mask behind.
I knelt before Amon, my life spilling out into my lap, the chamber filled with the sound of the Betrayer's footsteps as he ran away, down the hundred hallways that led out of this place. Echoes of his feet, and my failing heart.
You come here, and do not know the answer? No, I think you do. His words ran through my mind as I lay before the undying Scholar god. I think you do. I did. Barnabas cutting the chain, the ease with which Cassandra's shackles fell away at the touch of my blade. The chains on the shoulders of the Librarians Desolate, and the chains twisting through their god. Before me. I knew.
The power of the soul-bonds came from this body, these chains. No Amonite had been able to remove his own chains, not since the Healer had taken possession of the Library Desolate. There must have been a ritual, with Amon as the sacrifice, and the chains as the reward. As long as these chains held Amon, the noetic chains in the city above would hold his scions. That was how these sorts of invokations worked.
But for every ritual, there had to be a price. An out. Chains had to have a key. And what better key than the Cult who hated Amon most? Only a scion of Morgan can free a Scholar. Barnabas knew, as the Fratriarch. Knew that when he laid his knife against Cassandra's chains, they would melt away. And Alexander must know, because he was the one who bound the rite to begin with.
And when Alexander learned that some secret of the Betrayal, some clue as to the assassin's true name, had fallen into the hands of the Cult of Morgan? What panic that must have caused. What fear. What desperation. Desperation enough to kidnap his brother's Living Sword, torture him, murder him. And when he learned that the archive had escaped his grasp, in the hands of the last Paladin and her Scholar companion…
That was the joke of it. Our greatest enemy had been our only ally. Every little thing Alexander did to undercut the Cult of Morgan during these past centuries-the civilian army, the protection of the Amonites, the factories that churned out rifles and bombs and fighting machines that made our glorious charges, our swords and our martial skill… made those things we held most holy irrelevant on the battlefield. I had always mistrusted Alexander, because I felt he humored us, coddled us. In fact, he had smothered us, one strength at a time, one recruit at a time. Until the time came when there weren't enough of us to oppose him. And then he struck. Declared us apostate, whipped up the populace against us, took our Elders captive and put them on trial.
It didn't matter that I knew the truth of it. No one would believe me. No one would trust a scion of the Warrior again, especially not in opposition to Alexander. The godking.
I stood, my chest rearranging itself, the blood flowing fresh down my legs and arms. Such a damn mess, Eva. You're just all screwed up. You can't go to the city now, and tell them all about the lies of Alexander and the true betrayal. It was up to someone else, now. It would have to be the Amonites who told the truth.
All I could do was let them go.
I raised my sword and stepped to the coffin. No invokation, no glory of the fallen church of the Warrior. Nothing but a ritual being broken. I brought the blade down, and it struck deep into the helix of chains that twisted around the Scholar's charred body. Metal parted like silk, the pattern of its orbit disrupted. I looped several bands of it around my sword, drew tight the tension of bonds, and then pulled back. The full length of the blade rasped through the metal and then they let go of their ancient station, with a sigh, with a clatter. The chains fell to the floor.
I stumbled back, weakened by blood loss and off balance from the blade. What would Barnabas think of his student, barely able to hold her weapon over her head? As if I were a child. As if I were weak. I went to one knee, holding myself up with the sword, tip biting deep into the pebbled floor.
Amon opened his eyes and looked at me.
'I will need champions,' he said. His voice sounded like tombs speaking.
'I am bound to Morgan,' I answered feebly.
'Morgan is dead,' he said, then stood. His skin creaked like unkempt leather. He stood before me in the mutilation of his nakedness, and held a hand out to me. 'And I am not. Stand as my champion.'
'I am bound.' I looked up at him, faint in head, weak of heart. 'But I will fight for you, in what time I have left.'
'That is enough.' He breathed in deeply, then opened his mouth and let out a long, even breath that smelled of spiced meat and hot stones. The pebbled floor around my knees flaked and then rose. The shards drove into my flesh, sealing the wounds and patching the damage, but at such a cost. I jumped to my feet, panting and mewling in pain. The sword spun from my hands. When the pain stopped I was filled with a heavy coldness that touched my bones and weighed me down. Again I fell to my knees, my hands, gasping for air.
'You have paid the price of Amon,' he said. 'If only in part. As for my champion, I will find another. Another…'
He was still for a moment, then cocked his head to the ceiling.
'Or another will find me. Yes.' Arms out, palms up. 'A Champion of Amon.'
The room shivered, but that might have been all the new rock in my gut. I was having trouble focusing. He inhaled deeply several more times, his breath curling out in oily wisps. Eyes closed, and then he turned to me. 'I thought you were her, but you are not. The girl who found me, who touched my mind. Her spirit is in turmoil, but I have made repairs. It is done. Stand, let us rise to settle our scores.'
'You're damned crazy,' I spat.
'I have been bound in a tomb of my own making, held in perpetual sacrifice to the glory of my murderer.' He set his feet in the center of the chamber and raised his arms. 'Perhaps madness is the price of that. Rise!'
I didn't get the chance. The air shimmered around him, and a pulse of energy washed out from his lungs and pushed through the building. Everything shifted, and a sky of dust shook loose from the walls to hang in the air. The world groaned at our waking. The room pitched, and then we tore free.
The whole building was rising, rising, ripped from the bottom of the lake and rising to the city above. I looked at Amon and saw perfect calm there, perfect calculation. Perfect rage.
What had I done?
* * *
It began as a tide. The dark waters that slapped against the docks on the inner shore of Ash swelled against the pylons. Fishermen and watch captains noted the difference, and peered out into the artificial bay. That swelling became a tumult, and then water was rushing over the side of the city in a white-capped rush. Boats that were near the shore beached against cobbled streets. The new tide cracked open the glass shells of the closest buildings, washing through them in a wave of shattered windows and furniture and screaming citizens. Sirens sounded all across the waterfront, a droning wail that mingled with terror and shock and breaking glass. Deep in the city the domestic canals rushed their banks. The current flashed against bridges and walkways in a furious white foam.
At the center of the bay, a dome of dark water was rising, the disturbance sloughing off new currents. In a fury of foam and displaced depths, something white and massive broke the surface and rose, rose, burst from the lake and then settled into it. It trailed tendrils like netting, like a great fish torn free from a fisher's snare. It was a complicated object, like a deck of shells that had been poorly shuffled.
As the fishermen and the watch captains and ordinary citizens of Ash stared, the huddled structure began to shift and blossom. The overlapping leaves slid together, water still cascading off their grooved surfaces, some of them diving back into the lake as they shifted aside, others bursting from the water in a rainbow-laced spray.
The new island opened at the top like a flower opening to the sun. It was full of light. The inner workings of the island splintered apart, tumbling into the water like a discarded carapace. From the distance of the city, it looked like whole buildings were being turned inside out and disgorged into the lake. Another wave rose up to crash against the city.
From the new opening rose a figure. Telescopes and gunsights snapped to him all along the shore. Black, mostly naked, only the barest armor covering him and that looked to be made of charred wood. On his back he wore a wide, flat disk that silhouetted his upper body. The disk was of beaten brass, slightly elongated, and had some sort of aura filtering along its edge, like a blade that had been heated in the forge, distorting the air.
He rose above the building, above the lake, above the heights of the city. Arms spread wide, legs extended like a swimmer, he rose and the city watched him. Afraid. Unsure. Even the sirens quieted as their attendants left their stations to watch the spectacle.
