the Avian dimension had frayed tempers during the short walk between rips.
The former Lord of the Mount nodded stiffly. Ilkar managed a smile.
'As ready as I'm going to get,' he said.
'I wish I could say the same,' said Hirad. 'Denser? Anything we should know?'
'Just be ready to fall backwards. The place was a mess and I doubt it's got any better.'
In fact, it was completely different to Denser's description. He had spoken of blackened earth, a sky heavy with dragons and fire splashing from the air. But through the rip they emerged inside a cave. And though it was dark where they landed, a gentle grey-green light filtered from around a sharp left-hand corner a few paces ahead of them.
'What in all the hells is this?' Denser dusted himself down. 'The rip must have been moved.'
'I don't think that's possible without the casting mage,' said Erienne.
'Well, this bloody rock wasn't here before.'
'Anyone got a torch?' Hirad was smiling.
'Dare I ask why?' asked The Unknown.