“It’s brimming, the well is. What’s more, we need the damn power.”
“You’re going to tell me that if I don’t play ball, my friends are going to get hurt?”
“Closer,” he said. “But I’m betting they’d come out of it okay. Their karma isn’t so bad. Your family members, a little less so. But that’s not my angle.”
I turned the ring over in my hand.
“What’s the angle?” I asked.
“In giving you the ring? To get you listening. Get you to stop, and maybe get you to relax. The power’s in your hand.”
“Okay. I won’t deny that.”
“Now that I have you listening. The plan. In six minutes, the sun rises. I have a circle and a preparation rigged, which will only take me a moment to put into effect. I can’t stop the sunrise itself, but I can alter perceptions, and I can bend the rules. Doing it will cost my family quite a bit. It’s almost as good as what you’re going for. But it’ll delay Johannes’ plan. Or you can destroy the ring, and break our power base, and deal with Johannes as you wish. There’s a chance you’d even succeed. The cards favor you. The tide favors you. Water analogy again.”
“But?”
He held up a card. I couldn’t make out the face at a distance.
“Do you know the import of the tower card, in the major arcana of the tarot deck?”
“No.”
“Disaster, revolution. Revelation, even. We’re due an omen in about…” he checked his watch, “…forty seconds, and that should make it all clear.”
I glanced at Green Eyes, then at my extended family members.
He paused, waiting.
Forty seconds.
The bell tolled, out of sync, making counting hard. I didn’t try to count.
I looked at my friends instead.
At Alexis, and Tiff, and Ty.
Alexis mouthed words. I suspected I knew what they were.
Alister checked his watch, then drew in a breath.
The ground shuddered violently. Everyone standing was forced to shift position. Only those by the railing, my friends, and Alister, who could lean against his knight, were able to avoid it.
The rest of Jacob’s Bell seemed to rise, as the shuddering increased.
Snow all around Hillsglade House seemed to fold, then rolled and cascaded down the hill.
It all went still.
“There we go,” Alister said.
“What the hell was it?” I asked.
“Our omen. Hillsglade House just dropped a few feet toward sea level. It borders marshland, so that might be the official explanation.”
“And the unofficial, practitioner explanation?” I asked.
“You’re due a third visit to the Abyss,” he said. “Except this time, Hillsglade House seems inclined to go with you.”
“Hillsglade-”
“And,” he said, “Sorry, but time is getting short. You need to realize just why the rest of the town isn’t dropping too.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Jacob’s Bell is on the way down. The only thing keeping it here are the innocents, snug in their beds. No innocents in this house, so nothing to keep it up. Now, if I don’t keep the locals from suddenly deciding to evacuate this town, which they will, shortly after waking up, Jacob’s Bell is going to become a new attraction in the Abyss, complete with a spiteful lesser god and a perpetually tolling bell. Johannes takes over, by virtue of being in charge of all that’s left of the city, and we… go down to stay, quite possibly on a permanent basis.”
He paused to let the words sink in.
“Damn it,” I said. “You win. Take your damn ring back and stop this, then.”
14.02
The furniture in the living room of Hillsglade House had been moved out into the adjoining kitchen and back hallway, and fairly tidily stacked on the ledge where the window jutted out at the front of the house. The floor had been cleared, and a diagram drawn out. Clear alcohol burned in little braziers that had been set on the floor, producing blue flame. With no power in the house, the little flames were the only source of light; low to the ground.
Green Eyes’ eyes were among the only things in the room that weren’t painted in vivid shades of black and electric blue. She lurked beside me, her head at my waist level, upper body propped up by her arms, peering through her hair, much of which draped in front of her face. The green of her eyes looked out of place here.
Different Behaims stood at different points at the periphery of the octagon. Adults. Elders. I recognized Ben, and the one that had sent the clockwork soldiers after us, killing Callan. He was the one I’d failed to kill.
Alister’s demeanor was an interesting thing to see. He looked poised, supremely confident, and utterly at ease in this setting. When he walked across the diagram to the center, he didn’t miss a beat, walking over and between the lines.
He placed the ring in the center, standing on end, then flicked it, spinning it like a top.