The flat, explosive crack of the rifle, a sound never before heard in Evrenfels, rang out across the city, echoing through the streets, bringing those few who had found an uneasy slumber upright and staring in their beds.
Brenna, nearing the top of the chimney, able to see nothing but the curved brick wall in front of her nose, flinched, but kept climbing, as did Karl, close beneath her.
Only Falk, looking almost directly at it, Mother Northwind, invisible behind him and at that very instant reaching up to touch him, and one or two of the guards actually saw the flash of yellow flame from the barrel of the rifle. It lit the underside of the airship’s envelope and Anton’s pale face for just an instant, suddenly revealing the presence of the flying machine and making the guards who saw it wonder how they could have failed to see it earlier.
Falk had no time to wonder anything of the sort, no time even to realize that Anton had returned, because before his eyes had finished registering the flash the spinning lead ball expelled by the rifle ripped through his throat in an explosion of blood and tissue, almost severing his head from his shoulders.
Falk’s crossbow fired as his hand tightened reflexively, the bolt zipping past Karl and striking sparks off the curve of the chimney before ricocheting off into empty darkness.
Mother Northwind had just laid her hand on Falk’s back, letting the invisibility fall away as she reached for his mind… but even as she touched it, that mind vanished, and in the same instant the rifle ball, barely slowed by its passage through Falk’s neck and continuing on its sharply descending path, smashed her shoulder in a second spray of blood, spinning her around to fall facedown on the cobblestone.
Still not spent, the ball ricocheted off the cobblestones and followed the crossbow into darkness, terrifying a cowering Mageborn baker in his room an instant later by punching a hole through his window and burying itself in a the beam over his bed.
Mother Northwind, her mind a haze of pain and shock, realized she was bleeding badly. She gathered her waning strength together, tried to Heal herself…
… and failed. She had nothing left. Even the energy from her restoratives had fled, sucked away as her magic had been pulled from her into Falk’s dying brain. All she could hope to do was staunch her own bleeding, buy herself a little more time, hold on until the guards found her and brought another Healer…
She managed to heave herself over onto her back, crying out with the pain and effort, then lay there, desperately trying to hold her torn tissues together with the last of her waning strength, staring up at the chimney.
She heard another sound new to her, then, a throbbing, chopping roar, as the propeller on the airship, now visible as a dim bulk almost directly on top of the chimney, came to life. The airship swung around and faced into the wind, descending as it did so, until the gondola touched the chimney. She watched as first Brenna, then Karl, climbed the rope ladder into the gondola… and watched as the frustrated guard just below Karl foolishly hurled magic upward, only to fall screaming as the blast intended to strike down the airship ripped him from the chimney and hurled him away. He disappeared behind the buildings, but the wet crunching sound he made when he struck the cobblestones carried clearly.
The next guard, smarter, reached for the crossbow at his belt, and raised it… but Anton leaned out of the gondola with something small in his own hand. There was another flash of yellow light, another of those strange, sharp cracks, and the second guard fell from the ladder with most of his head missing.
There was no one else close enough to even attempt to stop the airship as its burner roared to life and it lifted into the night sky, illuminated from within like a giant blue lantern. It made a wide, sweeping turn, and then headed west…
… back to the Great Barrier.
The Magebane still lives, Mother Northwind thought. Brenna still lives. My Plan still lives…
… but if she did not get a Healer soon, she no longer would.
I will hold on, she vowed grimly. I will hold on. The Barrier must fall. Falk is dead, but the MageLords still rule. I will not die until I see them overthrown!
She closed her eyes, drew on every last bit of her fading inner strength, and concentrated on not bleeding to death, as, at last, she heard boots pounding across the cobblestones toward her and Falk.
Brenna couldn’t believe it when the airship suddenly appeared above her, even closer than it had been that day on the hillside above Falk’s manor when it had first roared over her head. Its propeller chopping the air, it turned. The gondola bumped up against the chimney. A moment later a rope ladder appeared over the side, and she saw Anton’s face, ghostly in the dim light from the city streets. “Get in!” he cried. The rope ladder danced just to the right of the metal one she’d climbed; she managed to snag it with one hand, then held on to it while keeping her feet on the last few rungs of the metal ladder before transferring herself entirely to the rope one. The gondola sank a few feet as she climbed aboard. Karl, as always, was right behind her. He was just clambering over the edge when blue light flashed. Someone screamed down below, but whatever the spell had been, it had left them untouched.
Anton, pulling up the rope ladder, yelped, dropped the ladder again, and from his belt grabbed a strange metal object, a short tube projecting from some kind of handle. He pointed it over the side, and there was a flash of light accompanied by an enormously loud bang that made Brenna flinch and clap her hands over her ears. Then Anton spun back into the gondola and cranked the lever that fired the burner. Yellow-and-blue flame exploded upward into the envelope, the heat searing her face, and almost at once they began to rise. Letting the burner roar, Anton reached for another lever, and the propeller at the back of the gondola began to spin twice as fast, adding its own throbbing beat to the noise in the gondola and making it quite impossible to talk.
Not that Brenna had anything to say. She huddled in the gondola, knees pulled to her chest, arm wrapped around them, and shook… in reaction to everything that had just happened, because she was cold, because the strain in her arms and legs had been relieved, because.. .
She didn’t know all the reasons. But she trembled just the same.
Karl crawled over to her, put his arm around her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said. Then, “No.” And suddenly she found herself weeping, and turned and buried her head in Karl’s shoulder.
Karl felt a bit like weeping himself, but he held Brenna close, trying to warm her trembling body and provide what comfort he could. .. all the while aware of Anton watching the two of them with a stony face. He wanted to assure the Outsider that this wasn’t what it looked like, that he and Brenna weren’t…
… but then he thought, To hell with that, and put his other arm around her for good measure.
So, Anton thought, looking at Karl embracing the weeping Brenna. It’s like that. I should have let Falk kill him.
He almost meant it.
Well, time enough for him to beat Karl to a pulp later. The important thing now was to get all three of them out of this accursed Kingdom and into the safety of the Outside.
Through the cold, clear night, with only a light westerly breeze to fight, the airship flew steadily toward the Anomaly.
Davydd Verdsmitt had been confident the King would agree to see anyone who arrived at his doorstep with that ring. He wasn’t disappointed-although the secretary certainly seemed to be, giving Verdsmitt a sour look as he ushered him through the big doors into the inner sanctum of the King’s sanctuary.
Verdsmitt had never been there. Few MageLords had, Falk and Lord Athol… Verdsmitt never allowed himself to think of the Prime Adviser as his father… being the obvious exceptions. The King was reclusive, disengaged, hedonistic… it was no secret to anyone that he had frittered most of his reign away on his own pleasures, leaving the sordid business of the actual running of the kingdom to Athol, Falk, and the rest of the Council.
Not that the Kingdom would have been any better off to have Kravon fully engaged with it, Verdsmitt thought bitterly.
He’d loved Kravon once. Now he hated him. But he suspected even if the love had continued and they had remained together, he would not be blind to Kravon’s deficiencies. Kravon could be funny and charming; he could have been a professional clavierist had he not been the Heir, and his artistic ability with pen and ink and brush and paint was every bit as notable. But he was totally unsuited to running the Kingdom… or even his own household, a task he left to men like the secretary.
Had he kept me by his side, I could have helped him, Verdsmitt thought. Together we could have reformed the Kingdom, brought the Commoners properly into the government, made it a fairer and freer land…
… but instead, it’s rotten, from the core on out, and the only thing to do is throw it, Palace and Barriers and MageLords and all, onto the garbage heap of history.
Whether what he intended to do would accomplish that, he didn’t know. He knew Brenna and the Prince were probably together somewhere. Would they know what to do when the moment came? He couldn’t count on it.
But this was his chance. There would be no other. And really, he thought as he walked down a long white-walled hallway carpeted in thick red plush that swallowed the sound of his footsteps, so that it almost seemed he glided magically toward the audience chamber, what did it matter to him one way or the other? He would have had his revenge.
He had already died once, as Calibon, son of Lord Athol. Now he would die a second time, as Davydd Verdsmitt, the most notable playwright of his age.
His lip quirked. It almost made him regret his impending death, thinking what a juicy ending it would make to his autobiography, which he would now never have the opportunity to write.
He had reached the gilded door of the audience room. The secretary, face as pinched as though he’d eaten a chokecherry, opened the door and ushered him in.
The small room was comfortably furnished with a fireplace, two chairs, and a table between them on which sat a steaming silver teapot, two dainty white cups trimmed with gold, and a plate of round pink objects that Verdsmitt could tell just by looking were mostly sugar.
Two Royal guards stood at attention on either side of the fireplace, rather like overgrown bookends.
“You may wait here,” the secretary said, pointing Verdsmitt to one of the chairs. “His Majesty will attend you presently. Please help yourself to refreshments.”
The secretary went out, closing the doors behind him. The two guards ignored him. He sighed and reached for one of the pink trifles, expecting a long wait; but in fact he had barely popped the dainty trifle into his mouth (and it was every bit as sweet as he had expected) before King Kravon entered the room through a door opposite the one through which Verdsmitt had come.
Aware of the guards, Verdsmitt got to his feet and bowed his head. “Your Majesty,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Kravon looked very different from the boy Verdsmitt remembered. Years of soft living and pleasure had taken their toll. While Verdsmitt, hardened by life on the stage and in the Commons, remained almost as slim as he had been at sixteen, Kravon had… expanded. His stomach strained at the buttons of his scarlet waistcoat, his calves bulged in white tights above soft black indoor boots. The golden belt he wore seemed barely big enough to contain his ample belly. He had three chins, his hair was mostly gone, and what little was left was liberally streaked with gray.
He looked twenty years older than Verdsmitt, twenty years older than he should have looked, and Verdsmitt felt a renewed surge of hatred at the way he had let himself deteriorate, as though the bulging middle-aged man in front of him had somehow murdered the boy he had once loved.
But, no-that boy had voluntarily turned into this loathsome creature.
In a small corner of his mind, Verdsmitt wondered at the depth of his hatred, after so many years, wondered why it seemed so fresh and ever-renewing, as though it didn’t spring from himself alone, but from somewhere outside…
… but that small, questioning voice drowned in new waves of gut-wrenching loathing.
It was all he could do not to kill the King there and then, but he wanted Kravon to know who was killing him. He would wait just a few moments longer.
“Yes, yes,” the King said, waving his hand airily. “Sit down, sit down.” He plopped himself into the other chair and Verdsmitt resumed his place in his own. “Stelp told me of this ring you carry. Show it to me.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Verdsmitt reached inside his own plain black vest and drew out the ring from the inner pocket. He handed it to Kravon.
The King, who had filled the empty moment by stuffing one of the pink trifles into his mouth, took it. “ ’Straordinary,” he mumbled, mouth full. “Fellow this belonged to is dead. Thought this went to the bottom of the lake with him. Where did you find it?”
“I didn’t ‘find’ it, Kravon,” Verdsmitt said, and his deliberate familiarity made the King’s head jerk up as though hearing his voice for the first time. “I’ve always had it… since the day you gave it to me, and pledged we would be together forever… just weeks before you renounced and denounced me and left me to ridicule and ruin.”
The King’s eyes widened. “Calibon?” he breathed. “SkyMage, it is you!” And then he turned white. “Guards!” he shouted, shoving his chair back, stumbling to his feet. “Arrest-”
It’s a pity we didn’t get to chat more, Verdsmitt thought in that last instant, as the guards, moving, to his eyes, as slowly as insects caught in tree sap, began to draw their swords and lurch toward him. It would have been nice to know what he thought of my plays.
Ah, well.
He reached out with his will. Kravon screamed as the ring in his fist turned searingly cold, but he had barely begun to open his fingers before he and everything else were blotted out in an enormous explosion of blue fire.
Anton, looking west, saw the flash reflected on the bottom of the envelope above him, and on the gleaming surfaces of the brass-bound burner and propeller controls. He shot a look over his shoulder, but could see nothing amiss.
Down in the bottom of the gondola, Brenna didn’t even notice the flash. But she felt the magical blast that had just killed the King deep in her bones-deeper, in fact, in the very pit of her soul, a searing wave of agony that ripped through her like wildfire through dry grass. She stiffened, her head snapping back against the wicker of the gondola, breath whooshing out of her in one wordless cry of pain and terror, turning instantly to a cloud of white in the icy air.
Karl, holding her, felt her shudder in his arms, saw her head jerk back, saw her breath explode out of her… and not resume. “She’s not breathing!” he screamed. “She’s not-”
He could think of nothing else to do. He pulled her rigid body closer, put his mouth on hers to share his breath with her…
Anton heard Brenna’s grunting cry, then Karl’s shout. He tied off the tiller, surged around it to help Brenna…
… and skidded to a stop so suddenly his feet slid out from under him and he fell hard on his rear end. He barely noticed.
Karl and Brenna were locked in a kiss, both unmoving, and around them the air glowed blue.
The glow waxed second by second, brighter and brighter. Streamers of blue flame, burning nothing, poured across the night sky toward the airship, passing through the wicker of the gondola, through the envelope, through him, he realized with horror as he looked down, pouring soundlessly, faster and faster, into Brenna, into Karl…
Anton had to shield his eyes, unable to face the light, now as bright as the sun and getting brighter. He closed his eyes but still the light blinded him, turned and pressed his head into his gloved hands and could still see it, threw his whole arm across his eyes and could still see it…
… and then, like a candle being snuffed, it vanished.
Anton raised watering eyes. The yellow glow of the steering lantern now seemed only a feeble spark, but it was enough for him to see Brenna and Karl, still locked together… and then to see Karl jerk straight and push himself away from Brenna, gasping for air. Brenna slumped to the bottom of the gondola and fell over on her side, limp and lifeless as a rag doll.
“No!” Anton cried, and lunged forward. He pushed the stunned and unprotesting Karl out of the way and rolled Brenna over onto her back. She still wasn’t breathing, but when he put his fingers to her neck he could feel her pulse, slow, weak, weakening…
He pulled her head back, pinched her nostrils, began giving her his own breath as Karl had begun to do moments, or ages, before. In. .. out… turning to watch the rise and fall of her chest…
… and then, suddenly, she coughed, gulped air, and started to choke.
He rolled her over on her side just as she spewed watery, yellowish, foul-smelling liquid across the bottom of the gondola. Karl scrambled back further to avoid it; Anton ignored it, but rolled her onto her back again… and was rewarded with her eyes opening. She blinked at him. “Anton?” she asked. “Are we safely away from the manor?” And then she frowned. “No… that was a long time ago… I…” She closed her eyes. “I’m confused,” she mumbled, and then she slept, but now her breathing was normal and her color was good, and Anton leaned back from her with relief.
Karl seemed to be slowly coming around, as well. “What… what happened?” he said. “Brenna… I tried to help her breathe, and then… light…” He shook his head. “I don’t…” And then his eyes widened. “Or…” He scrambled up, looked behind them at the fading yellow glow of New Cabora. “We have to go back.”
Anton gaped at him. “Are you crazy? They tried to kill you!”
“ Falk tried to kill us,” Karl said. “Falk’s dead. You shot him yourself.”
“Mother Northwind isn’t,” Anton said.
Karl shook his head. “Mother Northwind has no use for us anymore,” he said. “What she wanted us to do, we just did.”
It was Anton’s turn to stare. “You mean… that was the Keys? The King died, the Keys came to Brenna, and you…?”
“Do you have any other explanation?” Karl demanded.
Anton barked a laugh. “I didn’t even believe in magic two weeks ago. Of course I don’t have an explanation.”
“Take us back,” Karl insisted again. “We don’t have to land if there’s danger. They can’t do anything to us up here, even with magic, not while I’m aboard… take us back. We have to know.”
Anton glanced at Brenna. “All right,” he said. “We’ll go back.” He returned to the wheel, untied it, and spun it to bring the lumbering airship slowly around to head east again. He killed the engine, so they once more drifted with the wind. “Running short on fuel,” he explained. “And better for sneaking up on things.”
He aimed the airship’s prow toward the yellow glow of New Cabora. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Mother Northwind, holding onto life with all of her dwindling strength as the guards above her called for a Healer, did not see the blue flash that signaled the death of the King. But moments later, as the Keys attempted to transfer to the Heir, only to encounter the magic-killing force of the Magebane, she felt the surge of magic all around her as the intricate web of power built by the long-gone architects of Evrenfels was ripped apart.
Magic poured out of the guards, the MageLords in the Palace, the Mageborn in the enclave within the Barrier and the gated neighborhoods in New Cabora, in the Colleges in Berriton, in towns and villages all over the Kingdom. Mother Northwind could feel that magic rushing toward Brenna, as the Keys, as they had been designed to do, reached out for all the available power, attempting to accomplish a task suddenly made impossible.
A guard had been kneeling over her, holding a cloth to her shattered shoulder, trying to staunch the blood. He stiffened, gave an audible groan, and fell forward across her body, a heavy weight that made it even harder to breathe than it had been…
… but, she realized as she heard the clatter of armored Mageborn guards fainting throughout the Square, she wouldn’t need to breathe much longer.
She had always thought soft magic would survive the destruction of the Keys, and perhaps it would; she could still feel inside her the power she used to twist men’s minds into doing her will.
But Healing had always been intertwined with hard magic. Realigning bones, relieving pressure on nerves, excising tumors-all were exercises in the manipulation of matter and energy, just as the Lesser and Great Barrier were, however much smaller in scale.
And so, too, was the stopping of bleeding.
As she felt both her magic and her lifeblood pouring out of her, as a final, fading roar filled her ears, Mother Northwind’s last thought was for the Minik.
I wish I could be there when they discover the Wall of Tears is gone, she thought. I wish…
It was her last wish, and her last thought.