Twixt Heaven And Hell (42 page)

"No. I understand, now," Makaelic said slowly. "Forgive us, Darius. We did not know."

Darius did not answer. He trembled from the shock of sharing the Archangel's mind.

Makaelic turned to the fallen form of Aethel, and the power that he had ripped from his fellow Archangel flowed from him again. Aethel lifted his cowled head as the Light returned to him, brighter than it had been before.

"Rise, great and worthy brother," Makaelic said. "Lift your voice proudly amongst the Choirs, for you have seen what no other Angel could."

"That their world is not just another battleground," Aethel replied.

"No, it is not," Makaelic agreed, and half turned to the chamber beyond. "Though what this world is, and what it will become, I cannot say."

Darius became aware of the other wizards again – their song had become a beautiful and vastly complex interweaving of voices. Their chorus thundered through the hallways, heard as much by the spirit as the ear. What little he could see of the chamber beyond the corridor was bathed in a rippling shroud, a fog thrown through with light and fire.

"The ritual is nearly complete," Makaelic announced. "I will return to the fight. Farewell, Darius. I beg your forgiveness once more – we would have spared your people this, if we could."

Makaelic strode down the hallway he had come, stepping smoothly over the bodies of the sorcerer and the fallen warriors. Darius noticed, then, that Pollis and several other Gryphons were standing as they had when the Angel had arrived, eyes wide in amazement.

"Guard the other corridor," Darius said in exhaustion. "We're not through yet."

Aethel had gone to stand by the side of the wounded, and on their faces was the relief of Healing. One man whose ashen face had announced his imminent doom was now looking hale again, and he rose unsteadily to his feet and took up his blade again.

The Angel turned to face Darius once more.

"The Great Enemy will be gone, soon. As will the Choirs," Aethel said. "But the changes we wrought upon you remain. You can never be free of the Conflict, now. Forgive us."

"There was no choice, Aethel. For you, then, or for us, now," Darius answered, and his eyes had tears in them.

A piercing, final note rose alike in nine voices – to Darius it seemed that it was full of sorrow. The spell that had spread throughout the fortress – throughout the entire world – took hold and faded all in the same moment, for this was not some mortal spell. Angelic magic did not deny the nature of the cosmos – it changed it, utterly.

Aethel fell to his knees with a groan, the light bleeding rapidly from him. His form became hazy and indistinct. Darius rushed forward to him, stretching out his hands as if to help. There was, of course, nothing that he could do. This was his victory.

With trembling hands, Aethel reached up and pushed the cowl back from his head. For the first time, Darius saw an Angel's face. Hair shone like gold around features that were handsome to the point of perfection, even through the haze. Aethel's piercing eyes, shimmering and blue to match the robes he wore, met the wizard's.

"Please," he said in a strained voice, "Remember us kindly. Goodbye, my friend."

Losing his battle against the new nature of the world, Aethel faded away to nothing.

Chapter Forty-Three

The door to the outside opened, letting in a gust of cold air from the corridor. The brazier's flames flickered in the cold wind, then rallied again.

The wizard did not enter, instead only leaning a bit into the room to impart his news.

"Pendrick returns," he announced. "Arric is with him."

As one, the others nodded. Then all faces looked to Darius, who stood.

"Let us go and receive them, then," he said.

Darius led the wizards back down the corridor. His military style of dress contrasted with their flowing robes now more than ever, as the wizards wore thicker and heavier cloth in layers to combat the cold. Darius dressed, as ever, like a common soldier, armor and all.

Following their messenger, the procession of wizards wound their way through the corridors of Nebeth and emerged into the main courtyard in the sun of midday. The high walls to all sides cast little shadow now, leaving the space enclosed by them cheerful and bright despite the cold. Fifty yards away, directly across from where they had emerged from the fortress, men were filing in through a gate that seemed tiny in comparison to the walls that protected it. Several wizards were at their head, and man after man poured into the yard.

"How many men did he bring?" Darius asked the wizard who had fetched them.

"Nearly two thousand, I'm told."

It seemed that Arric had no intentions of letting Nebeth out of their hands, now that it had been returned to Bastion's safekeeping. All those hands would be useful – Nebeth was too large a space for the Gryphons to search alone, and they could not be sure that all of the Enemy had been rooted out. Following the completion of the ritual, the Aeonians had vanished in the middle of their great battle. Rather than sitting tight and under siege, Pollis had suggested they likely had the manpower to escape the Fortress if they moved quickly.

Escape, though, had turned out to be unnecessary. What few warriors they found were scattered and demoralized, dumbstruck by the events and lacking leadership. Inside of an hour, the Gryphons had seized Fortress Nebeth. The stronghold had suffered during the final battle of the Aeonians – sections of the outer wall were nearly collapsed, towers had fallen, and the landscape beyond the fortress itself was churned to ruin.

This was the least of the changes. It was good that the Gryphons had come through their ordeal relatively unscathed. Defending the barricades had cost few lives. The wizards, however, were completely spent – and they found that magic itself was different, now.

Darius, Ethion, Alexander – all powerful and experienced wizards – felt as if they had once again been reduced to acolytes. They were aware of the power within, but they could harness it only poorly and with great effort.

Darius and the other wizards waited just outside the entrance – Arric was coming to them. The man stalked towards them with a quick, stiff-legged gait that betrayed his agitation. Not that Darius had needed the warning that Arric would be agitated.

"What have you done?" Arric demanded as soon as he was within hearing. "What madness has brought this about?"

"Far from madness," Darius replied calmly. "And I think you know, now, what we have done. The Aeonians are gone, Arric. Forever."

"How could it be anything but madness?" Arric sputtered. "How could you do this to us?"

Darius sighed. "It had to be done, Arric. Makaelic himself agreed with me, in the end."

"How can I possibly believe you, after you've deceived us all like this? This was not your decision to make!"

Ethion stepped forward, breaking his silence. "The decision is made, Arric. It was not him alone."

The Council Leader stared in disbelief, looking beyond Darius and seeing the other wizards for the first time. Pendrick would no doubt have told him, but it seemed that Arric was determined to ignore the truth for the time being. Darius did not hold it against him. He, and those who had aided him, had at least had weeks to contemplate the change they had wrought. Darius had no doubt that some would soon come face to face with the troubling consequences of their actions. For himself, Darius had accepted them in full.

"You are returning to Bastion," Arric said. "It is the unanimous decision of the Council that you answer for what you have done to us. Magic itself has been destroyed!"

"Don't be absurd, Arric," Darius said wearily. He gestured towards the ground at his feet, and a cloud of snow puffed up and whirled about. It was a small thing for the effort Darius had put behind it. "Magic remains. It has changed as well, that is all."

"The globes no longer work," Arric said. "We cannot communicate with the camps, the forts – the entire border! We have no - "

Finally tired of Arric's shouting, Darius cut him off with a hint of his old combativeness. "And the same is true for the Enemy, Arric! Whatever we have done, we have done to
everybody
. The Aeonians are gone – perhaps they could not take their War with them, not in full. But now, just maybe, we have a chance to
change
things. Don't you see?"

Arric did not answer right away. His breath misted the air in angry puffs – and behind him now stood Callos, and Lazarus. Darius appealed to his old ally.

"Lazarus, surely you can see that this will be for the best?"

Lazarus did not meet his eyes, and responded at first only with the tiniest shake of his head.

"I do not know, Darius," he said at last. His voice was stunned. "This is too great a change for someone of my age. I simply do not know what to think."

Arric spoke next. "Callos is now in charge of Nebeth. You will all return with me to Bastion.”

Disheartened at not having Lazarus's support, Darius merely nodded. He turned to the others and gestured that they, too, should accede to the Council Leader's order.

"Very well," he said. "Our work here is done."

It was nearly a month after the events at Nebeth that Darius entered the barracks. He'd sent his Gryphons notice that he wanted them all present, and so he was greeted with salutes from hundreds of men.

"Gryphons!" he greeted them in return. "It has been too long. It seems that I am always leaving you waiting, recently."

There were some scattered laughs, but most of them were too preoccupied with his tone of voice to laugh.

"I never got the chance to thank or congratulate you for your bravery in Nebeth," the wizard continued. "You have been through ordeals the likes of which no man has ever faced, nor will ever face again. You are truly the best of Bastion.

"You all know that the world is changing – it is we who wrought it. Those of you who still have any doubt, I plead with you to know that our actions were necessary. Though the Choirs brought much good to our lives, the Demons brought just as much evil. We deserved to be more than toy soldiers in their game. Makaelic, greatest of all Angels, acknowledged this, in front of myself and your lieutenant."

Pollis nodded – though he had confessed privately to Darius that he did not remember hearing any of the Angel's words, so awestruck he had been at the time. It pained Darius that everyone had to take it on his word.

"Spring approaches, but this year will be different than all others before it - "

Darius stopped speaking abruptly. He was stalling, he knew. He'd said everything he had come to say, save this.

"For one thing, this will be the first year Bastion has had in a long while, without the Gryphons. I have decided to disband."

There were cries of dismay and alarm from the men, and Pollis stepped forward to speak, anger in his voice.

"Did the Council put you to this, sir? Is this their punishment?"

"No!" Darius said assertively. "This is my decision. The Council, truth be told, is far too busy to punish me or any of us."

The trial had quickly fallen to pieces. All of Darius's fellows agreed that Aethel had helped them to their plan, and Darius claimed Makaelic had sanctioned it in the end. More importantly, the crisis Bastion was facing was too enormous to bother with punishing those who had brought it about, when instead they could help to bring it under control. Contact had been established with all the major forts and encampments of the border, by way of runners who were being pushed to exhaustion to bring constant news to and from the city.

There was no news to bring, though. There had been no fighting of any kind in weeks. Pyre was certainly suffering the same disorientation as Bastion. The War had come to a complete halt. There was even talk, now, of sending emissaries of peace to meet with Traigan himself, in hopes of ending the war entirely. Darius had his doubts on that score – but if it had any hope at all, it was worth trying. Why else had he done all this, if not to end the war?

"Magic has changed," Darius told his soldiers. The rumors had already spread throughout Bastion, but he may as well confirm it. "We wizards can barely light a candle. Eventually we may rediscover our old power – magic is not gone – but I would no longer be any use to lead you in the field. Many of you here have been fighting at my side for years. You have earned your rest. We all have."

A man pushed his way through the crowd to stand before Darius – Emanuelle.

"Magic or no magic," the young man said, "I would sooner follow you into battle than any man. You, Darius, will always be my captain."

"And mine!" shouted another, and soon the rest followed suit. Blades were drawn and raised to the air in salute. Pollis took command, and with his blade over his head shouted, "I will always be a Gryphon – and you, Darius, are my captain!"

His soldiers repeated it in a thundering shout, as if they were taking another oath of service. Darius nearly wept. There were already rumors around the city about him, dark whispers of how he had made war on the Angels and cast them out.

People were beginning to look askance at him as if he had robbed them of something – and he wailed inside, knowing that in some way, he had.

Here, at least, were men who knew that what he had taken he had replaced with a gift all the greater.

“Thank you,” he said through his emotion.

Then he found his voice again, and for the first time in months he was nearly his old self. He shouted back at his men in mock-anger, a smile on his face. "Now get out of here, all of you! You've spent enough of your days in the barracks. Leave! Drink! Sing! Trick a girl into your bed, and marry her before she comes to her senses. Go on!"

They needed no more prompting, flooding through every door available until Darius was left alone with one man. Pollis remained behind.

"What will
you
do now, sir?" the lieutenant asked.

Darius shook his head, and breathed deeply. "I don't know yet," he answered, but he did so with a smile. He flicked his head towards the door. "Go," he said. "That is my last order."

Pollis obeyed.

What will you do now?

The question struck deeper than Pollis had intended, no doubt – but only because Darius had been wondering the same thing for a long time.

He was amazed to discover, at long last, that his one and only ability had been as a leader. A fighter. Somehow in all the tumultuous battles, despite knowing exactly what he wanted, it had never occurred to him what it would mean when he achieved it. Darius was a warrior. He had little place in peace.

People gave him furtive glances as he trudged the path towards the Crown. He ignored them more easily now. His Gryphons – he would always think of them as that – knew his heart. They knew the truth. From them it would spread. Eventually, there would be a time when Bastion did not curse his name.

What will you do now?

He was not welcome amongst the wizards, not yet. Though the others had managed to find some place for themselves – especially Ethion, whose talents with administration were more important than ever, now – Darius had become the pariah for the group. He had not acted alone, but he alone would shoulder the condemnation. Would he also be alone in facing the regret?

He thought often, now, of the things Aethel had said to him. Aethel, wise beyond even the gifts of an Angel, had foreseen this backlash at the Choirs' departure. He had seen that the wizards who helped Darius had not truly grasped their sacrifice. No doubt he had also seen that the people of Bastion would think first of what they had lost, not what they had gained.

Aethel had called him
friend,
at the end.

Darius found himself on the path to the tower, but decided, suddenly, not to bother. The Council wanted nothing to do with him now. They still felt somehow betrayed, as if Darius had aided the Enemy in his actions. A scowl grew upon his face. The Enemy had been using the Demons more and more to scourge Bastion. Darius had pulled their teeth!

Already inside the walls of the Crown, Darius turned aside from the path. Eventually he found himself before the still-ruinous remains of Balkan's home. He had not been here since the night it had burned.

Steeling himself, Darius stepped onto the snow-covered ash, entering the hulk that held his greatest sorrows.

Snow masked the worst of it – the blackened stones were unseen beneath the pure, sparkling powder. Darius shouldered aside a beam and ducked beneath the fallen ceiling. He discovered that the collapsed wall had sheltered a corner of the house.