Dead were regrouping. A handful came up the first half of the stairway. The first of them stepped straight into the gap and fell back to the ground, rising immediately to try again. The next up did not. They stopped, gauged the distance and jumped. Roberto shook his head. It was as he feared. Dead but not rendered stupid. Those that came after, learned from those before.
'Well, we can't fight down there, it'd be suicide.'
'It's the only way to slow them,' said Roberto.
'Got any bright ideas?'
'Yes.' It was Harban. He snatched the flask from Roberto's grasp. 'Make it a good shot.'
'I do not intend to throw it. Return the surviving Gor-Karkulas home for me. It is legacy enough.'
Roberto grabbed at Harban, understanding his intention and feeling a chill steal through him. 'No way. No way.'
Harban shrugged him off. 'The only way.'
Harban ran and jumped from the roof of the fort. Roberto watched him fall. It was thirty feet and more to the ground. He landed on the heads of the dead, using them to break his fall but he must have broken bones too. Ignoring the dead moving up the stairs to him, Davarov stared down too.
Dead surrounded Harban. Swords rose and fell. Harban was struck in the back but he did not stop. Another blade caught his left leg. He cried out but within it, his determination was undimmed. He shoved his way to the base of the stairs, dropped to his haunches and cocked his arm to strike the flask against the base of the steps.
'Down!' yelled Roberto.
Mirron was astonished at the purity of the power running through Gorian and his net of roots. She shuddered as they enveloped her. She felt no pain as they pierced her. She flushed with the energy. She felt whole, finally connected at the core to the workings of the earth and of God. She exhaled in a shivering sigh. 'I can feel you, Kessian. I can feel you.'
It was release. All her tensions and anguish flooded away with the touch of him through the life map Gorian had created. Exhilaration consumed her. Ecstasy embraced her. Kessian's scent, the touch of his hand, the feel of his hair and the brush of his lips. It was all there.
Mirron tried to move but the case of roots had stolen around her completely.
'You do not need to move, my love,' said Gorian. 'Everything you could ever want is here. All you need do is reach out with your mind.'
'It is so clean, so pure what you have created,' she breathed. 'It's incredible.'
'I have dismissed disease from us. It is the breath of my people but it is not good enough for Gods.'
'It was killing you, wasn't it, Father?'
'Yes, Kessian, it was. So we got rid of it, me and you. And now here we three are, together as one. And we can stay like this forever.'
Mirron could still move her head. She turned it and swivelled her eyes. Jhered, Arducius and Ossacer were there. Her brothers clung to each other, barely able to meet her gaze. And Paul
...
Paul was the anxious father waiting to see if his daughter had made the right choice.
it's all right,' she said, it really is.'
Mirron delved down below the purity of the three of them and the glade. Down to where the sick energies roiled and curled. Down through the strands of energy Gorian sent there to fuel his Work. The dead and the wave and the thousands of threads that fled away south and east to those walking in distant places. She reached out with her lifelines and caressed the strands, felt their power and the barricade that held back the disease. A perfect circuit.
it
is
perfect, isn't it, my love?' said Gorian. 'You need never worry that we will be harmed. We are too strong. It is the way of Gods.'
'Mirron?'
'Paul, it is wonderful. And you are free to move. No one will harm you.'
Jhered nodded. He took a pace or two towards them and stopped, just beyond arm's reach.
is that truly your wish?' said Gorian, his voice filling her mind. Memories of the Genastro Falls, of snow in Westfallen, of beautiful blond locks, muscle and the gentle caress of his touch on her skin. 'They will forever seek ways to harm us.'
'They have no wish to hurt me,' said Mirron.
'Then their wish is my wish. Go, my brothers. Go, Paul Jhered.'
'Kessian?' said Mirron.
'Yes, Mother?' Her son's voice warmed her skin, made the roots cling harder.
'Remember your little sailing boat in our house?'
Joy and love sprang through the energy map. 'My favourite toy.'
'But not important now,' said Gorian, an edge to his voice.
'And would you like to see it again? To see it sail its figure of eight?'
'With all my heart,' said Kessian.
'Then you shall,' said Mirron. 'And all you have to do is close your eyes. And close your mind.'
'No!' Gorian fed fear into the energy map. The roots tightened. 'You will not do that.'
'Ah, but Gorian, my dear stupid brother. A son always does as his mother asks.'
Mirron's hand gripped harder onto Gorian's skull. She felt Kessian's mind go blank. The well of his stamina closed to Gorian. She felt down with her mind to the sickness and disease, coiling down Gorian's energy strands. Down here, the power buffeted her but she was strong. She formed a strand of her own and buried it deep, deep into the mire of the rotting earth. And she sucked it up inside her.
A crawling darkness flooded inside her. She could hear Gorian shouting, feel his mind trying to tear her strand from the depths of the earth. Kessian was crying. Roots surrounding them snapped and withered. Mirron fed the rot, mould and disease through her body. She felt her organs cry out in pain. She felt her blood thicken and slow, clogging her arteries. She felt her breath come hard and painful in her chest.
Mirron would not stop. She sucked it more and more while Gorian bucked and twisted, trying to escape. But his Work had become his prison. She fed all of it through her hand and down into the top of his skull, pouring it over his brain and dousing his mind.
'Did you really think
I
would let you take my son, you bastard? Did you really think it would make me love you and want to be with you? Deluded fool. You are no god, and you are no Ascendant. Your deeds bring shame to our calling and you must be removed.'
Her strength failed quickly. With every mote she possessed, she clung on. And she shouted lest the one she really loved should not hear her.
'Now, Paul. Now!'
The dead were screaming and shrieking where they stood. The cacophony made any thought difficult. But Jhered had moved close enough and her words carried to him. The web of roots that bound all three of them was cracking, splitting and falling away. Loose strands flailed in the air. Gorian was raging. Jhered could see his face, purple and black under the pressure of Mirron's Work. And he could see her too. Eyes closed, face deathly white, only standing because the remaining roots held her upright.
'Hang on, Mirron. Hang on. Don't you give in now.'
A root caught him across the face and pitched him over backwards. Blood flowed from the cut deep in his cheek. Jhered wiped his hand across his face, got to his feet and hurled himself at the root web. Beneath his hands it was slimy, difficult to grip with the rot setting in and the decay rippling through it.
Jhered tore at the outer roots, making a hole big enough for his hands. He buried them in the writhing mass, clutched on to an arm and pulled. Pulled hard. He used all his weight and dragged. The roots gave way. He fell back hard, clutching the body to him. He hugged it so hard and he never wanted to let go.
'It's all right, Kessian. It's all over now.'
Jhered opened his eyes. The roots were sliding from Gorian and Mirron. Her hand was still gripping the top of his head and he had his hands around her throat, trying to drive the life from her. His whole body rippled with sickness. Sores burst from his skin, showering stinking pus into the air. He screamed, a tortured, agonised sound that tailed off to a whimper.
Jhered went to lay Kessian down but the boy clung on.
'It's all finished now,' said Kessian.
Gorian's hands dropped from Mirron. Hers came away from his head and the two of them fell side by side on to the grass. Jhered stared round at the dead. They were still standing. But not as one. There was wavering and he was sure they were looking at each other, confused and frightened.
Kessian rolled off Jhered and the two of them stood. Arducius and Ossacer were already by the other two. Jhered joined them, Kessian running to Mirron's still form. Gorian remained alive but only just. His hands were clawed and his arms drawn up to his chest. His body convulsed and his skin was covered in red blemishes, boils and open sores. Gorian's face was swollen and dark, his lips a mass of blood and his mouth black. But his eyes stared at them all with that startling power that he had always possessed.
'It didn't have to be this way, Gorian,' said Ossacer. 'This was never the path the Ascendants should have taken.'
'Always
...
hate
...
us.' Gorian's breath bubbled at his ruined mouth. 'Never. Accept.'
'Not now,' said Arducius. 'Not after what you have done.'
Jhered looked at Arducius askance. There was no mockery in his face. Only regret. Ossacer put his hand out and grasped Gorian's left ankle.
'You should have let us help you,' said Arducius. 'Before it was too late. Now all we can offer you is peace at the very end.'
Gorian's body relaxed, his eyes closed and his head fell to one side, a thin line of drool dripping on to the grass. Ossacer removed his hand.
'And what about Mirron?' asked Jhered.
Ossacer set those blind eyes on him and they filled with his tears as a kaleidoscope of colour rippled across them.
'Oh, Paul, you know it is already too late for her.'
Jhered closed his eyes and sank to his knees. He didn't even register the extraordinary sound of the dead falling back to the embrace of God.
'She can't be gone,' he whispered. He shoved Gorian's body aside and caressed her warm cheek with the back of his hand. 'Not now we've won. Not now there is a future for her.'
The four of them clustered around Mirron. Kessian was leaning against Jhered who put an arm around him and held him close. Arducius, his eyes wells of sorrow and his physical pain forgotten, let his tears fall on her still body. So pale, so beautiful. So close to life.
'Ossacer, you must be able to do something,' said Jhered. 'She can't be gone.'
'I can't raise the dead,' said Ossacer, his voice a broken croak. 'You wouldn't want that.'
Jhered paused and his eyes flicked to Gorian. 'No. I wouldn't want that.'
'She is with God now,' said Kessian. 'The true God.'
Jhered drew him even closer. 'Yes, she is, Kessian. And on this day we can all be thankful for that mercy.'
He cleared his throat and let a trembling breath escape, trying hard to retain control.
'We should probably go back to the barrier, what's left of it,' said Arducius.
Jhered nodded. 'Yes. Yes, you're right. Although right now, I feel like nothing more than sitting here forever.'
'But we have to go and face our fate,' said Arducius. 'We Ascendants, that is.'
'A fate that Mirron's action has surely changed,' said Jhered. 'You have to believe that. Another chance to become accepted.'
'It doesn't matter that Ossie and I believe it. And of course we do.
But what is right for the Conquord? And it can't be the enduring risk of this happening again.'
Arducius gestured around him at the thousands of fallen dead. The ruined land beyond the tiny glade.
‘I
just don't know that we deserve another chance.'
Chapter Sixty-Eight
859th cycle of God, 12th day of Genasfall
And the woman's scream was joined with tens of thousands of others. A blaring howl that echoed from every wall and clawed up to the sky. It bounced from the arena, mourned across the docks and set birds to flight from the palace's highest roofs. The cry sheared through Iliev's head. He dropped his hammer and his axe and clamped his hands over his ears.
Kashilli fell to his knees, groaning, his mighty hammer cracking cobbles when it fell from his nerveless fingers. The fountain's water thrashed behind them, the living were shouting for the pain to stop and the Omniscient and Ocetarus looked on them and blessed them all.