The Eighth Warden Bk. 05 Ch. 00

The owl spoke into her mind. What have you done, foolish child? it asked. You've altered the structural integrity holding the Collision in balance! You risk destroying our worlds!

Hera shrieked in pain. The voice was too loud. Much too loud. She had to make it stop.

She thrust her hands forward and a stream of darkness swirled out. Magic, but not like anything she'd known before. Three magics working together as one. Elder magic, the first she'd ever touched, was easy to distinguish. And arcane magic, though not a spell she'd ever seen before. And then there was something new. A fragment of a memory. Something about a ritual.

The darkness lanced out at the owl spirit and the creature disintegrated before her eyes.

And then the void of nothingness returned.

#

By the fourth time Hera flickered back into awareness, she'd recovered enough of her memories to think clearly. The best place to learn more about what had happened would be Fortress Central and the Governmental Council chamber. In a time of crisis, the chamber would be occupied at all hours of the day.

But first, she had to get there. Each time she woke, she was back inside the melted remains of Fortress West. She floated through the stone once again, more quickly than before.

The courtyard had been different on each attempt she'd made. The second time, the panicked crowds had disappeared. Instead, dozens of bodies had been laid out side by side, a mix of clerks, librarians, and soldiers--people who worked near Fortress West and who must have been killed by the rogue spell. By her third waking session, the bodies had been moved away somewhere and the courtyard was nearly empty. The few people present walked quickly, with a sense of purpose, but their eyes darted all around, searching for any of those clouds of flickering blue light.

Now, on this fourth attempt, the courtyard had changed again. There was a makeshift infirmary set up near the entrance to Fortress East--the military complex. More bodies had been laid out nearby, and healing wizards, surgeons, and nurses were attending to the wounded, all of whom were wearing soldiers' uniforms.

What had happened? Hera stopped, tempted to change direction. Many of her friends were in the High Guard. Were they safe?

But she only had a limited amount of time before she disappeared again. The council was still the best option.

She passed by the totem walk, averting her eyes from Owl's statue, then continued on to Fortress Central, passing through the walls so she wouldn't accidentally run into someone in the doorways. There was no physical sensation when people passed through her, but she hated the thought of it.

Near the administrative offices, one of the head clerks was issuing orders to his underlings.

"Take only this year's ledgers," he said. "Leave the rest."

"Leave them?" a young woman asked.

"We'll return for them when it's safe. Go--and hurry. I want everyone down in the tunnels within the hour."

Return from where? Which tunnels?

"My parents..." one of the clerks said, a worried expression on his face.

"Bring your family groups. Let them know they can move to the front of the line as long as they're ready to leave immediately."

A wave of relief washed over the group and they dispersed to their tasks.

What was going on?

Hera imagined herself having legs--a trick she'd learned during her previous waking session--and jogged to the Governmental Council chamber.

It was occupied, but not by the people she'd expected to find. Sitting in the king's spot at the head of the table was the elderly Under-General Timos. Where was King Argyros? Prince Lydos? General Straton? Hera recognized a few of the other faces, but she didn't know anyone else by name.

Someone wearing the uniform of an undercity engineer was speaking. "The recyclers aren't designed to provide all of our air," he said. "They're only meant to keep it fresh. The enchantments are already failing in North Tower. We need to reopen the vents."

"Then we'll all choke to death on the smoke," said a High Guard scout, his face streaked with soot. "It's too thick to breathe, and it's getting worse now that the firestorms have moved into the forests."

Timos spoke up. His voice was tired. "Why haven't the elder mages put out the fires yet? We need to protect the outer city."

The two soldiers nearest him exchanged glances. The younger, a lieutenant, was Timos's adjutant, if Hera remembered correctly. He said, "General? We already lost the outer city. Do you remember?"

Timos slumped down in his chair. "The people?" he asked hesitantly.

The lieutenant shook his head, his face grim. "Some made it inside when the firestorms first hit, but... Sir, it was only a few hundred. Everyone else is dead."

A few hundred?

Hera felt the need to steady herself, but she couldn't touch anything. The outer city was gone? Nearly a quarter of a million people lived there, and that wasn't counting all the human tribes who'd gathered for protection during the war, or the refugees from Tir a Tir and Tir Ankara.

They were all gone?

Timos shook his head slowly back and forth as if trying to ignore what he'd just been told. "The fires," he said. "We still have to put out the fires so we can open the vents."

"We can't," the scout said. "The wizards say there's some sort of power still leaking out from Fortress West, and the firestorms are feeding on it even when there's nothing left to burn. Any time the elder mages do manage to put out a fire, the wildstorms just light another."

Wildstorm? That must be what they were calling the clouds of blue and white light.

"If we let the recyclers fail, we won't have a choice about opening the vents," the engineer said. "Smoke or air poisoning."

"Can the enchanters fix the recyclers?" Timos asked. "Or make new ones?"

The others in the room looked away, leaving it to the lieutenant to break the news. "Sir, most of the enchanters and shapers were in Fortress West when it was destroyed."

"Oh. Oh, yes, so you said."

This was the person making the decisions? Timos had been retired to desk duty before the war had started, but even if he'd still had his full wits about him, he wasn't the right man to be leading the council. The Under-General had the soul of a bookkeeper, not a warrior.

He stared blankly at the papers in front of him.

The young lieutenant stood and paced back and forth. "If the elder mages can't put out the fires, don't waste their strength trying. Bring them back here. They can help clean the air long enough for the evacuation to get fully underway."

General Timos didn't contradict him, nor did any of the other higher ranking officers.

The scout nodded. "Yes, sir," he said, then hurried out of the chamber.

Timos stared after him. "Good, yes, good idea." That seemed to wake him up. "We have to speed up the evacuation. Tell the people to take no more than they can carry. Commandeer any cart and wagon you can find in the inner city that'll fit into the western tunnels. Don't allow the carters to sell or rent them--we need them to transport food and supplies."

The western tunnels? The city was evacuating all the way to the Skotinos Mountains? The newly discovered route was narrow and cramped, and the miners and tunneling golems were still working to enlarge it into a real road.

Once they were done, they would have a secure underground passage between the two most heavily fortified Tirs, but it wasn't done yet. How could the entire city--even just the inner city--evacuate through the hundreds of miles of tunnels?

"Sir, the horses were killed when Fortress East collapsed."

Fortress East? This time Hera did need support. She thumped down in a chair. Somehow it held her up though she couldn't feel it beneath her. The military complex was destroyed? All of it? There were tens of thousands of people there at any given time--people Hera had fought alongside in the war.

That explained why no one more competent was in charge. The officers' quarters and administration compound were located in Fortress East, along with the command center where the High Guard generals would oversee the military response to any disasters or emergencies.

A look of sorrow passed over Timos's face at the mention of horses. He'd been cavalry once. "The people will have to pull the wagons themselves."

He paused again, and the lieutenant spoke up. "What about the Enchantment Repository? We need that other golem to help clear the tunnels. Three isn't enough."

"The warding extends around the entire repository," said a gray-haired woman of middle years. Hera recognized her as a wizard, one of Allos's researchers. "We can't break through. We're still trying to get a Sending past the storms to ask the other Tirs for a wardbreaker, though I don't know if there are any strong enough."

Why would they need to break into the Enchantment Repository? The wardens might be dead, but most of the senior members of the council could open the door.

"Can the Mage Knights open it?" asked an infantry colonel. "Thedan sits on the council."

"He was new to the council," the wizard replied. "According to the records, he hadn't been added to the warding spell yet, and we haven't wanted to risk bringing him out of stasis to find out for sure."

"Why not?" the lieutenant asked. "Without the wardens, we'll need the knights."

A look of sorrow passed over the woman's face. "Because of the children," she said. "Before the ritual, Allos sent away all the other mages who could wield both arcane and elder magic, but he thought the children we were watching for their potential would be safe because they hadn't yet built up the arcane pathways in their minds. All seven of them have been killed. The wildstorms are seeking out anyone who wields both magics."

"Then we'll have to leave the Mage Knights in stasis for their own protection," Timos said. "Swords won't be of any use against this enemy. We'll come back for them once the wildstorms are gone."

"Have you learned anything more about the storms?" the lieutenant asked the researcher.

"We've confirmed they're wild magic, similar to what we've seen near Donvar in the past," she replied. "We can't banish them, but warding spells to block magic will stop them for a short time. And..." She hesitated. "We have a final toll for the large storm that passed through West Tower yesterday. It killed over nine hundred Chosar, but it left three human servants unharmed."

Everyone sat forward at that.

"What do you mean?" the lieutenant asked. "It only affects our people? Is it an attack on us?"

"I don't see how," the wizard said. "The wildstorms aren't bound by any mage or spell, and we've measured the point of origin for the storms in Van Kir--they definitely came from the ritual chamber in Fortress West."

"What about the other points of origin?" asked one of the officers. "It could still be an attack."

"The storms are causing too much interference to identify the exact locations, but we're seeing the most activity here, Tir Navis, Donvar, and an island chain west of Donvar. Donvar is actually getting the worst of it. If it is an attack, the scourlings may have been the target rather than us, but the timing of the wardens' ritual is too close to be a coincidence."

Another memory sprang into Hera's mind--not all the wardens had been in the ritual chamber. Boreas's presence at Tir Navis was public information, but no one in this room was likely to know Iris had been on that unnamed chain of islands. And that didn't explain Donvar. Why was it always Donvar that attracted wild magic?

"Unless it was the wardens themselves who were trying to attack the scourlings," the lieutenant said. "But you've confirmed the Skotinos Mountains will be safe?"

"No," the researcher said. "The wildstorms are everywhere, but it's safer there than here. Besides, if the firestorms reach as far as the mountains, there's less vegetation there to burn."

"It's too late to second-guess our decision," General Timos said. "Thousands of people are already on their way, and we have nowhere else to send them." He flipped to another page in his stack of papers. "Have we learned anything new on the undercity victims?" He sounded more confident with his notes to back up his questions.

It was a High Guard healing wizard that replied. "We have them trapped in the sewer levels."

"Trapped? You're supposed to be helping them!"

"We managed to capture three, but healing spells don't do anything. Their minds and bodies have already shut down. They may be moving around, but by any reasonable definition, they're already dead. We would like permission to destroy the rest. It's cruel to leave them like that."

"No," Timos said. "I'm not going to authorize killing our own people."

"General, they died two days ago."

"You don't know that! Maybe by someone else's definition, they can still be saved. You say you have them trapped? Fine. We'll leave them locked up where they can't hurt anyone, and make sure they have enough food and water."

"They don't eat or drink," the healing wizard said. "They'll kill anyone who comes near, but other than that, they just stand around. They ignore the food we leave out for them."

"Why did that only happen in the undercity?" the lieutenant asked.

It was the other wizard who replied, the woman who'd worked for Allos. "There was a wave of necromantic magic shortly before Fortress West was destroyed. It might be the reason the ritual failed, but there's no way of knowing."

Hera didn't remember anything like that, but she'd been in a trance, and busy with the elder magic half of the ritual. Necromancy was arcane magic, and she hadn't been paying attention to the wizards.

But that brought to mind another fragment of a memory. The king, the prince, and the rest of the council had decided to watch the ritual in person. No one had expected it to be dangerous.

The wardens were dead, or perhaps in the same half-dead state Hera had found herself in.

There was no Governmental Council. Not anymore.

This was all that was left.

#

Six months later...

Hera was crouching down, holding her hands over a sleeping, pregnant refugee's belly, when Demea's incorporeal form popped into existence beside her.

"Hera! I--. What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to concentrate!" she snapped.

Demea was quiet for a moment as she watched. "I can't follow the magic."

"Don't use your elder senses alone. Combine it with the new one." The totemic sense. The magic they'd stolen from their one-time allies. Not allies any longer, though. The remaining totems knew Hera had killed Owl. They'd abandoned the Chosar to their fate.

"You're changing the child?" Demea asked.

"Iris showed me how."

"She hasn't completed her experiments yet. We don't know if it's safe!"

"We can't wait any longer!" Hera said. "The wildstorms will kill the Chosar one by one unless we do something about it."

Iris had found a way to make The People immune to the direct effects of the wildstorms, as if they were human or elven, but it could only be performed on unborn children. Every day Hera waited, more babes were born that were still at risk. She refused to delay any further.

"You're changing them all?" Demea said. "Iris is only dealing with a few thousand of The People, and fewer than a hundred pregnancies. There were a quarter of a million refugees from Tir Yadar!"

"Not anymore. We lost forty thousand over the winter."

Many of the deaths were due to hunger and sickness rather than wildstorms. The elder mages had created indoor water gardens in every cavern that could be spared, but it wouldn't be enough to feed everyone. The stored grain at Tir Yadar had run low, and then two weeks earlier, seven miles of the tunnel system had collapsed. There was no longer a safe route through the firestorms to retrieve the last of the supplies and knowledge left in the once-great city.

Scavenging parties went west from the mountains on a daily basis, and there'd even been a few attempts at planting winter crops, but their efforts were stymied by roving bands of armed humans who blamed the Chosar for the destruction. While the wildstorms themselves didn't kill humans outright, they could still pervert any spell they encountered, and the fires and lightning storms they brought had caused devastation all over the continent. The heavy smoke in the sky was only now beginning to disperse. Hopefully it would be gone before it ruined the summer growing season.

"Forty thousand? We have to do something!"

"I am!" Hera exclaimed. "This was all it would allow! Whatever your great plan was for combining the magics, it failed. I wield more power now than I ever have before, and I can't do anything with it!"

This new reality had placed restrictions on what the wardens could and couldn't do with their powers. Hera hadn't had any luck in deciphering the rules behind it all.

"It wasn't my plan," Demea muttered.

Hera wanted to rage at her, to let loose with all the anger she felt toward the other wardens, but what good would it do? Demea was right--she'd hardly been the driving force behind the ritual. Plus, the woman was grieving. All five of her bondmates who'd made it through the war had been killed by the ritual. Two had been instructors at the wizardry academy, which had been destroyed along with the rest of Fortress West, while the other three had been killed by the firestorms in the outer city and elsewhere in Van Kir.

Hera hadn't had any bondmates to lose, and unlike Demea and the other wardens, she was still young enough to have living family. Her grandmother and two cousins had survived the war, and all three were with the Skotinos Mountain refugees.

"No, it wasn't your plan," Hera said, "but we're all responsible for what happened. We should have asked more questions." Even now, they had no idea why the spell had failed. Allos and Arodi insisted they didn't know, and no one had seen Pallis or Zachal since the ritual.

She finished her work and stood up. Or, rather, an incorporeal representation of her former body stood up. "That's six so far. A thousand to go." There would have been more, but the majority of the pregnancies had begun before the evacuation. Very few women had chosen to bear children since then. That might change if Hera's plan worked--she'd have to monitor the Chosar women for the next fifty years to ensure any child born would have the changes.

"I don't suppose being able to breathe underwater will be as helpful here as on Paraido, but at least they'll be safer from the wild magic," Demea said.

"I changed the spell," Hera said. The people here needed something different.

Demea's eyes widened. "I didn't know you could... What did you do?"

"They don't need to breathe underwater, but I tried to make them hardier, and I gave their elder mages a way to manipulate stone without any shaper wizards. I changed them to be more comfortable in the deeper tunnels--the builders never finished the new city here, and only one of the golems is still functional. They'll need more space, and the safest direction to go is down." The wildstorms passed through the mountains on a regular basis, but they rarely went much below ground level. The elder mages among the children would have an easier time digging deeper to avoid them. She'd also changed them so they'd be able to digest the strange plants and creatures that lived in the lowest tunnels. The water gardens wouldn't be sufficient to feed the people, and if they couldn't farm above ground, they'd have to learn to do so below the surface.

"You can do all that?" Demea asked. "Iris never said anything about it."

"I had to split up her spell and take just the parts I wanted," Hera said. Her new totemic senses had seemed to guide her, helping to keep her from making mistakes. "Each new change gets harder than the last. Iris said it has to, or you risk undoing it all once they start having children of their own."