Book 5 - Chapter 45 (Patreon)

Brin smiled in delight. This was it. She’d actually used it! Arcaena’s final defense, the great working that he’d known was coming. Finally. All the work to get here, to trigger the spell in a way that wouldn’t kill him, and it was finally here. He and Lumina, they’d done it.

Lothar watched in growing horror as the bombs grew from up from the ground. There were so many that every man in the army would be caught in at least three separate blasts. They still maintained surprisingly good order—the rank and file didn't know what the zits meant, at least not all of them, and the commanders weren't explaining. The ones still nearest the gate were pouring through it as quickly as possible, but they wouldn't get even a tenth of the men now in the city back out in time.

“No... no! I can't stop them all. I could protect some... maybe... maybe a hundred.”

Brin still dreaded what was coming in this little venture. He didn't think he'd be able to protect Lothar from his fate, and he wasn't sure if he was going to survive this either. Disturbingly, that thought didn't bother him as much as it should, not when the fear of death had been his constant companion throughout this war. He found it quite simple to shove those thoughts off, because this? This was the fun part. He smiled.

“You know, my father told me something about a good bluff. Do you play cards, Lothar?” One look at the [Paladin] told him he didn't have to ask. Of course he didn't play cards. “Or even a feint. Any kind of trick. If you try to trick someone ten times and succeed half the time, they'll think of you as an idiot. But if you trick someone once and it works, they'll remember you as a crafty genius.”

“Is that what this is? You're calling my bluff? Fine, you win! I will not preserve my own life at the cost of the lives of all those ten thousands down below. Take my neck if you wish, traitor, only preserve those men!”

Brin recoiled. “What? No! That's not... That's not it at all.”

“I care not! Save them, if you have the power. Whatever promise you wish to extract from me–”

Brin shook his head in disgust. “You totally ruined my monologue, and now I kind of feel bad.” He sighed. “Let's just do this.”

“Do what? What can I do?” asked Lothar.

“You've already done your part. The main thing we needed you for was cutting down the barrier on the walls and making her think that we were really committed. Go ahead and dismiss the illusion, guys.”

The other part of the Great Conduit he'd been trying hard not to think about, the main part, canceled itself. The forty-seven [Illusionists] in the Tower dismissed their illusion.

The army down below disappeared. Like a fog fleeing from before the rising sun, they lost opacity until there was only a faint outline of them, until that as well was gone. The streets were empty, the homes and businesses were vacant, and the gate into town wasn't crowded.

Only, as the army finally faded away, from the men at the far end all the way to those closest, a few figures remained. Nine familiar faces, grinning up at him like they'd all just pulled a fabulous joke.

“Oh, you dicks!” Brin said.

The Lance grinned back, a few of them making a rude gesture. They stood in front of a little supply wagon. Brin had no idea why they'd bothered to bring it.

“I'll get to you in a minute,” said Brin.

“What's the meaning of this?” asked Lothar, bewildered.

“I want to say this was the plan from the beginning, but of course we didn't know exactly how it would play out. All we knew was that there would be a plan, and that it would probably involve illusions. If you had been here from the start, you might have wondered why Frenaria never used our own [Illusionists]. We have the best [Illusionists] in the world, better than what Arcaena had, and yet she covered her armies in a big impenetrable wall of smoke, and we hardly utilized ours at all. Then, when someone destroyed most of Arcaena's [Illusionists], we still didn't use them. It was all for this. So that Arcaena’s generals would stop looking for it. So that when we finally did use it, Arcaena would be fooled.”

He'd worried a little, that Arcaena would see through it. The fact that the army marched with such good discipline was a giveaway, as was the fact that no one had tried to sneak off to loot the pristine and wealthy capital. But the [Illusionists] at the Tower were geniuses; he had no shame in admitting that. Of the tens of thousands of soldiers in the illusionary army, no two had the same face. They'd all been copied from real men in the real army, whose paths had been covered by illusion from the moment that their mirror images had split off to join the march. They'd all been separated into their own, actual units, and all their armor and equipment had been completely accurate. He'd panicked a little when they brought in the entire army, instead of only the five thousand. But he had to admit they pulled it off. Then there was the artifact. Connected to it through the spell in his Lightmind as well as the Wyrd, he could feel the sheer power of the thing. Where had Lumina picked that up? And more importantly, would he ever get the chance to play with it?

Then had come the [Bards] and the Wyrd-workers and Fate wielders. They'd been there to encourage and empower Lothar as much as they could, but he hadn't needed them. The real reason they'd been there was to help sell the illusion, a task for which Brin's [Delusionist] Class had been an enormous boon.

Foreign armies march on the streets of your capital city, Arcaena. What are you going to do about it?

“I won't say that I don't appreciate the enthusiasm, but why even bother? Why not send me alone?” asked Lothar.

“Arcaena's curses are smart and adaptive. It didn't decide on the form it would take until it saw the threat it faced. If you charged in alone, the curse would've punished the men outside the walls for it. Oh, and Maggart would've killed you,” said Brin.

“I would have prevailed,” said Lothar.

“Our Fate readers say otherwise.” Brin shrugged. “Besides, we didn't know it would be you breaking that barrier. You only agreed to it like a week ago.”

“And what now? Will she still destroy her own city now that she sees it is empty?” asked Lothar.

“The Fate readers think that it's a coin flip. But they're stupid; there's no way Arcaena wants to see her beautiful city in the hands of a bunch of stinky men. She'll destroy it. Would you mind protecting my Lance?”

“With pleasure,” said Lothar.

They strode down the stairs and the Lance walked up to meet them. Lothar covered them in a golden dome of light. Then they waited.

It took an awkwardly long time. Cid didn't strike up a conversation; he just stared evenly at Brin as if to dare him to question his decision. Brin mean-mugged the Lance the entire time, and none of them met his eyes, though they all looked pleased. The idiots were probably all going to get themselves killed because of this; they had no business looking so proud of themselves. That was the problem with the Great Conduit. The other [Illusionists] had been handling the army, so Brin hadn’t noticed a thing.

The curse advanced. There was nothing to see at first, but the Wyrd raged around them like a storm. The curse upon the city was furious. It had been imbued with power and intellect by Arcaena herself over the course of centuries. It was ready to give the perfect repicrosity, according to the will and pleasure of the [Witch Queen], for any slights against her throne. And now, when it finally had the opportunity to act, it had chosen wrongly. It wanted to pull back the power, to adjust to something nastier, something more personal for Lothar and Brin. But it couldn't. It had spent its power making the bombs. Now, it could only activate them, or not.

The bombs exploded. It wasn't as spectacular as the other times he'd seen these explode, because he was underneath it and there was nothing to see. There was a flash, which he dimmed with his light magic. Then a cloud of darkness passed over them, but the energy was so thick that he couldn't even watch it as it toppled the buildings around them. Lothar's protection was so absolute that they didn't feel the wind of its passing.

Then it faded. Smoke and dust remained, but gradually it cleared enough for them to see the wreckage. Brin had imagined it would smash everything flat, but the destruction was uneven, and served more to twist and bend the stone rather than simply crush it.

He sent out a fleet of Invisible Eyes and saw thousands of undead soldiers climbing from below, using the towers to swarm the city and cut off their escape. The [Dread Knights] had turned around in their tunnels as well, and were making their way back up.

Brin glared at his Lance. “You shouldn't have come.”

Cid answered. “We're with you until the end. No matter how it ends.”

“Is it already over?” asked Hedrek. “And did all of you guys know that this city would be empty?”

Brin said, “I guessed. Aberfa told me that the only time to stop Arcaena was two years ago. We all expected it was because she would bring the millions of undead she found in the Burrow Kingdom up here to defend her queendom, but we never saw any sign of that, did we? No, instead, she evacuated her people to the Burrow Kingdom.”

“In the Wastes?” Cid asked incredulously. “No one can even enter, much less live there.”

“She found a way,” said Brin. “Otherwise, they'd never have discovered the Burrow Kingdom.”

“Then are we done here?” asked Hedrek.

Brin didn't have a great plan for this next part, but hadn't Hedrek just handed him a perfect solution? They could turn around now and fight their way out. Moving quickly, before the [Dread Knights] could surround them, they could charge through the regular undead now swarming the city. They could make it.

The only problem here would be convincing Lothar. He began to plan, trying to come up with a lie he would believe, some way to overcome [Light of Truth] and get them all to return.

“No,” said Lothar.

Brin opened his mouth to argue, but then noticed where Lothar was looking. Back near the doors of the citadel, stood two [Witches]. They both showed their names openly to [Inspect] and what he saw made his blood run cold.

The first was dreadful and beautiful. Elegant in a dress that might've belonged in a Frenarian ballroom, she had a timeless vitality, flawless skin and nails like polished rubies. She was clearly the lesser. Her name was Thesa.

Brin saw no family resemblance there. If she was a sister to Aberfa, then it was the sisterhood of a coven or of very close friends.

The next was a plain-looking woman. She wore simple clothes in the Arcaenean style. Her hair had a bit of grey and her face showed the wrinkles of what might've been her actual age. Since one of the first tricks a [Witch] learned was how to make herself look like whatever she wished, it was a powerful statement. He recognized her from Dustrim, and that in itself was another statement. This was the [Great Witch] Arnarra.

The [Dread Knight] moved in around the two [Witches] and a great winged creature, like a giant hairless bat landed down behind Arnarra.

Castiville

The familiar of the Arnarra.

“I'm blinding and deafening you,” Brin said to Lothar.

Lothar nodded. “It will be no obstacle.”

That wasn't what Brin wanted to hear, but what else could he do? He cast the spells to block all light and sound from reaching Lothar's eyes and ears. It was a complex one-sided thing so that he would appear normal to all others, but to him it would seem like he'd been dropped into a silent void.

“Aberthol.” Thesa spoke first. “By the laws of Arcaena your guardianship falls to me, in place of your mother.”

“I'm an adult,” said Brin.

“Not in Arcaena. You will come with me now, that I might deliver your punishment and finish my sister's work. Unfilial child. I claim you. Now come,” said Thesa.

“No,” said Brin, cocking his head to the side as if confused.

That was the reaction Thesa expected and she grinned wickedly. The followers still attached through the Great Conduit braced themselves to defend against the curse that must follow. Brin gently nudged them aside. He could deal with this himself.

Thesa gathered her power and launched a curse. “Then suffer for it... ack!'

The curse rebounded immediately. Her perfect vitality turned to rot, her hair and fingernails sloughed off and the skin of her face melted into something horrible. She screamed until her airways were blocked and it turned into a bubbling moan. Tearing at herself with the stubs of her fingers, she fled, to the side where she flung herself off the platform leading to the citadel and went tumbling down the hill. Brin waited for a death notification, but didn't receive it. Normally he would get one for even defeating someone in a non-lethal way, but Thesa had defeated herself.

“The matter of my parentage is already decided. And no one calls me unfilial.” He laughed. The power and terror of the [Great Witch] left him no room for mirth, but that only made him laugh harder.

Arnarra narrowed her eyes in displeasure. “Quite annoying. I don't think you quite understand what we're trying to do here, Aberthol.”

Lothar charged, eyes blazing, sword shining with holy light.

“Return,” Arnarra commanded.

Blind and deaf, it didn’t help. It would only make sense that a [Paladin] would have some other, better means of perception, and he heard the command loud and clear.

Lothar collapsed onto the ground, going limp. Now with Aberthol's newfound memories, it was more than he could bear. Lothar’s mouth yawned as if in death, though his heart still beat. Eyes unfocused. He was still conscious, still seeing and hearing all, but the shield of apathy stuck so firmly in place that he'd never notice anything that happened to him. Brin had to swallow down his rising bile. Aberthol had been so close to becoming something just like that.

He reflexively cast a Mirror Image and Invisibility. He hid Lothar, and made it look like he'd only dropped to a knee, straining against some mighty curse that all the [Witch Hunters] in the Great Conduit couldn't detect.

Arnarra stepped forward, treating the defeat of all a [Paladin's] might and power as nothing more than a passing concern. “Now, Aberthol, you will give some consideration to what we're trying to accomplish.” She spoke in Arcaenean, which meant only he among his Lance could understand her. It was strange how natural the language sounded to him now. “One [Paladin] destroyed the best of Arcaena's coven and pushed her to her very limits. Two [Paladins] would be more than enough, I think. Do our interests not align in this way?”

“The System inures us against threats we've already faced. Arcaena defeated a [Paladin] four hundred years ago, [Witch]. Do you really expect me to believe she can be ended in such a way now?”

“Yes!” declared Arnarra, eyes glittering, looking the way [Witches] did when they expected you to immediately accept everything they were saying instead of reasonably deciding that they were completely insane. “Yes! Because where is Arcaena now? Answer me that. Where is she? I thought I knew who she was, but then one day, I met a woman who approached the throne of the great queen. To sit upon that throne is death, we all knew it, but then she approached and stood and sat. And she became Arcaena. And that's when I knew, don't you see? Arcaena is not a person. Arcaena is a title. A mighty working, laid by our noble ancestors, slain, all of them, by wretched Houwen. They live on in purpose and power, to guide and protect the witchkin.”

Brin blinked, trying to summon the courage for another laugh. “That's impossible.”

“I saw this. I saw this with my own eyes. A simple woman of no account. And then, the [Witch Queen],” said Arnarra. The Wyrd shook with her words. She was telling the truth.

“But... but people have met Arcaena!”

“And so have I! Or perhaps, I've only met the pretender who wears that mantle. Only, she isn't here now, is she? She fled to the south, to the Wastes, seeking to found a new nation there, in a place not surrounded by enemy nations on every side. The coward. There is power enough in Arcaena to found an empire, not a wretched tribe of outcasts in the desert.”

Cid had spent this entire time whispering in their helmet's communication spells, coordinating with the men and planning a course of attack. They'd need to take down Arnarra first of all, before anyone noticed that they were moving, and then it would turn into a fighting retreat. The only matter yet to decide was who would take the first strike. Brin wanted to shift the conversation to flat out retreat; he could hold Arnarra's curses back while they all ran, but he didn't dare split his attention enough to get involved. He needed to keep Arnarra talking.

“Looks like you've got it all figured out. So what do you need me for? Or is this just a social call?” he asked.

Arnarra tapped her cheek. “Lothar. Sweety. These men have betrayed you, and shown themselves allies of the [Witch Queen]. You'll need to slaughter them when you reawaken. Or, perhaps not? If young Aberthol is cooperative.”

“You make a compelling argument,” said Brin.

Arnarra nodded. “Order your men away. Then you will proceed to that door. You will open it and go inside.”

Brin paused, thinking. He said, “You can't open it. Can you? You think you're going to climb up on Arcaena's throne and assume her power, but you can't even open the front door! But then... Why do you think I could?”

He shouldn't have been thinking out loud like that, because Arnarra didn't seem to like the direction his thoughts had gone. She frowned, and Brin knew a terrible curse was only a few syllables away.

It was Anwir, the [Knight of Arrows] who charged first.