Compare and Contrast

But do be glad baby when you've found

That's the power makes the world go 'round

~ Huey Lewis

Chapter 3

Ambition and revenge are always hungry. ~ Danish Proverb

"Where are we?" Alan asked, completely lost.

They'd been jogging through the passageways for what felt like hours but was probably still only a matter of minutes. The Fanossian island wasn't that huge - unless they were going in circles they should be getting somewhere.

"Under their citadel at the highest point," Keith told him.

Chris frowned. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"It's the last place they're likely to look," Katarina's brother replied. "And the best place to accomplish something more. Leon said he couldn't tell exactly where the dark mage was, but there's a good chance that someone important is using the keep up there." He pointed upwards.

Nicol nodded in agreement. "We could hide down here for days and not be found, but who knows who will win? If we can do more then we should."

Alan shivered. The dark magic was still around them, he could feel it faintly. And Violette was out with the fleet. "Even if there's nothing useful up there, if we can trick them into sending soldiers after us then those soldiers aren't fighting the rest of the kingdom."

"I was thinking more about capturing one of their leaders, or stealing uniforms to get off the island," Keith admitted, "But that's good too."

Gerald nodded, the flames in his hands flickering. "We'll do what we can with the opportunities we're presented with. When you say we're under the citadel, do you mean directly?"

"More or less. There are some galleries up ahead that look out the side of the island - I think they're intended as a supplemental dock. The citadel itself has some cellars beneath it, but the stairs down to the gallery don't connect to them and there's some sort of substantial chamber that also connects to the stairs." Keith indicated the wall he was standing next to. "The stairs between that chamber and the citadel are right on the other side of this."

Alan frowned and tried to sketch out the image that Keith's description brought to mind on the wall (which was damp rock, giving him an obvious tool). "Something like this?"

The earth-mage winced as he looked at it. "No… like… um…" He fiddled around and then a miniature stone gallery flowed up out of the floor, stairs climbing steadily up, a chamber coming off the side as the stairs doubled back and up further into a small stone keep with additional blocks - cellars, presumably - below it. "Like so."

Earth magic, Alan thought, was unreasonably good for this sort of thing - at least in the hands of someone like Keith. Katarina would probably have trouble drawing a duck in the dirt with her magic. But to be fair, she'd have trouble doing the same with a stick - and have fun either way.

"Looks like a chimney," he pointed out. "If those are flammable stores in the chamber, then smoke could go right up into the citadel, drawing air up from below."

"Aha." His twin grinned. "Smoke them out?"

"They'll have their own mages," Nicol pointed out. "But it would get their attention."

Julius nodded. "Could be non-flammables, but between us we can probably work out something. And there's no way to tell what's in there without looking."

"Is it guarded?" Chris asked practically.

Keith shrugged. "I can't tell that. If so, well, there are six of us."

Numbers didn't mean that much in close quarters, Alan thought. But unless the Fanossians had a better earth-mage with them than Keith, close quarters were only going to be the case if they wanted them.

With Gerald extinguishing his illuminating flame, there was a moment of darkness that made Alan shudder before the Claes heir opened the wall for Chris and Julius to lead the way through. There was no immediate clash of arms, so Nicol and Gerald went next - then Alan and Keith followed them through, the latter closing the wall up neatly again after him. The stairwell was shadowy and while the dark magic didn't help, Alan suspected that this would have been the case even without it. Not many lanterns hung to light it.

Still, it was better than the pitch-blackness a moment ago. Alan had never considered himself claustrophobic, but fighting underground was for moles and earth-mages.

They were wearing boots, so going down the fairly steep stairs silently really wasn't going to happen. Hopefully anyone on guard would expect the occasional visitor or passer-by - and the lack of light would make their identities unclear. Pilot suits were fairly standard across all various nations, and three of them were wearing jackets that further confused their identities.

As it happened, there were four soldiers guarding the landing and the door that opened off it. That spoke well of whatever was inside being important.

Of course, it also should have made it easy for them to respond - or at least for one of them to call for help before they were taken out.

That didn't account for having a wind-mage and earth-mage of the calibre of Nicol and Keith. Before the men even realised that they were under attack, the floor beneath their feet jerked upwards and flung them down the stairs - or rather the slope where the stairs had been. A tornado of wind pushed them down so fast that even once the stairs were unaffected, they kept going - probably doing as much damage to each other as the fall was doing.

Julius and Gerald rushed after them, sliding down in a rather more controlled fashion until they reached the stairs. Once they caught up, the guards were taken out quickly and efficiently.

Even so, there was enough noise - including a shout of alarm - that someone on the other side of the door shouted a muffled question. He sounded angry - and as if he expected others to defer to him.

Alan put on his best Fanoss accent. "Bloody idiot dropped his lantern."

He had to hide a smirk at the "I'm surrounded by idiots!" that came back. "Is he hurt?"

"Looks like it," he confirmed. "There's oil down the steps too."

"Well get it cleaned up!" The order was shouted.

"Right away, sir."

Nicol patted Alan approvingly on the shoulder.

While his twin and his cousins gathered weapons and armour, Alan pressed his ear to the door. If there was a knight or lord in there, then it probably wasn't just a storeroom.

"How are they doing this?" the man complained. "Last time they could barely cover a few ships, even if one of them was that compensatory speed-boat!"

Alan covered his mouth and fought back a laugh. He wondered how Leon would take such an unflattering description of the Dreadnought.

"Perhaps it is some relic of the saintess." A woman's voice, younger than the man, Alan thought. "It's interesting, don't you think?"

"It's infuriating!" The sound of something clattering, as if it had been kicked over. "Can't you do something about it? Their king is dead, but the bulk of their fleet is holding their ground behind the light magic!"

"They should be despairing," the girl agreed. "But, my lord count, if I focus on breaking down their barrier then…"

"Yes, yes, do that!" The man laughed. "Push this trick aside and show them the monsters inside of them!"

The woman sounded delighted. "I would be happy to. I simply can't also exclude your own forces, so some of them…"

"I don't care. I don't care! There's an entire city of commoners that must hate their lords, not to mention all those men shackled to the degenerate scum the Holforts force them to marry. It will be a thousand times worse for them than for us!"

There was an excited giggle. "What an interesting theory!"

Alan drew his short-sword. "It's the dark magic," he reported, feeling that same thing touching him still. God, it was going to get worse? This was what it was like when he wasn't even being targeted? "It's coming from in here."

"Brilliant!" Gerald was holding a sword, while Julius was shrugging on a slightly-too-large brigandine. "Let's stop that."

"We'd better." He tried the latch and found the room locked - and no key. "I think the Ministry got light magic to protect the city - and they're about to try to break through it!"

Chris weighed his own sword. "Get us in there!"

"Cast at the door together," Nicol ordered, backing up. "Three, two, one…"

A good two inches thick, iron-bound oak… the door didn't stand a chance as earth, wind, fire and water ripped into it. As the four friends took deep breaths after the effort, Chris and Julius took point storming through the door.

"Who the devil are you?!" a finely dressed noble man exclaimed, drawing his own sword.

The room was choked by shadows, a circle of darkness somehow glowing on the floor - as if illuminated by the light was fleeing it so fiercely. And it flowed around dead bodies too: scores of them, Alan realised as he followed the other two.

"Ah!" A slight, dark-haired woman in a plain black woollen dress waved at them with incongruous happiness. "My experiment came back!"

"You!" Keith shouted.

And the darkness pulsed like a heart-beating.

Faster, deeper, stronger.

Alan clutched the sound of Violette's violin, the sight of Katarina's smile and of silver hair, the feel of Mary's hand in his own, sad blue eyes and the warmth of his brother's presence.

And they plunged into night.

"It's lucky it was Ian and Selena that were first to try the skyship," Leon thought out loud as he ducked back from the fighting for a moment to gather his breath, hiding behind one of the Holfort ships.

"The male new human is at least capable of leadership." That was more of a compliment than Luxion would normally extend. "And his spouse's magic is comparatively trivial… so long as she does not obtain light magic as the other one did."

Leon smirked. Luxion had engineered Katarina becoming a light mage, but he still found her having it offensive. "I was thinking that no one would be surprised that those lovebirds could unseal the ship, but that's also true."

Queen Mylene was in no fit state to provide leadership right now. However dysfunctional her marriage had been, she'd still spent more than half her life wed to King Roland and losing him had hurt her more than Leon had expected. Fortunately, Ian had taken up the command role aboard the royal skyship and was 'relaying' orders from the incapacitated vice admiral of the white.

"How much did Cleare have to up their ratings?" he asked and then chided himself for doing so. He didn't want to go through that thing himself with Clarice, given one of them would almost certainly feel more for the other - however small the difference. It was none of his business 'how much' the security seals thought the married couple loved each other.

Luxion answered before he could tell the AI not to bother. "It did not have to."

"...huh." Well, that was better than hearing numbers. And good for the happy couple. "Nice not to be needed, I guess."

"Speaking of being needed, master, that enemy has taken the field."

Leon cursed and looked around. "Where?! No, I see him!"

Vandel Him Zenden was at the peak of a wedge of knights moving up to reinforce the frontlines. He hadn't been seen since King Roland's fall - most likely catching his breath and having repairs made to his knight-armour. The knight was no longer a young man, after all.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean he was any less likely to cause utter havoc given the chance.

"Do you wish to fight him alone?" asked Luxion.

"Hell no!" But Leon was already flying towards the older knight. "But that sword of his will go through just about anyone else's knight-armour like it was butter. Take out his back-up if you can."

The sad fact was that even Luxion's targeting skills just weren't good enough to hit a knight-armour if the pilot was good enough - and the Black Knight was definitely good enough. The mecha were just too agile.

That wasn't the case for all of the knights backing him up though. Dreadnought's guns spoke, very loudly, and three of the four knights targeted accepted the irresistible argument that they should die now.

Leon picked off the last of them with his rifle before Sir Vandel caught up with him, the two of them meeting right on the boundary between the light magic and the dark magic.

"So, Sir Leon Fou Bartford." Vandel didn't halt in mid-air, staying evasive in case of more fire from the Dreadnought. He didn't attack yet though - and he was close enough that Leon would rather that Luxion not take a shot. "I have cleansed my honour of one Holfort knight that escaped me before. Now for you."

"You have a weird sense of honour," admitted Leon. "I mean, you betrayed your prince, you're literally serving the powers of darkness -" He gestured with his axe to indicate the dark magic. "- and on top of that, you're kind of a jerk…"

The longer he's talking, the longer he's not fighting, Leon thought. Stalling for time works for me - Count Roseblade's on the move and once his force hits Garrett's flank they can roll it up. And I'm really not sure I can beat Vandel.

The old man was past his prime, but he'd been killing knights for longer than Leon had been alive. Maybe even twice as long. There was a reason he was still alive and it wasn't his sword.

"Do you think I need one of Holfort's dog's to tell me about honour?"

Leon laughed. "A dog? Neither of us is a dog, Vandel Him Zenden. Dogs are loyal to their masters. We're wolves. We care about our packs and damn everyone else."

"Perhaps you're right," Vandel agreed and then pointed his sword at Leon. "But rejoice. When you're in hell, your pack will be joining you quickly."

"I kind of doubt that." There was something happening behind Vandel, but Leon wasn't sure what - the dark magic was making the already dim sunlight even less able to illuminate the flying island behind them. Was something else launching to join the attack? Was it raining and…

No, it wasn't weather. Nor was it another attack. Or rather, not a conventional attack.

The shadowy extent of the dark magic behind Sir Vandel was rippling like water. As if a wave was forming.

"I don't suppose you'd accept an invitation to look behind you?" he asked the older man.

"What sort of fool do you take me for?!"

"I don't think we have that sort of time," Leon warned. "Luxion, put me on speakers. This is Commodore Bartford! Pull back and consolidate around the flagship!"

Keeping half an eye upon Vandel, who seemed startled, Leon obeyed his own orders, moving his knight-armour back from the divide between the two fleets. Other knight-armours and ships did the same.

It was a dreadful risk - it would be too easy for that to become a rout or for Garrett's fleet to take advantage.

But discipline held. Perhaps because the flagship was a visible sign that their cause wasn't lost, or because there was nowhere for most of them to run to.

And their adversaries were caught entirely off guard. It would take critical moments for their leaders to signal what to do and individual captains and knights hesitated. Some advanced, only to find that they were singled out by fire from the withdrawing fleet.

And before any coherent response could arrive, the wave of darkness did.

Leon saw the same thing he'd seen before - ships falling out of line as their crews suddenly had new and immediate concerns, knight-armours exploding as their occupants were transformed. But this time it was Fanoss' ships and knights that were caught.

The darkness hammered against the protective light around the defenders, pushing it back across the city.

Hopefully the districts beneath had evacuated - a battle above them was bad enough. Few of the defenders were caught though - and even some of those emerged unscathed.

"BART-FORD!" A roar drew Leon's view back towards his foe.

Vandel Him Zenden had pursued him - but he had not entered the shrinking zone of light.

It might have been better if he had. Armour and systems fell away, the knight-armour bursting away from a great, winged knight that emerged from within it - flesh like iron, head like a helm, feet taloned like an eagle's… and still clutching that dreadful black sword in one hand.

"Interesting! He appears to be somewhat still in possession of his faculties," Cleare declared.

"Not the time!" Leon didn't know why Luxion had given the other AI access to him, he was more focused on blocking Vandel. The young man's axe barely intercepted the flat of the monster's sword and he found himself fighting right at the boundary between light and shadow.

The monster that had lurked within Vandel was now released, a monstrous reflection of the knight he'd been. And still recognising Leon as his enemy.

They clashed, Leon retreating with every exchange as the darkness drove deeper.

And then, with a glorious chiming sound, the barrier of light brought the advance of the dark magic to a sudden halt. It ground forwards, clawing… but it failed to break through.

"Sir Leon! Duck!"

Cutting his thrusters, Leon dropped himself several yards.

Cannonfire smashed through the air above him, hurling Vandel backwards.

The ship that had been its source was a comparatively modest one - Lloyd's ship. The young baronet - confirmed in his father's title during the whirlwind of preparations before the battle - stood at the rail, a speaking trumpet raised. Leon saw the gun crews racing to reload.

"BART-FORD!" the black knight roared again, still alive somehow, and dove towards the ship.

Bringing his thrusters up to full power, Leon ascended and tackled the monster before it could reach the vessel, hurling both his knight-armour and his foe upwards into the sky.

Flames of blue-white were streaming from Vandel's body and Leon thought back to the monster that had been formed from Lloyd's father back in the second battle. It too had burned, while within the reach of Marie's light magic.

Vandel's form roared and wrestled, but Leon was too close for it to use the black sword and scratches to his armour plating weren't an issue he was worried about. "Burn!" he shouted, "burn!"

The pale flames were inside the fiendish knight as well as outside it. The boy saw them blazing inside the open throat, saw the dark eyes incinerate.

He threw the bestial remains of Vandel Him Zenden back at last, let it swing the sword at him and avoided the enfeebled limb - its muscles half-consumed already by the fires - before lashing out and severing the wrist. With his spare hand, he snatched the sword before it could fall.

"So much for your revenge," Leon told Vandel and watched the monstrous remains of Fanoss' greatest knight tumble away as the wings finally gave up.

The howls of rage gave way to despair as the beast fell. Leon followed it with his gaze until, halfway to the ground, the shape collapsed back into that of a charred man, white-haired and lacking one hand. Then he closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and returned to take advantage of their momentary breathing space.

The enemy fleet was spilling through the magical separation between the dark magic and light magic, or rather the ships and knights were doing so as they each individually realised that doing so was a way to protect themselves from the dark magic that they were suddenly not proof against.

This was forcing them into a point-blank battle with the queen's fleet before they could get back into any sort of fighting order - the barrier wasn't as far from the flagship as it had been, and the white skyship was reaping a harvest almost equalling that of the Dreadnought.

Violette had an excellent view of this as the Revenge followed the leading elements of Count Roseblade's little fleet as they crashed into the flank of the disorganised enemy fleet.

They were fighting in three columns, each one led by the largest and sturdiest ships available to the three principal levies involved - Princess Hertrude's, Count Roseblade's and Count Bartford's. Smaller ships and retinues had been divided up between them to keep the numbers more or less equal. The Revenge wasn't large enough to join the spearhead, but that also spared it the battering some of the leading ships took.

One Fanoss battleship in particular seemed to have taken a pounding from the inoffensively named Pelican. Caught nose on where only a few cannon could fire back it had lost its forward rigging and a number of shots seemed to have punched in through the bow and presumably crashed along the length of the ship.

"It's trying to hoist signals on the mizzen mast," Scarlet observed, pointing at the rearmost mast of the damaged skyship. "It must be one of their leaders."

"It could be repeating a signal," Violette told her twin, "But it's as good a reason as any. Captain! Bring us across their bow and prepare a boarding party." She reflexively checked her pistols were loaded and ready.

The captain didn't question the orders and soon the deck of the Revenge was crowded with soldiers aboard for this very purpose - including many of the elves, who mostly hadn't had a chance to really learn the roles required of a skyship crew. Greg also took position among them, holding up a sturdy spear that Violette wouldn't have thought was practical.

"Prepare grapples!" the captain called out as they closed in. The enemy ship tried to turn to bring its side and the cannon facing that way to face the Revenge, but it was half-crippled by the loss of masts and turned too slowly.

The two ships crashed against each other, bow against bow, the Revenge's forward rigging tangling with the larger ship's broken ropes and timbers. The battleship slewed further around as it absorbed the forward momentum of Violette's ship, but then there was no time for her to take that in. The two skyships were locked together and Greg led their crew scrambling over the side to hack through the rigging and the boarding nets intended to keep them from getting onto the other deck.

And Violette found herself swept up by her twin sister and dragged through the air as Scarlet leapt up into their own rigging and then across the gulf between the mid-ships sections of the two skyships.

The enemy deck was a mess, the Pelican's raking having swept it initially clear of living sailors and gunners. But doors and hatches opened, survivors coming out to give battle.

Scarlet tossed Violette up into one of the boarding nets where she could land smoothly and dived into one of the hatches, kicking one sailor back down the ladder and sweeping his mates down beneath him.

Yanking her pistols free of the cords that had kept them in their holsters, Violette drew the hammers back with her thumbs and opened up on the sailors emerging from the shattered gun-house. Each wrist-wrenching shot from one of the heavy revolvers yanked the gun up and out of line, but she alternated firing as she fought the recoil.

Ten shots hammered out before she was dry. Only two sailors had fallen to her fire but others were going for cover rather than advancing on the twins.

And then, with a triumphant cry, Greg led the crew through the wreckage to join them. "Seberg!" the boy roared, driving his spear into the nearest foe. He levered the luckless sailor upwards on it before wrenching the spearhead free. "Holfort!" The Fanoss sailor fell over the side with a despairing scream that Violette could barely hear.

"Ades!" she cried, discarding the pistols and drawing her sword. Still caught alone, she cut loose one of the few lines still connected to the main mast of the battleship and swung on it, sweeping across half the deck before she lost her one-handed grip on the rope and fell feet-first upon a petty officer who was trying to push up one gangway at the head of a half-dozen Fanoss sailors. "Revenge! To me!"

Her sword clashed against a cutlass and she drove it aside before hammering the basket-hilt of her sword into the sailor's face.

The petty officer beneath her feet groaned and she stamped her booted feet down, regretting the brutality but not willing to lower her guard.

Violette parried another sailor and then a spear flew past her to skewer a second sailor.

It was Greg's spear and he joined her a moment later, flinging a soldier in the colours of a Fanoss noble into the mob of sailors before crouching to recover his spear. "Man, I wouldn't have minded having Brad with us… or Nicol or Keith for that matter. A good mage makes up for a lot."

Violette thrust the tip of her blade between the ribs of one of the fallen sailors before he could stand, then twisted it and withdrew before it could get caught. "There are a lot of people I'd like to have with us."

"Yeah, I get that."

There was a cry of alarm and Violette looked up in time to see a volley of gunfire from the quarterdeck blast into the mixed squad pushing their way up the other side of the warship. A squad of enemy sailors had managed to form up on the quarterdeck rail, led by a nobleman wearing the same colours she'd seen before.

"Reload!" the man shouted and waved his sword to indicate Violette, Greg and the sailors and elves behind them. "Aim!"

Scarlet leapt up from where she'd been fighting the sailors trying to get out from under the quarterdeck and ripped the entire rail free. "Disembark?" she suggested sweetly and then swept the yards-long length of wood in a savage horizontal arc that scattered the sailors across the deck with two of them quite genuinely going over the side.

"You Holfort witch!" the noble crowded and hurled a bolt of flame at Scarlet as she recovered her balance.

For a moment, Violette's little sister disappeared in the flames… and then they faded, together with the magic circles that had shielded her. "Ades, actually."

"W-what?" the man asked.

"I'm an Ades witch," Scarlet said and tossed the rail up in the air to curtsey. "Lady Scarlet Rafa Ades." And then she extended her hand to catch the rail. "Very much not at your service."

The man backed against the side of the ship. "To me!" he called frantically. "To me!"

"Revenge!" Violette called out, her voice cutting through the clamour. She pointed her sword towards the stern and the boarding party followed her surging along the deck.

"No!" the man protested. "I'm a viscount! Ransom! Ransom!"

Scarlet paused, visibly about to swing the rail down upon him. "Violette, I'm conflicted."

"You need to set Vermilion a good example!" Violette called out, reaching the foot of the quarterdeck.

Her twin pouted -

Then the viscount drew a pistol suddenly and pointed it directly at Scarlet's head. "Change of plan! Surrender or she dies!"

"You coward!" Greg shouted furiously.

"Better a live coward than a dead hero!"

"And to whom," Violette asked the man, still pointing her sword up at him, "Would we be surrendering?"

"To Viscount Vidal Vor Darian!"

She nodded. "When you get to hell, tell them that the Ades do not accept false surrenders."

There was just enough time for Viscount Darian's eyes to widen in realisation before Scarlet slammed the rail down on him. The pistol went unfired as the hand, arm and brain required to pull the trigger were driven down through the deck by the crushing blow.

"Clear the below decks!" Violette ordered.

Warnings were called down, but no one offered a surrender, so her boarders followed the demands with grenades before they went down.

Greg whistled slowly, pulling the pistol free of the dead man's crushed hand. The weapon had survived better than the flesh and bone. The boy slammed the butt down on what was left of the side rail and the gun discharged. "Best not to leave it lying around unfired," he explained. "Accidents, you know."

Violette nodded in understanding and looked for a speaking tube or some other method for the ship's commander to communicate with the engine room below.

"You know, I don't regret breaking things off with your sister," Greg told her. "Maybe how I did it, but I still don't think it was ever going to work out."

"Is this really the moment for this conversation?"

He shrugged. "There's almost never a good moment for a conversation. Anyway, where I was going with that was: don't take it the wrong way when I say that we make a pretty good team."

"Don't worry." Violette thought of another young man, one with silver hair and long musician's fingers. Then she chided herself for thinking of someone engaged - and to one of her friends, at that! "I'm unlikely to fall in love with you, Seberg. But I can work with you."

"Great." The redhead scrambled up onto the quarter-deck and looked around. "You talking about Vermilion - that's your half-brother, right?"

"Our younger brother, yes. The new duke."

"I guess I should try to set a good example for my own brother, him being the new count and all." Greg shrugged. "Not sure I'm even welcome."

Violette decided not to ask him if he found Marie worth it. She'd found the end of a speaking tube but it wasn't connected to anything, broken off by a cannon shot at some point. That might explain why this ship was so sluggish earlier.

"...Lady Ades?" Greg sounded puzzled. "Is it just me, or is the dark magic… moving?"

Moments ago, they'd watched in horror as the darkness seemed about to blast through the light magic barrier protecting the capital. But now, as Violette looked up, it was retreating. "I think you're right."

"Then have we won?"

Violette found a spyglass that had somehow survived the carnage and opened it. Through it she could see the tendrils and whorls of shadow pulling back towards the flying island - but they weren't fading. No, they were coalescing. Forming into something new. Something vast and - she was sure - deadly dangerous.

"No," she whispered. "No, we've not won yet…"