Chapter 29 - Downfall

Black.

The whole of creation had gone dark. There was no up, no down, no world - Just an infinite blackness, and a terrible pinning weight. An immense density, pressing against my back, my shoulders, a thousand times harder than rock, a thousand times heavier than lead.

A vise, crushing me into nothing.

Where-

I coughed, and realized that I was still alive. Alive - and weak. Weak and blind. My limbs ached, shivering and pained, the acrid reek of burning stone and charred blood as urgent as a fist in the face.

Each breath hurt, burning all the way down into my lungs.

-where-

I couldn't move.

I couldn't see my hands before my face, but I could feel how they bled. Just thinking about it pulsed fire through my skull, as my heart thumped feebly against my ribs. At some point, I had bitten my tongue; It was swollen in my mouth, and I bit back a hiss as it dragged along blood-flecked teeth.

Loyts.

I was in Loyts. The fireball had-

My thoughts felt like shattered glass. Something was wrong, badly wrong.

"Pav-" I tried, gagged on dust, tried again. "Pavel!"

Pavel's dead, a tiny voice whispered, at the back of my mind. Like a phantom of times past and times yet to be. "Orlando-"

No. Orlando was dead too.

Something was badly wrong with one of my eyes - I couldn't seem to open it, and just trying made nausea roil through my gut. I retched, but all that came up was bloody froth; Sounds echoed in an odd way, metal scraping against stone as I tried to move...

I clawed around, with a gloved hand. Slowly, comprehension crept into my mind - I was sprawled on a very uneven surface, my head tilted back because my face was jammed up against something. I tried to reach up to feel my face, but the effort shot starbursts of agony through my arm and back; the effort made my head pound, and I dry-heaved again.

And I remembered.

The Vanisher-

-the blades, taking me to pieces-

"Climb," I rasped out, and the urgency of that thought gnawed at my insides. Desperate hope whispered in my ears; If I could find him, if I could get to him in time…

Then there was light. Flamelight, blurry - Through the slit of my half-buried visor. The smell of smoke and sweat and blood, mixed with the chemical stench of things that were never meant to burn. Soot and sparks flickered, in my field of vision; Vague noises rolled out of the dark.

My mouth had lolled open when I had been unconscious, my throat as dry as bone. I swallowed another mouthful of my own blood, trying to make sense of it all. Something about the explosion had utterly scrambled my sense of time; it was hard to separate the darkness that had come before from the eternal moment of the now.

Firelights, distant, flashing, at the very edge of perception…

It felt like I was all bruises and broken meat. My armor had - somehow - protected me from the worst of the battering, but my chest, arms and head were washed in my own blood. How it'd stopped, when it had stopped, I didn't know.

There was a surreal sense of displacement. Like all this was happening to someone - had happened to someone else - a long time ago. Like a dream, or a memory.

Rubble, on all sides. Broken stone, shattered beams, the crushing weight entombing me.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't.

Buried alive, that voice whispered again, and I fought the urge to kick and thrash and scream in mindless panic. Just thinking about it made my hands shake all the harder, jagged points of rock biting at my skin. It felt like the stones were carving through my armor and into my muscles, dragging over me, under me, through me-

I tried to shake my head. Tried to clear it. The crushing pressure denied me even that.

As the bitter taste of panic filled my mouth, I could feel my mind clearing. My focus narrowing, with the single-minded intensity of a rat in a trap. My right hand was wedged tight, crushed in place around the hilt of Gnosis; I could feel the weapon in my hand, my fingers cramped in a claw too tight to release.

My other hand-

Think. I had to think. It was that or die inches at a time, crushed into nothing.

Like a dim bulb, flickering to life: Lakyus' talisman. If I could reach it…

I strained, feeling tendons stand out stark and trembling against my skin. I clawed with my left hand, scraping at the enclosing stone; Dust trickled across my hand, light as a breeze. With aching care, my remaining eye rolled downwards, focused on the patient scrape, scrape, scrape of my fingers, gouging at the shifting rock-

And then I heard it. Distant, splitting cracks, salted with staccato bursts of thunder.

A sound I had never thought I would hear again.

Gunfire.

In the stacks, gunfire was a fact of life. The pop of small arms, the crisper bark of Salvager sidearms - Uncommon, but not rare. It helped that the Bishop Park hab was close to the enviro-shields; As the power went out, floor by floor, people got afraid. Desperate.

Angry.

Angry enough that, sometimes, the bottles and missiles and handmade bombs would start flying. Then, inevitably, the secmen would arrive in their cardinal-red body armor, with their sonic disruptors and power rifles loaded with hollowpoints. First shouts, then screams, then - inevitably - the crack-crack-crack of summary pacification, dealt out with exacting precision.

This was different. Too loud, too urgent: A deeper, throatier growl. A child's idea of what military hardware would be like, brassy and with the echoing aftermath of a thunderclap.

What-

Impossible. But stunningly, shockingly real - And drawing closer by the moment.

And I could not move.

Please, I thought. Please, Gods-

If I could free myself. If I could just move my legs…

But all I had was a single hand, scratching futilely at the entombing stone on all sides. The heavy iron ring on my finger left a shallow track where it scraped against the brick, barely clearing the narrow hole I'd dug through the debris. Barely enough to fit my hand through, loose plaster rattling down against my helm-

And then, my gaze fixed on the iron ring: A Gatebreaker Ring, Wolfgunblood had called it. For smashing down barriers, or through walls. Powerful, but singular.

I curled my fingers into a shaking fist. Raised it, pointing it up. Even moving my head took effort - It felt like my neck was about to snap.

The command was on my lips. My swollen tongue moved in my mouth, shaping each slow syllable.

I spoke the word.

Everything went upward. Everything went outward.

It was a blast. A whirlwind of light and hammering air. A shockwave of invisible force, slamming out in all directions. It shattered walls, flung fallen masonry like leaves in a hurricane.

What it destroyed, it hurled away. The pinning weight of debris splintered in a blizzard of hammering stone, the astounding fury of impact rippling outwards. The shock pressure alone shook the earth, the pressure-wave kicking up a brief hailstorm of stone shards and burning ash.

In a word;

WHAM.

I saw none of this. Almost blacking out from the whirling storm, I fought to hold on - At the very heart of the blast, I was too close to be caught by the full force of the shockwave. My armor shrieked as I was wrenched back by the relentless force, the same force that flung the crushing weight off me.

Already half-deafened by the explosion, I felt the ground drop out from under me for one heart-stopping moment, then leap back up and swat me aside-

There was a high, singing whine in my ears. Battered, bruised, I tried to stand. Tried to roll to my feet. The world went red, when I landed on my right arm - A sharp, stabbing pain breathtaking in its immensity. Bracelets of cracked armor rattled around it, my hand still locked around the hilt of Gnosis; When I tried to move it, I felt the edges of my scarred plate biting into my flesh, articulating with a squeal of tortured metal.

And around me-

It was only then that I realized how thoroughly the building had been destroyed. The ruined street was strewn with slabs of wreckage, fragmented stone and rising smoke hanging in the air like a fog. Fires smoldered; I'd brought the brothel down like an avalanche, each level folding into the next, floors collapsing upon each other like a house of cards.

The seismic violence of the destruction had sent a huge quantity of rubble sliding into the street - the structures to each side had been similarly annihilated, an overwhelming quantity of dust exhaled in the aftermath.

I did this? I thought, numbly. Did I-

I'd fetched up right against the foot of a still-standing wall, a ragged shelf of surviving platform arching overhead. A mound of debris rose before me, jagged strands of stone shot through with severed wooden beams and splintered brick.

Everything ached.

Wincing, I squeezed my eye shut. Tried to concentrate, reaching into myself. Fumbling for the trigger point, groping for the calm I needed-

Blue light flared. The smell of woodsmoke. The pain receded, so suddenly I shuddered in relief; The warmth welling up from within, my wounds throbbing anew. Every scrap of discomfort was compressed into the span of a few eternal seconds, as the heat spread through my battered limbs, knitting torn skin and muscle back together.

There was an ugly crunch, then another - the sound of bones forcing themselves back into alignment. Even the rents in my armor were closing, sealing over the way a smile slowly fades…

How long it took, I wasn't sure. My vision faded, greying in and out; My ears rang, hearing returning in a rush. Each time I faded back in, it was still ongoing. That firefly glow shed corposant radiance across my limbs, as if I knelt at the heart of a star.

Consciousness returned, in strobe flashes. Abruptly, the world grew very bright and very light. I gasped, and air, cold and sharp, rushed into me. It was like a wave of strength, buoying me up; I could feel my form unclenching, feel the terrible leaden weight of my bruised and battered limbs receding to nothing, like a nightmare after waking. Each breath came hard but clean, my lungs laboring, flanks heaving as if I'd run a marathon.

The abrupt absence of pain was a revelation; I could feel a giddiness course through me, even as I drew myself up, feet slipping on the broken floor-

Blink.

Both eyes. I could see out of both eyes, now.

Dust covered everything. It clung to my armor, like a shroud.

Jesus, I thought, my senses reeling. Jesus.

Climb. Where was Climb? I cast around, but only whirling smoke met my gaze. My questing hand encountered the metal shell of my helmet, my mind fumbling for the word, for the command…

"Auspex," I croaked out, and my vision blurred as new lens nictated over the eyeslits of my helm. Shapes clustered in my field of vision - Silhouettes, half-glimpsed, flickering like candle flames in the wind.

The dead and the dying, their fallen forms half-buried beneath stone. Crumpled into impossible positions, twisted like discarded dolls.

With a lurch, I wondered how many had died. How many I'd killed-

I forced the thought down. There was no time for that. No time for anything except effort. All else were distractions, robbing focus from what mattered.

Where was Climb? I couldn't tell the fallen apart, the hazy red silhouettes indistinguishable from one another. As I took my first steps forward, stumbling up the mound of debris, I swung my head from side-to-side, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Searching for some clue, some sign…

The sword.

I couldn't find Climb. But I could find Daegal. It had to be with him - Had to be.

My boots slipped and skidded on the rubble. All was eerily silent, silent enough to make my flesh crawl, other than the distant crackle and pop of flame. There was a strange, flickering radiance in the choking air, a light that did nothing at all except to make the darkness dirty.

There was a high, reedy sound somewhere. The wind? Or screams?

Something. I was forgetting something.

Shooting. I'd heard shooting. I strained, but I heard nothing - Had it ever been there, really? Had I imagined it?

Ragged sheets flapped in the breeze, weighted down with broken wood, the shadows of what may have been limp hands and feet hanging out from underneath. It was like I was walking through the aftermath of the apocalypse; tangled hills of wreckage rose all around me, all broken stone, splintered wood, twisted metal, shattered glass-

I staggering forward. Watching, searching for a singular flash of gold.

Static buzzed in my ears, a metallic taste in my mouth. An abrupt burst of white noise, loud enough to make my freshly-healed ears ache - I winced, shaking my head to clear it...

And then I saw it.

A dark silhouette, clear as day. Backlit by flamelight, stepping right out of the event-horizon gloom. Polished black armor, glossy as a beetle's carapace, red running from each shoulder epaulet down the arm in a bold stripe. Hardened ceramic alloy chest plates, shoulder and arm guards, shin and knee protectors.

Heavy combat boots.

A pulsing purple light shone through the tinted faceplate, an unblinking cyclopean glow.

In both hands - stabilized by the bulky, steel-grey suspensor rig it wore - it cradled the blocky, boxy shape of a tri-barrel autocannon. There was a low hum of servoes, the subliminal grind of mechanisms, at the very edge of hearing. Something familiar and yet unfamiliar, something dragged out of my past and yet from far in the future.

It wasn't alone.

I could see them, somehow. Eight of them, advancing inexorably across the rubble. Helmeted and scanning, vicious automatic weapons at the ready, resolving into solidity with each step. Their outlines were hard-edged and implacable, red-flecked outlines nailed to an ever-shifting world-

This couldn't be real. This was the way it happened in dreams, not in waking life.

They didn't walk: They strode, over and between the hills of wreckage. Moving without haste but with purpose, as if they had all the time in the world-

Converging, inexorably, upon the charred ruin where the brothel had once stood.

The Vanisher had hedged his bets.

As mad as it sounds, I knew them.

I had seen them before, on the periphery of things: the indestructible viewscreens that hung over the hab's shuffling food lines, on flickering monitors in the huddled stalls of the grey market. The heads-up on a cab's windscreen, as it lurched from one lane to the next, trundling along pre-programmed paths.

An angel descending through stormclouds, on crow's wings. Silvery tears streaming down her cheeks, cobalt-blue armor rent and broken from the war in the heavens.

She knows that she's dying. That death is coming for her.

The borders of the world become crosshairs, four straight black lines pointing into the ring of light from the darkness around it. She raises her head, platinum hair fluttering in the winds, to look the viewer in the eye-

A violet beam, blindingly bright, pierces her heart. Her back arches and she wails in sudden ethereal torment, an alabaster hand over the wound. As her wings burst into flame, as she falls - coal-black feathers swirling in her wake - her killer becomes clear; A graphene-armored Praetorian, optic implant pulsing with steady violet light.

Techno-Gregorian chanting, as the shock trooper rises from his shooter's stance. Smoothly, with the low thrum of articulating joints. Skinned in the black and red armor of the Ebon Guard, wisps of smoke coiling from the matte-black barrel of his state-of-the-art plasma rifle.

Smash cut to black.

YGGDRASIL: VALKYRIE'S DOWNFALL

COMING SOON

A vision from a long-forgotten future. Here, now - Hunting me.

A living impossibility. Reality and fantasy, hopelessly blurred.

My heart pounding, I ducked back behind the wall. Violet tracer-beams flickered in the dust, guidance optics shimmering from behind their faceplates. Breathing hard, panic clawing at the insides of my skull, I clutched Gnosis to my chest, gripping the hilt so tightly I thought it might snap-

Guns. They had guns.

What did that mean, away from Yggdrasil? How well would mythril armor hold up against autocannons and flechette blasters?

I didn't know. Only that they were closing in, and-

There was a groan. A figure, charred into anonymity, stumbled out from beneath the crude shelter of a broken beam. Coughing, arms raised in a gesture both plaintive and pitiful at once, it staggered towards the nearest trooper.

"P-p-pleasssseeeeeeee~"

The dark figure swiveled. A power rifle barked once, then again; I heard a gurgling scream, abruptly cut-off, then a wet thump as something crumpled bonelessly to the uneven ground.

My blood ran cold.

Lady Aindra's talisman was in my pouch. I fumbled for it, gauntlets smeared with blood - my blood - and ash. Even through my plated gloves, I could feel the warmth of it; the golden hummingbird's wings rising and falling, delicate and beautiful at once, as it hung at the end of the silver chain.

The signal. I had to give the signal.

"Fendros," I hissed out, fighting to keep my voice below a whisper. "I say again, 'Fendros'-"

I risked a glance around my concealment, rolling as I moved. There were four of them on my right, their line broken by the momentary distraction of a survivor. Their silence was somehow horrifying, reacting to commands only they could hear - More like machines than…

Than-

One of the mono-eyed killers was facing directly towards me. Watching me. Unfooled by the distraction. Raising his weapon.

Circles of red energy radiated from the muzzle of his ion rifle, a heartbeat before the main beam ignited. It was a crimson blast, too bright to look directly upon - The ray speared past me, pulsing through the fog, shearing through stone in an explosion of embers and sparks. I wrenched myself away, tumbling clumsily to the side...

"Vorpal-"

Gnosis hurled me forward. The blade speared out, crackling in the smoky air. The point punched clean through matte-black combat armor, spearing the meat beneath with a brittle crunch. An incomprehensible sound, equal parts gurgle and digitized buzz, spat from ruptured speakers as the sword twisted in the wound-

I wrenched it clear, Gnosis' edge ripping through bone and tendon and graphene. Black, tarry blood sprayed as it came free, the corpse toppling away into the darkness.

Momentum drove me forward, lunging at his partner. The sword sawed across the Praetorian's faceplate, the blade edge bursting from the side of his cyclopean helm. The violet optic shattered, armor servos screeching as a dead hand spasmed on the trigger-

At this range, the thunder of gunfire was deafening. His hand cannon spat flame; Wild shots stuttered past me, the chemical reek of cordite stinging my senses. I pivoted, sparks clanging in the gloom. If I could just-

But the others had seen me. Like lightning, they snapped round to track me, so alike in their movements they could have been slave-linked machines or mirror reflections.

All hell broke loose.

Weapons opened up on all sides. Shots shrieked overhead, invisible traceries whistling past. A zagging bolt clipped my shoulder, the thwop of impact hurling me from my feet. On my hands and knees, I scrambled away, lurching and rolling.

A plasma orb hissed past, and detonated with an actinic flash. Twenty feet away, an overturned wagon detonated. Burning planks flew outward in every direction at once, pelting me with chunks of flaming wood.

My senses reeling, I staggered upright. A nearby shophouse had been half-gutted by the earlier blasts, shattered windows yawning into nothing - I feinted towards the gap in the shattered walls, riochets sparking as they deflected off stone…

One of them was already there. Different from the others, armor reinforced with shielding plates and blast padding. A heavy, full-visored helmet instead of a glossy faceplate, the surface scratched and shabby.

Fuel-tanks sloshed on its back, starred with brass kill-markers. I glimpsed the blue flare of a pilot light.

"No-"

Time did a slowing-down jig.

A roaring gale of heat. A sideways column of flame belched forth, the rushing inferno clawing towards me. Fire raked me, neon glyphs blazing to life around my armor as it broke around me like a wave-

Heat. Terrible heat. The smoke seared my eyes like acid, half-blinding me with tears. I reeled back, the sea of flames churning around me, the hungry roar blotting out all sound…

But I raised Gnosis. Drew a breath that burned.

"Sinistral!"

The force tore out of me. Thundered through me, down my arms and through my cleaving blade. It sheared through the air, a powerful linear distortion that cut and bludgeoned, outrunning the thunderclap of its own sonic boom.

Stone splintered. Red-hot shards of half-molten brick slashed through the flames. The mauling impact ripped through the boiling cone of flame, and hit the shock trooper head-on. It struck him with so much power, his body came apart - Armor crunching inwards, deforming into a rippled crater, one leg wrenched off from the totality of force.

Pink mist kissed the air, his form blasted back in a cloud of vaporized flesh and bone: the cone of flame veered away from me, liquid fire spraying in every direction at once.

But he never hit the ground.

Mid-collapse, his ruptured form swelled. Distending, writhing, as if unnameable things moved within the trooper's shattered armor. Abruptly, the shuddering figure's visor swung open, vapor boiling out into the air. Motes of violet light, vanishing almost as soon as it emerged-

Empty and slack, the heavy-duty carapace diminished even as it fell. All coherence lost, it swallowed itself up, greying and crumbling as if before the rush of centuries. All that remained was a silvery flash of metal, skittering and clinking against the rubble underfoot-

Dog-tags.

Wait, I had a moment to think, as a broad swathe of ground cooked and smoked about me. Wait, they're not-

The next shot cracked into the side of my helmet, and snapped my head around.

My nose ruptured. I tasted blood, as my legs turned to cloth. Everything lurched to one side as I toppled, a ringing concussion in my ears; It felt like my skull was broken, an abrupt splitting pain sawing across my forehead.

Somehow, somehow, I kept hold of Gnosis-

There was a grinding metal noise as the autocannon opened up. A jumping lick of burning gases leapt and danced around the rotating barrels, the blizzard of shots ripping across me. It chewed my cloak to shreds, the hail of rounds hammering me back - I felt rounds punch through the meat of my arm, my thigh, my shoulder, pieces of my shattered cuirass flying off from the sheer kinetic impact.

I went down, tumbling across broken tile and jagged stone. The world span, end-over-end; I hit the ground on my back, the breath punched from my lungs. Blood glugged out of the bare metal craters in my armor, as I tried to stand, tried to move…

Pain flared through my skull, the side of my helmet folded-in and crushed. I could hear a slow, heavy tread, lumbering closer. Dazed, I could only look on as the Praetorian loomed over me. As the still-spinning barrels of the drum-cannon tilted down.

At this range, there would be no defense. Just a moment's agony, before the slugs tore through my battered helmet.

The shock trooper squeezed the trig-

There was a flash. A projectile zipped down from above. Moving so fast it was just a line of light, faster than the eye could track.

There was a splattering thwop. Steam, exploding through living flesh. The figure above me staggered back, black blood gouting. Sparks shot from the fist-sized mass of ragged tissue where its left arm should have been - I glimpsed metal folded into pallid flesh, oil weeping from shorn-off cables and tubes.

A second shot punched through the Praetorian's faceplate. This time, I saw what it was: An arrow.

A flaming arrow, one that had cut clean through the thing's helmet.

It dropped to its knees with a heavy clang. The autocannon's barrel - sobbing smoke - hitting the ground with a dull thump, like a length of lead piping.

I rolled. Somehow, I found my footing; Red beams of ion light sliced the air, a cluster of bolts spraying towards me. Four left - Two advancing, blazing away with ion rifle and flechette blaster, the remaining pair swiveling to rake the rooftops with gunfire. A pulse repeater opened up, firing on full auto: the shooter hosed the buildings on either side, and masonry crumbled and exploded under the thunderous pummel of the weapon.

More flashes. More arrows whistled down. A dark silhouette staggered, as Firedrake's shaft punched entirely through his torso, embedding itself in the wall behind him.

Imina. They'd heard me, after all.

I had to help. I-

Something small and metallic hurtled past me, bouncing and clattering. I had a moment to realize what it was, before I scrambled for the meager cover of the corner. The grenade's blast sent smoke and debris tumbling out at me, shrapnel zinging from my armor - Dirt and dust hailed down, a veil of grit and flame.

I don't remember hitting the ground. Implacable gunfire whickered past me, blood-red ion beams bracketing the shrieking barbs of the flechette blaster. The shots scored mottled gouges across the stone floor, the hammering deluge raking at me - Dazed and winded, I could barely stand, let alone drag myself through the barrage.

Like a car crash, over and over again. Overwhelming. Deafening in its intensity.

Shots slammed into me. Armor cracked, blood scattering in my wake. I tried to raise Gnosis, tried to will my legs into a charge-

Hekkeran seemed to appear from nowhere. Materializing, where once no-one had been. He came out of a side-alley, blades already swinging; Another man might have hesitated, might have checked his stride, but he'd picked his moment perfectly.

He rammed Sylpheed's point through the spine of the nearest shock trooper, and ripped it upwards. Graphene armor split; Arterial fluids sprayed. Even as the Praetorian toppled, Hekkeran hacked Xergunnil down into the other trooper's leg. Glossy black carapace splintered, flesh disintegrating, bone shearing - the Ebon Guard crumpled before he could bring his ion rifle to bear, white noise blurting from his speakers.

-kssssssshhhhhhh-

Hekkeran spun Sylpheed in his grip, the freed blade rotating in a semi-circle, and plunged it down. Impaled, the crippled form convulsed once and was still; His face set in a mask of supreme concentration, Hekkeran looked up, through the churning smoke, at something only he could see-

"Arche!"

For an instant, I saw her. That doll-like figure, walking on air. She raised the Staff of the Heavens in both hands, the great sapphire glowing like a lost star.

Death rained down.

Brilliant fireballs cut white-blue streaks through the darkness, landing with flashes and booms that shook the earth. Black lightning lanced down, great hammers of it: Thunder rolled, fire blossoming in a great billowing cloud.

Tracers streaked skyward, almost defiantly. The pulse repeater stuttered, one final time, and fell silent. I saw limbs flung up by the blast, shards of dark armor - Forms writhing, drowning in rushing flame.

And then, just like that - It was quiet. Deathly so.

I slid down, my back to the wall. I felt terribly frail, as if made of paper; the sensations I had been blocking swept over me, at last. My hands were shaking, so hard I could barely cling to Gnosis. The void had come up like a wall, shock numbing the world to grey.

Roberdyck was kneeling at my side, those broad, kindly features drawn with worry. He called my name, a hand on my shoulder. Shaking me, gently but firmly, his holy symbol clasped in his free hand. Distantly, almost too far away to hear, I heard him asking me to say something.

Something…

I gripped his wrist, so suddenly he started.

"Climb," I said, through chattering teeth. Everything was too bright, too fast, all of a sudden - It took everything I had left to focus, to seize and hold a single thought.

"-We have to find Climb."

At the very end of my tether, I seemed to lose my sense of time; A strange delirium had me in its grasp. I remember...glimpses.

"A real mess, this is," Hekkeran was saying, his gaze flitting over the scene of devastation. "-What happened here?" Xergunnil was still in his hand, lightning running down the sword's edge: Shaking his head as he took in the ruin, the red streak in his hair stark in the eerie flamelight glow.

"Grandmaster-"

I was on my feet. Tottering forward, past a still-smoldering fire.

There. I saw it, through the lenses of my helmet - A flash of gold, buried beneath all the rubble. A great length of wood, some fallen beam or carved column, had toppled atop the mound, pinning it in place.

I clambered up, over the wreckage. Stones skittered out from under my boots, as I hauled myself to the top. Seized one end of the beam. Strained at it, my feet slipping, gritting my teeth as my muscles burned with the effort-

"We should go," Imina muttered. I caught a glimpse of violet hair, her face smudged with plaster dust and soot. She was limping, slightly, one hand clutching her side: She'd survived, but not unscathed. "If there's more of them…"

Behind me - Pale white light, descending. Arche's windblown hair, fluttering around blue eyes; "Miss Imina, you're hurt-"

"-I'm fine. It's just a graze, that's all." A hiss of indrawn breath. "What were they?"

"I - I don't know. Some kind of summoned…" Arche's voice trailed off, faintly stunned. Her staff still flickered with sickly light; She held it away from herself, as if handling something delicate and lethal all at once. "W-what...What do we do now?"

I pulled, but I couldn't get leverage. The ground kept shifting beneath my feet, as I dragged at the beam. My breath came in rasping pants, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut against the wave of dizziness that coursed through me - All I could feel was the cold, clawing urgency that churned in my very core, the oldest of all prayers reeling through my mind:

Don't let it be too late. Please.

All of a sudden, the weight eased. I looked up - Without a word, Roberdyck had dug his arms under the other end of the fallen column, his back tensing as he strained to lift. He grunted, startled by the heft of it: "Hekkeran, if you could-"

"All right." He sheathed his blade, wiping at his mouth with the back of one hand. "Imina, keep an eye out. Arche, back her up."

"But-"

"-I know. We'll worry about that later."

Clambering over the wreckage, Hekkeran set himself at the cleric's side. "All together now," he said, through gritted teeth. "Lift-"

Between the three of us, we hauled the fallen beam away. The scarred wood shifted, then gave, heaving up and to the side as it rolled and tumbled down the pile of rubble. With the ash gently fluttering down, I sank to my knees, and kept going. I hauled at slabs of fallen architecture, flinging them aside; scrabbled in the ruin, digging with my hands, the bright mythril of my gauntlets chipped and scarred-

A hand touched my shoulder. I flinched - Looking up, wild-eyed.

"Easy!" Hekkeran said, his hands up. "Easy, Grandmaster." I'm on your side, his expression said, his voice soothing, as if afraid that I'd forgotten that. He cocked his head to the side, listening intently - "...You hear that?"

I went still. There: A faint groan.

A heavy door had been twisted from its hinges, ripped free in the building's collapse. A boot showed from beneath it - My limbs numb with hope, I reached down to heave the door away…

It was Succulent.

He was a mess. One leg mangled and twisted, right arm smashed almost flat. Gaunt features smeared with blood, a deep scalp wound showing the white bone beneath.

"Is that…" Roberdyck peered past me, did a double-take. Instinctively, he made the sign of the Four across his chest. "By the Four, that's Succulent. Succulent of the Six Arms-"

Imina just stared. "Who?"

The surge of disappointment I felt - It was so strong, I could barely breathe. Cold, sober rage coursed through me, as Hekkeran leaned over his broken form.

"He's alive," he said, with a glance back at me. Voice perfectly neutral, withholding judgement. As if he knew how I felt, how much I longed to change that.

It would be so easy, I thought.

So easy.

But you had to understand the rules in the first place, if you were going to break them.

"Keep him that way," I said, shortly. Hekkeran nodded, a flicker of relief showing at last - He reached for a potion, handling it with exacting care. As he tilted the vial, I saw Succulent's chest rise and fall at last, his shallow breaths easing...

Where, I thought, my mind racing. Where…?

"Sir Samuel…?"

With her windswept hair tangled across her face, soot clinging to her cheeks, Arche pointed. Solemn, as if she already knew what was coming.

She'd found Climb.

Half-buried in rubble, Climb was oddly untouched; His face grey, slack, his head down. Almost, but not quite, hiding the great wound in his throat where life had drained out of him. He'd collapsed in a sort of sitting position, half-raised by the fragment of rail behind him.

Somehow, Daegal had found its way back to him.

That's what I remember, most of all. The dead hand, gripping the sword he'd let fall.

I stepped towards him. His eyes were open, fogged with dust; Staring, unseeing, at something only he could see. The edges of his mouth curved downwards, as if frowning - the fingers of his free hand half-curled in a fist, locked eternally in place.

The tiniest details. All I could look at, without starting to shake.

To look at him was to grasp the truth of things. The totality of my failure. And then I couldn't look any more, because it was too much.

"-No."

No.

And all I could think was - This can't be.

That this wasn't supposed to happen.

That it was all some terrible mistake.

The workers had gathered, now. Hekkeran and Imina, standing together. Arche, looking stricken, her knowing eyes too old for her face.

It was Roberdyck who knelt by Climb's side, cradling his head. The blood that sheeted his armor had yet to dry, somehow; His hands red and wet, the priest looked up at me, and shook his head.

"I promised-" I fought to stay standing. The pain inside me demanded motion. The first tremors were coursing through me, now. Like a flood, like the world was trying to sweep me away in every direction it could.

"I gave him my word-"

The Princess. What would Renner think? What would she do, without Climb? How could I ever tell her?

"It's not your fault," Imina murmured. "It's a bad thing, that's all."

But it was. I was the one who had brought him here. If not for me-

With a grace borne of long practice, Roberdyck reached forward to close Climb's eyes. His voice was low, sombrely resonant, as he passed his holy symbol across his brow.

"Four Gods, gather the soul of this warrior into Your Eternal Embrace. By Earth, Fire, Water and Air, I beseech thee: Take from him the memories of torment, and usher-"

"No," I said, and he stopped, mid-verse. Looking at me, with quiet, patient understanding.

"There's got to be something," I said. "There has to be."

"Grandmaster-"

I was on my knees, now. Paging through the windows, my eyes roving across the neat rows. Weapons. Armor. Rings. Amulets. Cloaks.

Healing potions-

It had to be here. Some wand, some trinket. An elixir of life. Something, anything.

Potions of stamina. Potions of speed. Potions that cured everything and anything, except-

"Where-" My voice cracked. "Where is it…?"

Nothing. No more pages. No resurrection stones. No magic bullets.

Because-

Because Samuel had been a solo player. Because there had been no-one for him to bring back to life, in the Platinum Spire.

Because, at the very end, he'd been alone.

I would have laughed, but I was afraid I might have screamed.

They were watching me, now. All three of them. As if afraid of what I might do. Hekkeran's hands had settled - in the most natural-seeming way - on the hilts of his swords; Imina, less subtle, had eased herself a step back, her form tensed like a coiled spring.

No.

There was one last thing. Something I hadn't tried.

"All right," I said, my voice hoarse and thick. I said it again. "All right. Help me - Help me lay him out."

A quick glance, between Roberdyck and Hekkeran. When Hekkeran nodded, the priest took hold of Climb's body - I felt my guts twist in knots, at the way his slack form lolled in his grip - and eased it down to the shattered stone of the street.

I fumbled with my gauntlets. Pulled them off, let them drop in the dust. This close, I couldn't fool myself any longer; I could see the rent and splintered plate, the terrible damage I had made myself ignore.

The black clotted mess at the back of his skull.

For a moment, it was all I could to stare. To raise my hands before me, uncertain. Knowing, as I did, that I was already too late. That this was forever.

Please, I thought. Just this one time. Let me be wrong.

So it can be made right.

I reached into myself. Further than ever before. Straining, without knowing it.

Flicker.

My fingertips began to tingle. My fingertips started to glow.

I began to brighten from the outside in.

The light was changing, now. An empyrean radiance, flashes of bone showing through my skin, like sporadic x-rays. Blue lightning crackled and forked across my hands, in cising arcs of gathering charge.

A sudden rush of sense memory: Atop the stacks, in the rare moment between one dust-storm and the next. The wan light of the sun, rays slanting through the churning clouds. A glimpse of the world that once was.

Motes of radiance, like flecks of gold leaf carried in the air. Falling, precipitating, condensing down into a blizzard of stars. Like fading embers, fanned anew.

In my ears, the high, humming whine of power-

I slammed my hands down, onto Climb's form.

There was a boom. The rush of breaking thunder.

The light came swirling down. All those black specks, resurrected - All that ash, turned back into flame. The power wrenched itself out of me, in a swirling arc of azure lightning; It leapt and jumped, surging down into Climb in a single unfettered blast.

His body convulsed. His spine arched, so fiercely I feared it would snap. Blue fire crackled, coiling around him with the eye-searing radiance of the Interfector's flame-

And I brought him back to life.

He gagged on dust-dry lungs. Pulled a rattling breath through parched lips. Gasping, wild-eyed, Climb lurched upward, staring around at the faces standing around him in stunned silence.

I tried to say-

But the steel hooks of fatigue sank into me, and dragged me to the ground. Utter exhaustion, absolute and complete.

Like ravenous hunger. Like all-consuming thirst.

Like dying.

I remember saying, as I went down: "Tell Gagaran - Tell her I promised…"

Then the event horizon surged out from inside my head and swallowed me whole.

Next: Asura