We were in a small courtyard at the base of a tower. Archways and a set of stairs led off in several directions. The four of us looked around, holding our breath. Nothing moved. After the background hum of Camden, the castle was eerily silent.
Behind us, the portal hung in the air. ‘Do they know we’re here?’ I asked Ji-yeong.
‘Yes,’ Ji-yeong said. She looked tense. ‘The alarm’s going.’
‘What alarm?’ Luna asked.
‘All of them. We can’t stay.’
‘Just a second,’ I said. The futures were shifting.
‘Master Verus,’ Ji-yeong said, and the urgency in her voice made me turn. ‘We need to go. Now.’
I hesitated. I wanted to see the isolation ward trigger . . . but then I saw Ji-yeong’s expression, and I let the portal back to my shop fade into thin air. ‘Hermes,’ I called.
A red and white head poked out from the top of the stairs, gave us an impatient glance and vanished again. I took a grip on the sovnya, and together we jogged up the steps.
In the distance, the silence was broken by a wail, rising and falling like a siren. ‘What’s that?’ Luna asked.
‘Major breach alarm,’ Ji-yeong said. ‘I don’t—’
‘Brace!’ I snapped.
The world around us shifted. There was no other way to describe it. It was like watching a video feed where the resolution changes, or having your ears pop and suddenly being able to hear. I stumbled, catching myself just in time, while Luna went sprawling. It was all over in an instant and I stood up, looking around. Everything seemed normal again, the moment of wrongness already gone.
‘That was the isolation ward?’ I asked Ji-yeong.
‘How should I know?’ Ji-yeong said. She was looking around nervously. ‘Even Sagash wasn’t crazy enough to fire that thing just to see what it looked like.’
‘Well, looks like you guessed right,’ Luna said, pulling herself to her feet. ‘How many do you think made it in?’
‘Don’t know,’ I said, pointing up at the sky. ‘But I think I can guess where they are.’
The walls around us limited our view, but between two towers was a gap through which we could see a narrow window of sky. Across it, lit in the fading sunset, a cloud of black dots was drifting. They were very small, almost invisible at this distance. If you didn’t look too closely, it could have been a flock of birds.
‘Uh,’ Luna said. ‘Are those . . . ?’
‘Shadow constructs,’ I said. Anne hadn’t wasted any time bringing the things under her control.
‘They’ll be coming this way too,’ Ji-yeong said. ‘Now will you listen to me and run?’
We ran.
Through the castle, across walkways and around buildings. Hermes dashed ahead faster than any of us, a red flash in the gloom. Above us, the sky was fading from purple to grey. Towers loomed up all around, shadowed and threatening, dark windows hiding what might be within.
Elsewhere in the castle, fighting had broken out. A distant boom echoed from the east, followed by more. Lights flickered, faint and reflected, and I could feel the signature of battle magic. I couldn’t tell who was winning, and I didn’t stop to find out. The Council army could afford to fight Anne’s forces in open battle; we couldn’t.
Hermes began to lead us downwards, flights of stairs pointing down toward ground level. As he did, the futures lit up. Incoming, I sent to Luna and Ji-yeong.
The shadows in the archway ahead moved. Black figures appeared out of the darkness, spreading out to block the courtyard. Five, ten, a dozen.
I felt the sovnya stir. Luna and Ji-yeong slowed and stopped. Alex? Luna asked telepathically. Call it.
‘They’re here to slow us down,’ I said quietly. I walked between Luna and Ji-yeong to face the creatures. The jann stayed where they were, blocking the way forward. ‘We’re going through.’
I strode forward. The jann spread out, faces blank and expressionless, welcoming me in.
The sovnya’s bloodlust ignited, and I let it fill me.
The world around seemed to fade. Walls, floors, stone – all were shadows. Dead things, useless things. Only the living mattered. The three humans blazed with life, white blooms against the darkness. The things in front, though . . . they glowed an angry red, twisted, wrong. Tendrils of corruption seemed to spread from them, warping the space around. As I cut through the first, the tendrils that made up its essence flared, wisping away. Behind it was another, and another. It was methodical work, satisfying, like clearing weeds out of a garden. As each one faded, its tendrils faded too, the world seeming to sigh in relief as the taint was burned away.
The last of the things died. But the castle was infested; there were more, far more. I let my senses spread outwards, searching. Another presence, not as harshly wrong as the others, but still tainted, an aberration. I moved toward it but it slipped away. It was small, agile. Familiar, somehow—
Hermes.
Realisation flashed through me and all of a sudden I came awake. No! I struggled, fought the sovnya’s influence. It was like swimming in heavy clothing, trying to reach the surface. The sovnya resisted. Tainted. Kill. I forced it away, clawed upwards, broke clear—
Sight and sound rushed back. I was standing on the other side of an archway. Black bodies lay all around, red light glowing from gaping rents. The ones farther back were already starting to dissolve, vapour drifting upwards.
Luna and Ji-yeong were back in the archway, staring at me. Both had their swords out, the blades a matched pair. ‘Alex,’ Luna said urgently. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. The sovnya’s influence was receding, but I could still sense it, waiting and hungry. From the position of the bodies, I must have kept advancing after the last one had fallen. I knew where I’d been going, too. Dimly I could still sense Hermes, a red glow in the darkness, changed by magic, unnatural—
No. I forced the thought away. This was my mind, and my body. The sovnya withdrew . . . for now.
Hermes had led us to a small enclosed courtyard. Sheets of metal leant against the walls and some unidentifiable machine stood rusting in the centre. The high walls blocked any view of the sky, but I could still hear the distant sounds of battle. Hermes was waiting at the far side, next to a doorway that opened into darkness.
I walked closer; Hermes trotted aside, eyeing the sovnya. The doorway led into empty space. A vertical shaft dropped away into blackness, cables hanging in the shadows.
Ji-yeong walked up next to me. ‘Lift shaft?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ she said with a curious look. ‘Down to the old levels.’ She glanced at Hermes. ‘I thought Sagash sealed these off?’
Hermes looked back at her blandly.
‘Does it work?’ I asked.
Ji-yeong stepped forward to study the controls set into the wall. ‘As long as Anne hasn’t broken anything . . .’
‘It’s too quiet,’ Luna said.
‘I know what you mean,’ I said. I looked ahead into the short-term futures. ‘Ji-yeong? We need that lift.’
In answer, Ji-yeong shoved one of the levers. There was a screech of rust and a clanking sound, and within the shaft, I saw the cables start to shake and move.
‘How long?’ Luna asked.
‘Until that lift reaches the top, two minutes,’ I said. ‘Bad news is someone else is going to be here first.’