Fate’s Pawn

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

- Mark Landrunner, from the play War Star

The girl looked young, about the same age as Raziel and the others. She was painfully slender, nearly skeletal with long locks of blue-white hair that were plastered to her body by some kind of yellowish translucent ooze. She looked like she was sleeping or maybe dead.

“Where’s Mask?” Keira shouted.

Miles jumped and looked around before holding the light-shedding crystal higher. Raziel twisted, trying to find Mask. He saw Hoeru rushing to the egg girl’s side, wiping the goo off her face, and putting his head close to hers to see if she was breathing. Raziel looked around but didn’t see Mask anywhere.

The sharp grinding sound of a stone door opening scraped through his ears and down his spine. Mask was at the other end of the room, arms outstretched and trembling with the effort of opening the door. Darkness, blacker than black, rolled out in roiling coils. Mask turned back once before stepping into that darkness.

For a moment there was no sound; everyone stared in shock at the open door. Then there was a delicate popping sound and flash of light from somewhere near the base of the dais. The runes in the room burst into life again, twice as bright as before. Before anyone could say anything there was another pop and the runes glared brighter still.

“Oh no,” Miles said as another pop came, followed by another and another, the light burning brighter with each pop.

“What? What is it?” Raziel said.

“The egg. It’s disappearing, powering up the runes,” Miles said, looking around, shock clear on his face.

“Okay? Isn’t that good?”

“No. We need to leave. Now,” he said, scrambling to his feet.

“Why? Maybe we can stop Mask and lock him in there with whatever he was trying to help escape.”

“Look, the egg needed to be whole to power this place. Now that it’s gone the door is open. But whoever built it built in a failsafe. The eggshell obviously has a lot of stored power by itself. The runes are feeding on that power and it won’t be long before… Something happens.”

“What? Before what happens?”

“I have no idea!” Miles screamed, real panic finally breaking through his shock. He hefted his backpack and started running for the teleporter room. Raziel looked around at the others, at Kusa. The little spirit was still staring into the darkness that defied the ever growing light of the room.

“Come on. We’re going,” Raziel said, pulling Kusa to its feet. Keira and Roland nodded and started moving as well. Hoeru was still standing next to the girl. He’d taken off his shirt and covered her with it.

“Hoeru!” Raziel shouted. He jumped, looking dazedly at Raziel. “Grab her and come on!”

Hoeru nodded and picked the girl up. He, Raziel, and Kusa stumbled their way towards the circle. Miles was in the middle of the circle, jumping and slamming his feet on it.

“Work!” Miles screamed in frustration as he came down again and again, every line of his face stretched with panic.

“Oh god. That must be part of the failsafe,” Keira almost whispered. “We’re trapped.”

Kusa looked up at Raziel once they were in the room. Its eyes were aware again though Raziel could almost feel the weariness in them. It patted his hand in thanks and moved past him toward Miles. Miles’ was standing rigidly in the center of the circle, his glasses askew, muttering to himself rapidly.

Kusa stepped up to him, reached out, and lightly took his hand. Miles’ head jerked down to look, and Kusa motioned for him to step out of the circle. Miles practically sprinted to get out of the spirit’s way.

Kusa stood there for a moment, still as a statue, its head bowed almost as if in prayer. Then it reached out with a trembling hand and took hold of the air. It gripped and began to pull. Raziel saw the small muscles tense beneath the skin of its arm and shoulder as its whole body began to shake with the effort. He felt a pulse through the gem it had given him, growing stronger as Kusa strained. More blood oozed out from the little spirit’s wounds.

“Ku...sa…” it said through gritted teeth, and the air finally tore beneath his grip with a sound like ripping paper. The window in the air was ragged. On the other side Raziel saw the familiar roof of the hospital in Peritura. The moment the window opened, the acrid smell of smoke filled the air. In the distance beyond the roof, Raziel could see buildings illuminated by red firelight.

“What happened?” Keira asked in a breathless whisper.

“Can’t be worse than what’s about to happen here,” Miles said, pushing past her and jumping through the window.

Roland was the next closest and stepped through almost immediately after Miles.

Miles caught sight of something behind the window. His eyes went wide, and he screamed and threw himself to the ground. Roland didn’t bother to look; he just threw himself in the opposite direction and out of view.

A blast of fire erupted past the window. The heat seared Kusa’s fingers. The spirit gave out a choked shriek of pain and let go of the edge. Raziel grabbed for the edge of the window. His fingers closed on something that felt like a line of air blasting across his closed palm and fingers. He pulled against the window with all of his strength, trying desperately to hold it open and still felt it sliding shut. He caught a brief glimpse through the window and saw not the hospital’s roof but the courtyard of Dominic’s mansion.

“Go!” he shouted, feeling as though his arm was about to be pulled from its socket.

Hoeru, still carrying the girl from the egg, moved swiftly and ducked through. He carefully set the girl down and was turning to help Raziel keep the window open when the edge slipped out of his fingers.

Raziel fell. He heard Keira grunt with effort and looked up to see her standing at the midpoint of the window. Her arms were out in front of her, and he could see her slowly, arms quivering with the effort, forcing the window further open. When her arms were fully extended she looked at Raziel with annoyance.

“Go,” she grated out.

Raziel scrambled and maneuvered around her to get through the window. He thought there would be some sensation to going through, but the step that carried him miles away felt no different than any other. The moment he was through he knew they weren’t at Dominic’s, but there wasn’t time to get his bearings. The light from the runes was growing painful to his eyes. He reached out and grabbed hold of one side of the window again. It was even more difficult to hold now, but he had better footing.

“Come on. Quick,” he said to Keira.

She let go of the side he was holding and stepped through while pushing on the other side of the window. As she passed, Raziel had to squint against the light coming from the far room of the prison. The light was only there for a moment though. Raziel watched horrified as the darkness of the prison began to rush out like mist, devouring the light.

“Kusa. Come on!” Raziel said urgently, as the window began to force its way closed despite his and Keira’s combined efforts. The little spirit was looking back at the darkness, still as a statue.

“Kusa!” Raziel screamed.

The spirit twitched and turned back to him. The look on its face was not panicked or frightened. It gave Raziel a little smile and shook its head. Mask stepped out of the darkness, took a swift look around, and began running towards the teleportation room. Kusa reached up to its chest with one hand tapped the spot over its heart. It pointed at Raziel, smiled, and ran to meet Mask.

Raziel tried to drag the window open again, tried to squeeze through the hole, but it was already too small for him. Kusa was fighting Mask with all the power of a cornered animal, but behind them a shadow in the shape of a man stepped out of the darkness of the prison. Keira grabbed him, trying to pull his hands away. The shadow man reached out and tendrils of shade enveloped Kusa like a horde of black eels.

And then the hole was gone. Raziel waved his hand through the air, trying to find the edge that had been there only a moment before. He saw flecks of red in the air and felt pain in one of his fingers but that was a distant sensation. He sank to his knees still grasping listlessly at the air, unable to believe what he’d seen.

Kiera gently reached out and pushed his hands down. She knelt beside him and after an awkward moment wrapped her arms around him. She was tense, like she wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do or not, and Raziel didn’t know the answer either.

“I’m sorry,” she said in his ear. Raziel held up his hand and saw the tip of his middle finger on his right hand was missing. Blood dripping down his hand. None of it seemed real.

He leaned slightly into Keira. Once, a long time ago, he’d fallen out of a tree. He’d landed on his arm and heard a crack, but there had been no pain at first. Just the shock, sudden and sharp, dulling part of his senses at the same time that it heightened others. He’d known the pain was coming, but it was as if the pain was too big to fit inside him all at once. It had been the same when he’d woken up after the night that his parents disappeared. It was the same now.

A light in the sky, like a flash of heat lightning that lingered, began to grow in the distance. Raziel realized for the first time that they were at the skydocks. In most of the town, it was impossible to see much of the surrounding forest despite the high hill that Peritura was built on because of the wall. Normally it would have been difficult to see much even from the docks because of the ships, but they were all gone. There wasn’t a person in sight either, just a long stretch of empty stone and wooden outcroppings. The desertion of an area that was usually crowded and always occupied only added to the surrealistic situation.

Keira, sensing Raziel’s sudden shift in attention, looked as well. As her arms fell away from him, Raziel found himself getting to his feet and walking slowly closer to the edge of the skydock. As if in time with his approach, the light in the sky was growing brighter, lighting the forest beneath in.

Raziel realized that it was covering Kusa’s fort at the same time that the brightest blast of lightning he had ever seen stabbed down into the place where the tower had once stood. The lightning burned its image against his eyes, but Raziel still saw the blooming blue-white cloud of shining fury that erupted to erase the little spirit’s home.

Raziel screamed his denial but a few seconds later that scream was lost in the thunderous din of the explosion.

And then it was over. Kusa was gone.

“What was that?” a voice said from behind him. Raziel recognized its smug superiority and whirled. Alban stood, just a few dozen feet or so behind them, between where they stood and one of the great gates that let people into the city proper.

“I’ve been looking for you for hours, boy. I don’t know how you escaped, but I assume you have something to do with that light. If you have disrupted my plans, I promise you won’t live to regret it.”

Raziel stared in disbelief at the wizard. With his every word Raziel felt a little more of the great cloud of his pain at Kusa’s death change. His weariness fell away as his sorrow turned to rage, and the whole world seemed to grow still and cold around him.

“Answer me. Now!” Alban shouted.

Raziel reached out with his mind and took hold of his fury and his lips split in a thrilled grimace as its power thrummed through his whole body. He saw the moment that Alban felt the pressure of his magic. By the time Alban had begun gathering his own, Raziel had crossed half the distance between them. He was glad Alban could see the hit coming, could prepare for it just a little. It meant he didn’t have to hold back.