Achaeos digested all of this, knowing that Tegrec was only divulging so much because he was nervous about what was yet to come. We are both here solely because the Skryres wish to use us.
The Wasp must have seen something in his expression because he nodded and continued, ‘We’re both outcasts, really. The mad thing is, when this is done, and assuming any of us survive it, I’ll stay here but they’ll make you leave, won’t they?’
‘I have no wish to stay,’ Achaeos replied flatly. ‘I came because I needed their medicine. I stayed because they are my people and, despite it all, I’ll fight for them. But when this is done, my home is elsewhere.’
Tegrec stood up again, and Achaeos heard the shuffle of sandals on stone as other robed figures came up into the red-tinged air. He numbered a score of them at least, before he stopped counting. They have called everyone they can, he realized. All the most skilled ritualists of Tharn had been dragged up that same winding stair. There were at least a dozen Skryres, and there were other Moth-kinden who had never sought that position of power and responsibility: they were scholars, philosophers, skilled and private magicians. Here they all were, now, men and women all two decades older than Achaeos at least, and none looking confident or comfortable. In between them were others who had, like Tegrec, found a place here by virtue of their magic: there were Mantis-kinden and Spider-kinden side by side, a Grasshopper, two Commonweal Dragonflies, even a tiny, silver-haired old Fly-kinden woman who leant on a stick and looked as drained by the climb as Achaeos himself felt. Slowly, and without being directed, they formed themselves into two encircling rings, the Skryres inward, the rest standing behind them, closer to the edge of this little artificial plateau.
Xaraea then came and helped Achaeos to his feet, not out of compassion but from necessity. Hobbling, he took his place in the inner circle standing opposite from Tegrec. Meanwhile Xaraea and the Wasp girl Raeka retreated to the stairwell.
We are the eyes through which this ritual will perceive its prey, Achaeos knew. The work would be done, the power provided, by the others; he and Tegrec would merely focus it. Such rituals had often been done in the Days of Lore so many centuries before. But in living memory? No, and the power of the very last one performed within record had gone so disastrously wrong that, since then, nobody had even attempted what they were now about to do on the same scale. Of the meagre attempts that had been made, most had failed, some without issue and some with dire consequences. With magic so thin and so wan in the light of this new Apt world, nobody knew if what they were undertaking was even possible any more.
Che… He wished now that he had said more before she had gone off to Myna with the wretched traitor Thalric. Standing here on the mountain-top, with the sky on fire behind him, he felt so many regrets.
There was no preliminary signal. The ritual simply bloomed around them, burgeoning from the Skryres as they turned the force of their minds on the weave of the world and tried to scar their desires out upon it. Achaeos felt a ripple of shock run through the outer circle, the lesser magicians yoking themselves into that same great effort, so that the air around them grew hazy and shook with the power that they called up. He felt himself like a bow, taken up, strung and stretched, so that the arrow that they were jointly forming might be loosed. The strain, even right at the start, made him gasp. He became instantly, infinitely aware of the city of Tharn beneath him: of the Wasp-kinden intruders who did not belong, their soldiers and officers, the machines, their alien thoughts and minds.
The Skryres stretched his mind further, until he choked on the pain, and still they tensioned him further. He hoped Tegrec was lasting better than he did, for it seemed that any moment he might snap and fly to pieces. Loose! His mind cried. For the sake of all, loose the shaft! But they did not, only pulled and pulled, the arrow yet unformed. The Skryres and their followers were pouring everything they had – all their living craft and strength – into this one single shot.
And it was not enough.
The greatest magicians in the world, and it was not enough. The circle of Skryres and their acolytes swayed and chanted and concentrated, forcing their will upon the very weave of existence, and it was still not enough. The age of great magics was long past and they did not have the strength. The world was no longer so malleable to their minds.
Achaeos felt the air around him swim in and out of focus. His heart was like a hot stake being driven into his chest, flaring with pain at every beat, and the beats had become irregular, stuttering. He was held on his feet only by the collective will of those around him. Others had already fallen: the oldest of the Skryres was a crumpled heap across the circle; one of the Mantis-kinden had dropped to her knees.
It is not working. That much was obvious. Less obvious was whether Achaeos would survive this failure, let alone a success. Opposite him, across the circle, Tegrec’s face glimmered under a sheen of sweat.
I can’t… Achaeos could feel a tight coldness in his chest now, an unforgiving clenching that intensified with every breath.
Che, he thought.
There seemed to be a darkness blotting out the stars, but he knew this was in his vision only. The voice of one of the Skryres came to him, as if from far away.
‘We do not have the power for this! We must stop before we lose what we have!’
Another voice cried, ‘Remember the Darakyon!’
‘No!’ It was the lead Skryre, the great force of whose mind was felt all about the circle. ‘We cannot give up now. We have this one chance only to drive the invader from our halls. Find more! Draw on every reserve you have! There can be no holding back. Drain your wells and give me all!’
What reserves? What wells? Achaeos thought numbly, but around the circle he sensed the grudging obedience of the others. Not all, maybe, but still there were many who reached and found in themselves some hoarded cache of strength to cast into the ritual. Some had artefacts from the Days of Lore to which a shred of glamour still clung. Others had places to which they had forged a link, receptacles in which they had stored their faith long years ago. Some had siblings they could draw upon, or else family, students and servants. Achaeos saw the Wasp Tegrec reach back, and the hand of his slave girl was in his own without hesitation. He saw Raeka pale as she gave of herself to him, the strength and will leaching out of her.