And here it is. Thanks for your reviews and your support. Sorry for the delay: life intervened, as it does. I was going to wind it up in this chapter but I think there's one more to go. Maybe two.
Chapter 10
"Tom, something's gone wrong. Tom, I need your help."
It was raining outside and her voice on the line was discordant. Wrong. He knew it the minute she started speaking.
He'd answered the unknown number reflexively, distractedly. He was at work. He wasn't supposed to be answering his phone but he could never shake the feeling he was a call away from catastrophe.
"Lexi?" was all he'd said, his brain finally registering who was speaking.
"Tom." There was a catch in her voice and he realised what was wrong. She sounded Nekross. Upset. But also Nekross.
"Lexi?" he said again.
"Tom, he's gone. Our son is gone. Just like before. He's just gone. It's all gone, Tom."
Plates clattered. The rain drove down in a thrumming beat. And for a moment he wondered if he'd heard her properly. She couldn't have just said what she'd said. He waved off a customer and headed to the back room so he could hear better.
By the time he got there, the full import of what she'd told him had hit him like lightning from the storm outside.
"But, how?" was all he managed. Inside his stomach had fallen like a stone and he'd remembered the feeling. Unravelling.
"I don't know. We were having dinner and doing his homework and then... Tom, please."
Humans could cry but Nekross couldn't. It just wasn't a part of their physiology. And that's what was wrong, he realised with a thud. She'd gotten used to crying. And now she couldn't anymore.
"Lexi, are you...?" He couldn't finish the thought, couldn't say it out loud but she understood anyway.
"I have my form filter. I don't know why. I was wearing it on the ship before I... I guess, when everything..." a pause filled the line and he waited for her to gather herself, "I guess it went back to how it was before."
"But how did this happen?"
"How could I know?"
Anger. That was the Nekross in her. Not that he needed more confirmation; on some level he'd known the second he'd heard her voice.
"You're the wizard. You tell me."
"You're right. I'm sorry. I just mean. Did anything happen?"
"No. Everything was normal. Everything was... perfectly normal."
"When did this happen?"
"Last night."
He remembered again. The unravelling feeling. The sense of loss. He should have asked before. How he knew where she was, where they were. What that connection was, other than the obvious. He should have asked. And now she was gone. And so was he.
"Where are you?"
"Don't you know?"
"No. The connection, it's gone too. It happened last night but I didn't realise. I need to know where you are. You have to tell me."
"It doesn't matter, Tom. Find our son. That's all that matters."
And she'd hung up. She was gone.
He'd taken off his apron and walked out of the shop without saying anything to anybody. He was lucky his boss was a wizard, he got away with things other employees didn't. She would assume her on-staff warrior wizard needed to do something more important than slinging cappuccinos. And she would be right.
He didn't remember getting home. He was in the chamber before anyone could notice he was there. The word had rung a bell. That feeling. Unravelling .He'd heard it before. There were so many books in the chamber. He had no idea where to even start looking.
"And what you will be looking for, young master?"
He should have known Moon would catch him in the Wisdom of Crowe. The Chamber had looked empty when he'd snuck in and he'd hoped the guardian was sleeping like the Hobbledehoy. He briefly considered lying but then decided knowledge was best gained via the straightest road.
Mostly because that was a quote by Caractacus Crowe he'd just read.
"Moon, what's an unravelling?"
Moon gave him a suspicious look, "And why would you be wanting to know about the Unravelling?"
"So the word does mean something. I knew it. It seemed familiar but I couldn't work out from where."
"It's a word used by the old ones. Before the Line of Twilight. Wizards could draw their magic from the Neverside. And they could be casting the Spells of Perpetuity."
"A spell of perpetuity? You mean like a perpetual spell? Why would anyone need to do that? I mean, when a spell is cast it's cast. Right?"
"Not always. Just be looking at the Line of Twilight. It was cast by the nine but is held in place by their Magical Line. In perpetuity."
"What? I never knew that. But what about the Shroud?"
"Is held in perpetuity by Randal Moon. Is why Randal Moon was being in the spell."
"How do I not know this?"
"Spells that be going into perpetuity are dangerous. Like the stones, they can drain a wizard's magic. Especially now those wizards be limited by the dayside. And what if a wizard be passing? Then the spell be unravelling. Unless the spell be fixed."
"Fixed to what?"
"An object. Or a magical line."
"And you're saying the Line of Twilight is fixed to... me? To Gran? To every Crowe?"
"And every Hawke. And Whiteraven. And Sandpiper. It was tethered to nine magical lines. Three by three. Cubing. Powerful magic. Into perpetuity."
"But that means... what if a magical line gets wiped out? What if all nine lines get wiped out? If the Nekross destroyed all wizardkind..."
"If the tethers break, the Line could tear. If they were destroyed, the Line would be failing. Falling. It would be the Unravelling."
Tom leant against the solid stone weight of the table; his mind racing with the implications.
"I knew what the Nekross was doing was bad. But this...
"Moon, can a perpetual spell be unravelled if a wizard is still alive?"
"But of course. If a wizard holds the spell themself then he or she is weaker. If there is a day they use all their spells, then the perpetual spell will unravel. But no wizard alive today is powerful enough to cast one. It requires contact with a source of magic."
"Like the Neverside?"
"Yes."
"Or like the Salute?"
"The Salute? Oh, young Master, what will you have been doing?"
'Nothing, Moon. Really. It was just a hypothetical."
"Well, I'll be thanking you to not be scaring Randal Moon. Spells of perpetuity can kill wizards if they unravel badly. And you do not have access to the Sky Ship magic any longer."
It looks like the magic from the extractor was too much for your cellular storage, Tom.
And what does that mean in English, Benny?
It's like a battery that's overcharged. It'll give you a burst of power but it'll go flat quickly.
So my days of being Bad Wolf Tom are numbered?
Did you just make a Doctor Who reference?
Let's just keep it between us.
I mean, it's for the best isn't it, Tom? You didn't like it. All that magic. That power.
No. But I swear, Benny, since I took it I am more powerful than I was before. I can feel it. It scares me sometimes.
Well, I don't think it'll last. At some point the battery will go flat and when it does your cells should recharge normally. I mean, you're still like one of the most powerful wizards in the world, right? Even without the extra magic? That's what a warrior wizard is, isn't it?
How could he not have known he'd cast a perpetual spell?
Even if he didn't know about them before today. Hadn't he felt it inside him? Hadn't he felt them inside him? How could he not have realised?
What had he done?
The hallway was empty when they came back through. Maybe the magical crisis had taken all her troops or maybe Sun had decided there was no point guarding the temporary entrance of an unfixed threshold.
Either way, they'd come through expecting to be arrested but had instead stepped into a clinically-white, echoing hallway. Not even the CCTV cameras were pointing in their direction.
Benny took out his phone and started texting the minute his feet hit the sharp reality of the Dayside.
"Benny! What are you doing?"
"Texting Lexi."
"Well, that won't work if she's here. Half this place is a Faraday cage."
"But the labs aren't."
"And all mobile activity is monitored"
"I gave her an encrypted burner. It's shielded from the security scanners."
"What if they frisked her? Isn't that standard procedure for new employees?"
"Tom! Lexi and I know what we're doing. I'm a genius and she's a military strategist. Stop being such a..."
"A what?"
"A control freak. Alright. Lexi's here. She's in the labs. She's there with one of the senior techs. Guess they're not leaving her alone on her first day."
"So, what do we do?"
"Walk right in? I'm in charge of the techs, Tom. I'm the boss. And you're Tom Clarke."
"Right. Walk right in."
"The senior tech will call Sun or Benson but we'll have some time before they get there."
Tom stopped suddenly, his head slightly downcast.
"Tom, what's wrong?"
"I'm actually really nervous, Benny. I know it's stupid. Varg and the tears and everything's going to hell. But I haven't seen her since... since we ended it."
Benny just clapped his hand across his friend's shoulders and waited for him.
"I'm sorry. Let's go."
The screen crackled back to life and Varg's scowling face appeared across the operations room.
"Varg!" Jackson cried in mock amazement, "you're back!"
"It appears I have no choice but to deal with you and your other... inconsequential friends."
"Bit harsh isn't it, Varg? After all, we're all still here. And you're looking a little lonely up there."
To Sun's surprise, Varg bared his teeth in an expression that could possibly be a grin.
"Your stalling tactics are amusing, young Hawke. And I could play your game for longer. But we have no time. And if these are the only wizards I have then so be it. There is..."
"..a tear in the Line of Twilight." It was Tom, appearing from the labs to the back of the Operations Room. Benny was trailing behind him, his head buried in a tablet.
"A big one," Tom finished. "And we need your help to close it. Or you need ours. Either way, we have to work together and that involves a truce."
Varg nodded, "An alliance until this threat is neutralised."
"Wait, you were calling us for help?" Jackson interjected, "Well, why didn't you just say so?"
"Because he couldn't," Tom explained, "he could only negotiate with somebody his people respected as an equal. Or wait for us to make the overture. Which we just have. Isn't that right, Varg?"
"A Nekross does not ask for help, especially from livestock."
"And yet here we are. You of all people know the kind of risk posed by a tear this large. But I also need to know some lower-ranked idiot isn't going to think this is an all-you-can-eat buffet or a route to the throne."
"My crew is obedient."
"So none of them have been asking questions?"
"Of course. The magical sensors are showing a source of magic the likes of which many of them have never seen. But you and I know how... unpredictable... such magic can be. It cannot be harvested. Or controlled. I will come alone and I will bring the equipment you need. Others may be... overwhelmed."
"The alliance stands until all Nekross are back on the Zarantalus and all humans have left the area. None of this dissolving it when it suits you."
"It appears you don't trust us, Tom Clarke."
"Swear it. Publicly. Now."
"I swear," he managed through now-gritted teeth.
"We'll meet you there in one hour."
Varg gave that grin again, "It is interesting isn't it, wizard, that 'there' appears to be the magical location you call 'Burnt Hill'? That seems quite a coincidence."
"It's a deep source of magic. If you know how to use it."
"Indeed. One hour, then."
Tom turned to Sun and gave a rueful, apologetic smile.
"We're going to need transport to Burnt Hill."
"Um," Gemma said tentatively, raising her hand like child in school, "six warrior wizards here. I think we can handle it."
"And if a neverside witch or a dragon comes out of that tear? You'll need all your spells. Besides, you're staying here."
"What?" Jackson said, "no."
"No way, Tom," Gemma agreed, "no way I'm standing by while you..."
"I'm not having an argument about this. If Varg decides to double cross us, I'm not serving you up to him."
He put up his hand to stop Amelia from adding her voice to the protest, "The Line of Twilight is held into perpetuity by the nine families. Two are already lost. If you five end up in the extractor, the Line falls."
"Yes, but that's not the entire reason, is it?" Eva said calmly.
Tom looked at her for a moment and then nodded.
"It's ok, Tom. Go and fix things. And then, you and I will need to talk."
"I'm hoping that will be unnecessary after today."
"Then you're wrong. But there is a mess to be cleaned up. So go and do it. We'll be here if things go badly."
Tom nodded again and then left.
The journey to Burnt Hill was silent, even as Sun, Tom, Benson and their three military escorts were jostled around in the back of their army jeep. Benny had decided to stay behind to work on something in the lab. She mentally kicked herself as she realised she didn't know what.
Sun knew there were things she should be saying, asking, demanding but found herself once again silent.
She lifted her eyes at one point and found Benson giving her a look she could only describe as meaningful. It was strange to find herself so completely on the same page with somebody she had recently dismissed as a jar head. Or whatever the British version of a jarhead was.
They'd gotten the military transport she'd requested but in her opinion Spiers was losing it. He'd demanded to know what a 'tear' was and when they'd tried to explain the Line of Twilight and the Neverside and the magical threats that could come through, he'd simply thrown his hands in his air and stormed out.
Benson had proved more knowledgeable than her on the Nine Warrior Lines and their relationship to the integrity of the Line and that had frankly annoyed her. Enough that it was only now, driving to the site of the latest tear with Benson waggling his eyebrows suggestively at her from the other side of the jeep, that she realised what he was trying to tell her.
If the line was linked to the warrior lineages, then did that mean a warrior wizard was responsible for it tearing?
But why? Why would they do it? She considered they were working for the Nekross then rejected it. Varg had been eager to close it. Eager enough to halt the war, forge an alliance and deal with wizards who weren't Clarke. That alone made her realise how bad a tear like this must be.
"So, Tom, you went to see our new lab tech?" It was Benson, leaning forward conversationally as though making casual small talk. His body language said otherwise and Sun grimaced. Tom was better at reading people than that. "Do you know her?"
"Benny needed her advice on something."
"Seems a bit strange, doesn't it? Disappearing like that and then coming back to talk to a lab tech that only started work today?"
"You'll have to ask Benny about that. He hired her. I guess he needed her skills."
"And what are those skills?"
Tom paused, his eyes flicking briefly to Sun before he answered, "Germlines."
Sun started, "She's a geneticist? A human one? Why would we need a human geneticist? Our knowledge of Nekross physiology is minimal so far. We've never even gotten a viable sample to study."
Tom placed his hands out as if to say, Don't ask me, I'm just a wizard.
"We're here."
The driver pulled up and before she could press him further, he'd jumped out of the jeep and was moving toward the stone circle.
"Haven't been here since I was a kid," said one of the soldiers.
"Me either," said Benson. "They used to make us do school excursions out here. It looks exactly the same."
"Like Stonehenge. But not as impressive."
"Except I now know they're magical. That wasn't in my workbook."
"Mine either. So what does this magical tear thing even look like?"
"I don't know. I don't even know if it 'looks' like anything." Benson turned to face the largest stone and his jaw actively dropped. "Or maybe it looks like that."
The funny thing was, Sun thought, it really did look like a tear. It looked exactly like somebody with giant, unearthly hands had grabbed the air and just torn it open. Magic in all its streaming rainbow beauty framed the rent and torn edges and between - a full five or six metres across - there was a darkly shimmering hole. Like a deep pond in dim moonlight. Or like nothing. Like nothing at all.
She absently took her pendant out of her pocket and gripped it in her hand, feeling the pull of that force through the hole in the sky. She moved around it and saw it was flat. From the side, she could see the wisps of stray magic seemingly coming from nowhere. And from the back, that tear again.
"I thought you'd be able to see the Neverside through it," said Benson quietly. Disappointed.
"Maybe that is the Neverside," she answered as she came back round the 'front' again.
"Maybe. If it is, I think I've changed my mind about wanting to see it."
They were whispering. She didn't even really know why.
"Do you hear that?" Benson asked her.
She shook her head. She couldn't hear anything.
"Not even an insect. Not a bird. Not an ant on the ground. The hillside is deserted. We're the only ones here."
"Terrifying, isn't it?" a voice said from her left.
She turned to agree and was disconcerted to find Varg standing beside her; an expression of obvious fear and awe on his face.
Obvious. She could read his emotions. Humans struggled to do that even cross-culturally. But in this moment she knew exactly what he was feeling. He was scared. What on Earth could scare somebody like him? She didn't think she wanted to know.
Wow, he was tall. That was her second thought. It didn't come across on the screen. But he must have been at least seven feet tall. Although the blue armour no doubt added height.
"If you've finished making your appraisal, maybe we could get to business," he said wryly. That was unnerving as well.
Tom came up beside him and they shared an impenetrable look. Varg breathed deeply. He seemed to be smelling the anomaly. She took a deep breath but couldn't smell anything. Magic. He was smelling magic. It would make sense. Magic is food. To them.
She took a second deep breath and thought she could smell a brief scent of eucalyptus. But maybe that was just her imagination.
"Did you bring it?" Tom asked him.
"Of course. The Resonator will isolate the dimensional frequency of the tear. You can then tailor your magic to closing it. It will certainly be more... efficient... than the method by which it was opened."
"We don't know how it was opened," Sun found herself saying, "They say these tears are just becoming more common."
"Is that so? Interesting."
"How long will the Resonator take to work?" Tom asked him.
"About ten minutes. Let's hope things stay this calm in that time. You were right not to bring the others"
"Why is that?" It was Benson. Initially careful around Varg, he'd drifted closer as the alien had begun to set up his machine; driven by technical curiosity.
"Neverside beings can sense magic. They would be drawn to the tear. Even more than they already are. We should hurry."
The Resonator looked like a larger version of the Nekross weapon on a stand. Varg simply set it up and aimed a light pulse at the blackness in the heart of the tear.
"The Resonator is scanning the frequencies. It will soon find the right one. And then Tom Clarke's magic will save the day yet again."
Tom shot him a flat look and they stayed staring at the tear for what seemed like years but was probably only a minute or two.
"Do you think..."
She never found out how Benson was planning to finish that sentence because something, something dark and quick and deeply disquieting shot out of the tear and came at her. Fast and pitch black and a face that looked like The Scream; that elongated silent face contorted in horror.
It came from the darkness and it was darkness and its single clawlike hand reached out toward her face and she tried to cry out and the sound was stopped in her throat by an overwhelming terror. The creature, the thing, the dark screeching thing pried the pendant from her hand, tearing it from her grasp even as she flailed at its chain and then it ran back again. Back into the darkness.
And she was left alone. Completely alone. It was gone. She was gone. Taken from her a second time.
All of her; that last tiny remnant, that spark. Gone.
Her eyes were unfocused and as the world came back into shape she saw Tom; a look of stunned horror on his face as he realised what the creature had taken. She saw his face whiten and harden like porcelain, like stone, and before she could fathom what he was doing he turned and ran into the tear after the creature. The darkness swallowed him and he was gone as well.
There was nothing but the hillside and the silence and the darkness of the tear.
It was all gone.
Everything was gone.