Deosil, page 17
We’d struggled so long and so hard, but at that moment it all felt futile. I’d asked for none of this. I wished the masters had never come to this world. That the Fideles had never risen. That the maelstrom had never been created.
“Come to me.”
“I’m coming, you bastard,” I whispered under my breath. My body still ached from my earlier channeling of power, but that didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.
I’d never wanted this fight. But by God, I meant to win it, or die trying.
I stretched out my arm and took Persephone’s hand in mine. And the arcane fire poured through us both.
Chapter 35
Griffin
The twins lit up like flares in my shadowsight. Wind whipped suddenly down the street, and frost spread across the stones where they stepped.
Mr. Quinn watched avidly, his hands clasped to his chest. “And the town will rise to their hands,” he said. And, though the line wasn’t as I’d first heard it so long ago in the prophecy, the town did rise.
The twins began to walk, their steps in perfect sync, and the world lit up around them. Arcane fire infused the stones of the street, the houses, and throbbed in the very air. Lumina swooped down from the night sky, only to be blasted apart by lightning. Nereids raced at us, and the cobblestones rippled like water, sucking them down into the earth. Persephone’s tentacle hair fanned out around her head, and Whyborne’s locks stood on end. The smell of sea and ozone drove back the stink of death.
Maggie and I ran after them, and the rest followed us. “What happened in the museum?”
I kept my eyes fixed on Whyborne and Persephone. I didn’t want to answer her, didn’t want to think about the bleeding wound in my heart. I loved Christine, and Iskander had been a brother to me. He’d been so excited about becoming a father, and I’d let myself dream of playing with their child, watching it grow.
And now it was all gone, dreams turned to ash.
Even as I told Maggie what had happened, in as few bleak words as possible, I felt a new fear growing in my heart. Ival and Persephone were spending power recklessly, and though the capacity of the maelstrom was infinite, their ability to channel it through their very mortal bodies was not. He’d already been stumbling, and that had been before the fight with the hadrosaur.
They might collapse before they reached the bridge. Or—and my heart stuttered at the thought—they might burn up, scoured from the inside by the enormous power of the great vortex.
As we drew nearer to the waterfront, we came at last to the fighting. Ketoi boiled from the river, swarming up the bank, across the fronts of houses, battling nereids and cultists alike. The police and the old families stood side-to-side on the streets, while overhead umbrae and lumina battled in the sky. Mr. Quinn climbed atop an overturned omnibus, his book held high like a banner.
“To arms, Widdershins!” he shouted. “Rise up and fight! Fight for your home! Fight for your families! Fight for your lives!”
“For Widdershins!” I shouted, and those around me took up the cry, until it became a roar. “For Widdershins!”
In the midst of it all, the twins burned. The very stones of the town responded to them, the ocean smashed nereids against the rocks, and currents of wind tore lumina from the sky.
The Fideles barring the bridge wavered, and first one fled, then another. One of their lieutenants, some underling of Mrs. Creigh, fought to rally them. “Stand your ground! The masters draw near! Hold fast, and the cities of the world will be yours to rule!”
I slashed one Hound, then skewered another as it emerged through the Veil. The ketoi in the river swarmed up the pylons, even as our army of the land closed in to either side of the bridge. More and more cultists broke and fled. Some threw down their weapons, and others leapt into the water, preferring to take their chances with the ketoi than with the twins.
The river churned, whether from the ketoi or magic, or both, and the wind whipped my hair, first from one side, then the other. Blood and ichor spattered my face, and my mouth tasted of iron. As the ranks of the enemy crumbled, I sprinted past the stragglers, striving to stay close to Whyborne and Persephone.
How long they could keep channeling the arcane fire, I didn’t know. And surely it would take something out of them to seal the Veil before the masters could breach it. If they reached the point of collapse, I wanted to be close enough to render aid.
And if their hearts gave out, or their bodies burned…
They stopped. Without exchanging a word, they each took one end of the bronze bar, and lifted the seal high over their heads. And the magic pouring through them began to flow into it.
Chapter 36
Whyborne
There was no part of me that didn’t hurt. There was no part of Persephone that didn’t hurt, either. I could feel my sister, just as I’d sensed her in the Draakenwood, as though we shared the same nerves. Our hearts labored, and the taste of burning copper filled our mouths. The only thing keeping us on our feet now was the same blaze of power that threatened to overwhelm us.
But we had made it.
I could sense the pressure on the Veil, as if reality were an over-filled balloon, ready to burst. Something enormous loomed just before us, separated only by the thin skin of our world. The earth rotated, and the stars spun, and beneath our feet the great maelstrom turned eternally widdershins.
We lifted the seal, and it came to life at our touch. The priests had crafted it four-thousand years ago, to hold back Nephren-ka both physically and magically. The images of the two ka, of the heart on the scale, began to glow as we funneled arcane power into it. We let go, and it floated in the air, slowly rotating to show first one side, then the other.
Otherwise, nothing happened. The Veil felt no stronger than it had a minute ago.
Panic touched me. Were we doing something wrong?
Perhaps it simply required more magic.
I’d already let down every barrier to join with Persephone, but perhaps we could become even more of a conduit. I tried to release every thought, all the fear and the hope and the rage and the grief, and let the magic flow through me and into the seal. The scars on my arm and on Persephone’s face began to bleed, and I couldn’t seem to get enough breath. My pulse stuttered, grew slower, then faster, then stumbled again.
It made no difference. On the very edge of the horizon, Sirius crept into the sky like a distant, burning eye.
A howl of rage and despair joined the magic, ringing through us, tearing our throats. A huge beam of light erupted from the eye of the maelstrom, hurling us back. Persephone’s hand was torn from mine, and I fetched up against the iron rail.
“Ival!” Griffin’s hand closed on my bloody one, and I cried out weakly. I couldn’t run; I couldn’t even stand. Mr. Quinn joined him, and between them they heaved me to my feet. Father and Miss Parkhurst had gotten Persephone up, but like me, she was spent. Her tendrils hung limp, and blood ran down her face from her scars.
My own shirt was sodden, and the bite on my left wrist had begun to bleed again as well. Griffin’s touch felt like fire against my skin, and tremors wracked my muscles. It distantly occurred to me that I might be dying.
If I was, then Nyarlathotep had indeed been lying. Because we hadn’t won.
The sky split open, and reality tore like a painted backdrop. Even as Griffin and Mr. Quinn dragged me back, something stepped through from the Outside and into our world.
Griffin began to scream.
Chapter 37
Griffin
The things that stepped through the Veil defied all description. They blazed in my shadowsight, much as Whyborne and Persephone had. But whereas my gift showed me the hidden beauty within the twins, in this case it revealed horror beyond my ability to comprehend.
Perspective became meaningless. The masters were enormous—then my eyes shifted, and they were the size of a human. I couldn’t tell if they were near, or far, or somehow both at once. They had things that were eyes, and appendages, and faces—and yet were absolutely not any of those things at all.
They were madness incarnate, and my brain could not encompass the sight of them.
My throat ached, and I became aware I was screaming at the sight. Hands gripped me, and Ival’s weight nearly dragged me down. “Griffin!” he shouted. “Griffin, what do you see?”
I couldn’t tell him. The masters were simply too alien to any kind of earthly life. I could only scream and weep.
I wasn’t the only one screaming, though no one else could have beheld them the way I did. Still, whatever the Fideles had expected the masters to look like, it couldn’t have been this.
Then the light of the maelstrom rose up and closed around the two figures, shielding them from my view. I caught my breath on a sob, my mind reeling. I blinked, then blinked again, as they settled into the masks they used when dealing with earthly life.
The forms they chose were human-like, though utterly androgynous. Both towered above us, easily fifteen feet tall, and every inch of them was as white as plaster, without pore or flaw. One had webbed feet and fins, and the other seemed more suited to walk the land.
Comprehension began to seep back into my bruised mind. The seal hadn’t worked. We hadn’t succeeded in keeping them out, and we had no weapon with which to fight them.
We had failed, and the world was doomed.
Ival clung to me, and I to him. His skin was worryingly cold, and he was bleeding badly, but at least he seemed able to keep his feet for the moment. “I’m sorry, Griffin,” he whispered. “We tried. I must have made a mistake, must have misunderstood…”
I pressed my lips into his hair. “It isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”
“At last,” one of the cultists called, his hoarse voice filled with glee. “Welcome home, masters. We the Faithful have awaited your return.”
He bowed before them, and the remnants of the Fideles rushed to do the same. Would their reward be worth the cost, even to them? But no cost must have seemed too high, for I glimpsed smiles on the faces of those who had removed their masks. Like the Brotherhood before them, they were ready to sell the world to ensure their own power.
“And yet you have failed us,” the Master of the Sea said. It didn’t speak in English—I wasn’t sure if it spoke at all, or if the words simply imprinted themselves directly on my brain. Its human-like mouth curled into an expression of disgust.
The smiles dropped from the faces of the Fideles. Their leader straightened. “These rebels have caused trouble from the moment the Beacon was sent, but they were unable to prevent your return. We have served you faithfully, and—”
“Failed the Restoration.” The burning eyes of the Master of the Land swept across the waterfront. The stunned armies, the smoking buildings, the blood and misery and death. “We expected to return to a world restored to the order it was meant to have. To take our places as the sole rulers of this world, this dimension.”
“Instead we return to this chaos.” The other master spoke as if the word were the vilest oath imaginable. “And you try to claim it as success?”
The Master of the Land shook its head. “I suppose we’ll just have to deal with this mess ourselves.”
It stretched out a hand tipped with sharp nails. The power of the maelstrom surged through it, shooting out of its palm in a beam of pure arcane energy.
The beam fell on the leader of the Fideles. He began to scream, thrashing madly as the magic burned him from within. His eyes glowed blue, and then he began to crumble, clothing flaking away into ash along with his body, until nothing remained.
Oh God. How were we to fight such power?
Ival straightened, then took a staggering step toward the masters. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Persephone do the same, shaking off Maggie’s hands. “Run,” Persephone grated. “Run, and we’ll hold them off for as long as we can.”
It was absurd—they could barely even stand up—but so like them both. I drew my sword cane and firmed my stance, because there would be no more running. No more retreat. Everything would come to an end here.
Persephone’s movement caught the attention of the masters. “What do we have here?” one asked.
The other cocked its head. “These must be the pale imitations Nyarlathotep told us about. What do you think the maelstrom meant, creating these little mockeries?”
As it spoke, it reached out a hand toward Whyborne, like a child reaching for a doll. “No!” I shouted. “Don’t touch him!”
How I meant to stop such a creature, I didn’t know. I only knew that I had to put myself between him and the beings that would surely destroy him. But even as I moved, the master withdrew its hand and rose. “Enough of this,” it said, and spread out its arms.
The other mirrored its movement. “Agreed.”
Before any of us had time to react, thousands of thin, needle-like shards shot out from the masters. My skin stung as some of them struck me, and I flung up my arm to protect my eyes.
“Griffin!” Ival reached for me, his eyes wild. Though it was hard to tell, I didn’t think any of the slivers, whatever they were, had struck him. Then again, he was covered in so much blood it was hard to tell.
One of the glowing needles had buried itself in the back of my hand. I started to pick it out, then froze, as the shine of magic flowed down from it and into my own body, leaving behind an empty, glass-like sliver.
No.
I glanced wildly about. The masters’ reach was far, and almost everyone in sight had been struck by the slivers. Whyborne made a choked sound, and I turned to see him staring at my hand.
Above us, the umbrae began to glow. The ketoi in the river and on the banks changed, their hair becoming spikes, their colorful swirls vanishing as they transformed into nereids. And the skin on my hand took on a familiar waxen texture.
I had been hit multiple times. Even as the magic flowed through me like poison, I found myself surprised that it didn’t hurt.
Nothing hurt, actually. I had been angry about something…or perhaps I’d been grieving?
The very concept of grief felt alien. As did joy. Love and hate were simply words.
I had been broken and put back together. But now, I no longer had to worry about society’s censure. I would never again have a nightmare, or even a dream, for that matter.
I’d spent my life struggling to be what those around me most wanted me to be. But the struggle was over now.
I was finally Perfect.
“Griffin?” said the man in front of me. He seemed familiar; perhaps I had once passed him on the street. “Do you still know me? It’s Ival.”
“Who?”
Chapter 38
Whyborne
I couldn’t move, my limbs gone numb with shock. Griffin stood before me, his question hanging on the air.
But it wasn’t Griffin, or not the Griffin I knew. The freckles I loved were wiped away, and his eyes were a pure, unearthly green, untainted by threads of blue and russet. All of the tiny imperfections I’d never even truly noticed were fixed: his nose ruler straight, mouth perfectly aligned rather than tugging slightly to one side, the weathering of sun and wind banished. Everything that had given his face character and life was simply…gone.
“No,” Persephone moaned. “Maggie, please. Look at me.”
This was the cost of our failure. My failure. It had been up to me to translate the Codex, to find the answers that would save us. I had misread, or misunderstood, and this was the result.
My town lost. My husband a transformed stranger. My family, my friends, still here and yet gone in every way that mattered.
“Much better,” said the Master of the Land with an air of satisfaction. “Now, find any others who have escaped and bring them to us.”
“And the rest of you, clean up this mess,” the Master of the Sea added.
Persephone spun on them with a snarl. Or, rather, she tried to. But her frog-like feet tangled, and she stumbled. I caught her on my shoulder, and we leaned heavily on one another.
We were both dying. We could channel the arcane fire as no one else, but even we had our limits. Limits which we’d surpassed, and for which we now paid the price.
The attention of the masters turned again to us. It had an almost palpable weight, and it was everything I could do not to collapse beneath it. I saw myself as they saw me: tiny, insignificant, meaningless. They had traveled through vast dimensions, seen things I could not imagine, lived for eons.
I was nothing to them. Dust, and less than dust.
So close, the masters radiated cold. They were something more than ice, more than any winter. Their cold was that of the empty places between the stars, the absolute stillness waiting at the end of the universe, when all else dies.
Even masked as something that could walk among the creatures of the earth, they were terrible. Perfect, and pale—and evil, because they could look at my town and my love and my friends, and see something that needed to be remade to fit their desires.
The Master of the Sea shook its head in disgust. “They’re horrible. I don’t want to look at them anymore.”
“What about Nyarlathotep’s caution?” asked the other.
“We’re here, now. We’ve returned, and the maelstrom can do nothing more to thwart us. Whatever danger it foresaw has passed.”
“Then let’s not waste any more time.” The Master of the Land reached out to one of the lamp posts lining the bridge. The metal stretched and bent at its command, transforming to a jagged bolt of black steel.
On instinct, I put myself in front of Persephone. But she had no strength to flee, not that I believed for an instant she would. “You’ll never prevail,” I said, despite the evidence all around me.
