Chapter Book 3 66: Refrain

“On the third month of the year I found myself on the outskirts of the city of Okoro, and stumbled upon one of the famous Praesi field rituals. The throats of ten and three men were slit on dusty ground, and from the lifeblood spilled the earth turned from yellow to black. Granted audience with the lord presiding, I asked him the meaning of the ceremony. ‘Everywhere men bleed,’ he told me. ‘In Praes we get the full worth of it.’”

– Extract from “Horrors and Wonders”, famed travelogue of Anabas the Ashuran

The Diabolist was lounging on a Callowan throne when I stepped into the hall, and wasn’t that just the image of my people’s lot since the Conquest? The Praesi had crawled into the country in the wake of Black’s victories and claimed every seat and symbol of power, masquerading as rulers when all they’d been were thieves. Not, I thought damningly, even particularly skilful ones. I’d once thought that the Imperial governors with better reputations than Mazus reflected a certain restraint in the wave of highborn that had been appointed as petty kings over Callow. I knew better now. It’d been fear that kept them in line, fear of Malicia’s deep schemes and Black’s sharp sword. That’d always been the weakness of their reforms, when it came down to it. The aristocracy of the Wasteland, the people that really held power in the Empire, had never bought into the ideologies they peddled. They only saw a knife taken to old rights and privileges, and no amount of victory would ever reach them over that. No matter. I’d put fear in them as well, if that was what it took, and forging that fear would start with Akua Sahelian’s death.

She looked the same as she had in the dream, I noted, save for one detail. Around her neck hung a necklace, the centrepiece of which was a small cylinder of obsidian. My eyes lingered on it, my Name sniffing out the soul that lay within. Trap, I decided. She’d been clever enough so far to keep her soul out of anyone’s grasp, she wouldn’t risk it here and now. Likely it was meant to bait out an aspect from me, but a liar lost power when you knew them as one. The hall was empty and echoing as I strode forward, the tapestries hanging from the rafters stirred by some invisible current. The whole room was thick with sorcery, more than my senses could parse. She had prepared her grounds, and that was a mark on the right side of my earlier assumption: Diabolist intended to get her hands dirty. Maybe not with a blade – I couldn’t see one on her and she wasn’t wearing proper armour, but neither of those things meant much – but she intended on fighting me herself. At least in the beginning. I disliked it, that I wasn’t able to tell where she’d pull her monster from. It put an itch between my shoulder blades.

Against that calibre of opponent, one mistake was all it took.

“You were forewarned,” Diabolist said.

“Was I?” I drawled. “Please, do elaborate.”

I could read it on her face, no matter how blank she kept it. The urge to tell me what that trap in the stairs had been, to expound on her own cleverness. I’d been struck with it a few times as well, that need to tell your opponent exactly how you’d screwed them over, but it was different in her. More intense, and not just because she ran deeper to the source of villainy than I did. It occurred to me, in that moment, how lonely a person Akua must really be. Unable to trust anyone, to do so much as offer a genuine laugh. It was no way to live. The highborn of the Wasteland were inhuman as much because of their history as because they denied themselves the basic trappings of humanity. If all you were was artifice, what was there left? But I had no pity to spare for the likes of Diabolist, and the only reason I refrained from further mockery was that her extolling her own virtues would be useful to me.

“Hypocrite,” Akua chided me. “You cast disdain at my feet for the occasional exegesis, yet how many of your little… diatribes have you indulged in, since you became the Squire?”

“If I cast anything at you, Diabolist, you can rest assured it won’t be the feet. Still, I don’t actually know what that word means,” I grinned. “You know, on account of being a mudfoot peasant.”

“Monologue,” she sighed. “Your fixation on your origins is unseemly, Catherine. The promise of the Tower is that anyone can rise, regardless of birth.”

“See,” I mused, “the way you felt the need to add regardless kind of defeats your point.”

“Should I be ashamed of what I am?” Akua asked, amused.

“I mean, I could give you a list of reasons why but that’d take a while,” I said. “It’s a pretty long list. In essence, Gods yes.”

“Barring assassination, I will live at least three decades older than a baseborn,” Diabolist said. “My natural capacity for sorcery is beyond even that of your Hierophant. I know more, can accomplish more, I am objectively more than others. Why should I apologize for this?”

“Got not issue with the whole Wasteland breeding program,” I began, then adjusted. “No, that’s a lie. I think it’s disturbing as Hells, but not all that worse than the usual marriage alliances everybody else does. I don’t take issue with your talents, Akua. Just what you do with them.”

“It was too much to hope for that the Fourfold Crossing would rid you of the attitude, I suppose,” Diabolist said. “Particularly given that you cheated your way out of it. I’ll admit to some curiosity as to how you accomplished that.”

“Come closer,” I smiled. “I can show you.”

Her nose wrinkled.

“Violence,” she said. “The Carrion Lord’s doing, then. He does like to keep you in the dark, doesn’t he?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, Black helped me out of that trap you laid for me,” I deadpanned. “Treachery. Ach, what betrayal. I will never forgive him.”

“It was more than a trap,” Akua sharply said. “It was refinement. The clearing of impurities. Or it would have been, without his meddling. As always, he sees defeat in you where he found his own.”

“Was I supposed to derive some kind of lesson from that?” I snorted. “’cause I came in ready to stab you in throat. Not much was learned there.”

The mention of defeat pricked my ears, though. Black had never been shy about teaching me through examples of when he’d screwed up in the past, but it was the first time I was hearing about this Fourfold Crossing. The part I disliked the most about dealing with people like Akua was that they could read me like a book, unless I made a conscious effort not to. She found the hint of interest in me, and expanded. I let her. Usually I’d go in sword swinging to prevent her from making any preparations, but at the moment I could see both her hands I really doubted she was going to pull out anything throughout this conversation she hadn’t managed to prepare while I was getting smacked around by her defences outside.

“Three months, he remained under,” Diabolist said. “He might have stayed forever, had the Apprentice not pulled him out.”

I was the opposite of an expert on magic, but if this wasn’t High Arcana I’d eat my own toes and High Arcana did tend to operate through a kind of logic I could make sense of. Black had sent me in with a warning I’d only be able to strike once. That meant there would have been consequences, if I hadn’t gone after Akua in all four lives. That this was the detail he’d warn me about told me something about how his own go at it had unfolded – he didn’t tend to warn me about specific things unless it was something that’d tripped him up in the past, preferring to offer general knowledge and let me figure out my own way from it. So he’d fucked up in one of his lives. I wasn’t surprised. It was a nasty kind of trap to spring on anyone, if they didn’t go in knowing the key, and for all his cleverness Black had never learned how to lose. He’d won, where it mattered, when his story mattered. He would have stubbornly kept on until he got a victory out of it, even if the game was rigged and he knew it was. That was, in a way, his defining trait.

“He still alive?” I casually asked.

“For now,” Akua said.

I huffed out a laugh.

“Amused, Catherine?” she probed.

“You’re dead,” I said. “You already were, but now? It’s just a matter of how it happens.”

“I warred and won against six legions and the muster of Callow,” Diabolist said. “Against your collection of woes and the most dangerous of the Calamities as well, alone – and still you underestimate me.”

I smiled viciously.

“You think I’m short-changing you,” I said. “I’m not, Akua. What offends you is the lack of respect, but there’s nothing about… this I can respect.”

“I-“

“-lose,” I interrupted. “You always lose. That’s your outcome. You use methods that lead to defeat, because every time you win you make another dozen enemies fitted just for you. I just happen to be the one closest at hand.”

“It only takes once, to change everything,” Diabolist said.

“The refrain of every Empress before you,” I said. “It’s time that was buried. I have axes to grind with the new way, but the old one is in dire need of a grave. Do resist. I’ve been looking forward to the screaming.”

The dark-skinned woman rose to her feet elegantly, brushing her shoulder.

“Well then,” Akua Sahelian said, “shall we begin?”

“That’s your first mistake,” I said. “Thinking I’m only now beginning.”

Thing was, she wasn’t the only one around here who claimed an inheritance – and the way I’d come into mine was a lot more intimate than hers. Black was known for using his shadow, and while I couldn’t mould mine the way he did I was not without tricks. The balls of blue flame that lit up the hall had my silhouette splayed against a tapestry and from there, out of her sight, lines of frost had spread up to the ceiling. Robber was right, I mused. Humans so rarely looked up, Praesi least of all – their Gods dwelled below. I wouldn’t call what I’d crafted an array. I did not have the know-how to make one, and my power was of a different breed besides. But I’d accumulated power in four dots on the ceiling above Diabolist as she spoke, and in that moment I let them loose. Ice shot downwards in four thick pillars, headed straight for her, and the dance began.

That she would survive the first strike was a given. I’d approached the formula that was killing her with that in mind. If I couldn’t get a kill – or even a grave wound – out of the first attack, what could I get? Tying her down. That was the most that was feasible, and so I opened the waltz with something she’d need to be stationary to deal with. That was how mages died, even Named. Lack of mobility. The whirlwind of flame that formed around her reeked of Summer, unsurprisingly, but even as it shattered the pillars of ice I kept pouring power into them. Could I win, if this fight became about reserves? On open field, I’d say yes. But not in here, not in the seat of her power. Letting a caster dig in always led to ugliness, and she’d had months to prepare this room. Sending the Summer Court after her had been a tactical necessity but a strategic mistake, I decided. Keeping her busy had been needed. But anything that didn’t kill Diabolist would be ripped apart and repurposed by her, and now she’d shrugged off my initial blow as a consequence. I doubted it’d be the last time I paid for that.

I’d passed long evenings with Masego, preparing for this fight. Discussing not the theory of sorcery but the practicalities of using it, the limits. The conclusion I’d arrived to was that if I wanted to win, I had to do so within the first ten exchanges. Any longer than that, and her bag of devilries would outshine mine. I’d be stuck on the defensive, and that was the beginning of the crawl to defeat. One exchange had passed. My cloak fluttered behind me as I ran, ten steps passing before she recognized the danger of it. The whirlwind of fire thickened then blew up, forcing back the ice for a precious single heartbeat, and among the pillar of flame was revealed to be nothing at all. Second exchange: she was buying distance, with an illusion. A year ago, that would have been a problem but I had ways to deal with that, now. And the power to spare to use them. My foot stomped against the ground and ice spread from the touch, spreading like a tide. I wasn’t much, not even enough to slip on. But it spread quickly and the silhouette of two boots was revealed.

“There you are,” I said.

Diabolist dismissed her illusion and reappeared with runes hovering in the air before her. High Arcana. Third exchange then. Now she would attempt to hobble me, knowing if she didn’t my sword would find her throat. Lightning spun, first a bolt but then weaving itself into a cage. I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Her lack of experience fighting against Named was showing – it would have been good against a mortal, but not the likes of me. My body convulsed in pain as I forced my way through the crackling tendrils, but my body was a vessel to my will. I had will enough that pain was just discomfort, something that could be set aside as a distraction if necessity called for it. I was on her within three heartbeats, my own ice no hindrance to me at all. Her wrist snapped, rings of darkness forming around it as the shape of a sword was forged in black. The stance she fell into before I struck was one I recognized. There were half a dozen schools of Soninke swordsmanship and this one I recognized on sight. Koanguka Moko, the Hand-in-Falling. Best used for duelling. I knew how to pick out the weaknesses of that form, how to bait it into a killing stroke, but that was playing her game. Giving her the time to cast again.

You were taught this, I thought. As a child, when your mother decided you must have the skill of a duellist to settle the affairs of the blade between Named. But this wasn’t a duel, and I wasn’t a swordswoman. So when her sword came up perfectly angled to have mine glance off I didn’t fight it – instead I punched her in the belly, and the fourth exchange began. I’d struck hard enough to wreck steel, to powder stone. I would have pulped a legionary with that blow. Akua was blown off her feet by it, but a subtle ripple shivered across her robes and there was no gratifying feel of guts and bone giving under my hand. I let the world slow around me as I sunk into my Name, the sight of Diabolist flying into one of her banners burning itself into my eyes. If I made a mistake here, all the momentum I’d accumulated was gone. It would be hard to recover from that. I needed… I needed to interrupt that rune she was forming and control where she landed, at the same time. My eyes flecked to the tapestry and my hand followed, dark ice forming on the contraption of metal keeping it hung from the rafters and shattering it. When Akua hit the tapestry it folded under her but I got a glimpse of her face, of the small quirk of the lips that betrayed triumph. Trade, I decided, gritting my teeth. The Summer flame hit my shoulder even as I swept the edges of the tapestry, biting down on a scream as I wrapped Diabolist in a very expensive sack and pivoted to smash her into the ground.

The fifth exchange began with me trying and failing to put out the fire burning into my side. I forced Winter into it but Winter always lost, when fighting Summer. I could, if I took a moment, sharpen my will and drown it out. But it would take time I did not have, and this wasn’t my sword arm. I’d wait until I was in danger of losing the arm. Diabolist spoke in the mage tongue, flailing on the ground, and though the words were alien to me the feel of the spell was not. She’d used something similar the last time we fought in Liesse. Even as the floor beneath me roiled with sorcery I leapt, boots landing sideways on a platform of shade as the ground turned to liquid save for a circle around her. I leapt off and came upon her just as she forced aside the tapestry over her, sword point crisp and clear. I rammed it into her chest, an inch away to the left of her heart. Angle would’ve been awkward otherwise, and given her protections I wasn’t taking the risk of it glancing off entirely. Akua’s lips thinned with pain and she lay her hand on my good shoulder even as I twisted the blade to worsen the wound. Too late for me to the dodge, I assessed.

The force that came from her hand blew me off my feet, but I took it in stride. I had, after all, won two victories going into the sixth exchange. The first was that she’d had to dismiss her liquefying spell to cast this one. The second was that, while she rose to her feet and healed her wound with a pale face, I rose to mine and finally had the time to smother the Summer flame without losing the tempo. My shoulder was a ruin of melted steel and burnt flesh, but the cold ended the distraction of the pain and I’d fought through worse in the past. I could almost run my finger along the length of the coming four exchanges, as if they were written in the air, and what I saw there had me smiling. She would notice it soon enough. The moment she reached for one of her arrays and found nothing, she was clever enough she’d put it together. Why I’d encouraged her to keep talking, why I’d not tried to take the fight out of a room she’d carefully crafted into her sanctum. It would have been more madness than gambit, if not for one single thing: just because I’d never used that trick in a fight didn’t mean I couldn’t.

The seventh exchange began when I shot forward. She’d learned from our earlier bout, and this time she didn’t go for lightning. Panes of red light formed behind me, four of them, and when I struck at the one before me the other span and smacked me to the side. I slid across stone and found another set before me when I tried to turn. Ah. Problematic. Unless. I formed a spear of ice and tossed it at the first set, getting it spinning, and carefully adjusted my angle running into the one before me. It jostled my bad arm painfully even through the cold when I was thrown, right into the first set – and from there straight at Diabolist, whose face was amusingly flabbergasted.

I crouched low, sword swinging upwards, and that was the eight exchange opening. The black sword formed again to parry my blade, but she was a second-rate swordswoman at best: I spun on myself, breaking her footing, and even as she fell I flipped my sword and the pommel came down on her pretty white teeth with a deeply satisfying shattering sound. There was nothing graceful or elegant about this: I rolled over her and sat on her body, punching hard enough her sorcerous shield shivered once more and the ground cracked beneath her. She’d had to have felt that, enchantment or not. Threads of light bloomed behind her, tying around her body and ripping her out from under me. I got up to my feet before she could, though the threads hoisted up her a heartbeat later.

The ninth exchange happened when she flicked her wrist at me and nothing happened at all. Her face went blank. I began gathering power into myself, shaping it. Behind us, slowly, the bronze gates collapsed. They were burning green.

“You set fire to your own path of retreat,” Diabolist said, sorcery flaring around her as her teeth healed.

“Wrong again,” I replied. “I set fire to everything.”

In one of those little quirks of Creation, an entire pane of the wall to our side collapsed the moment I finished speaking. Behind it lay a hellscape of goblinfire unleashed. Robber hadn’t skipped on the stuff, I noted. I wouldn’t be surprised if this entire section of the palace was melted stone by the time the fire went out.

“Is this the sum of you, Catherine Foundling?” Akua said. “Were you so disbelieving of victory you decided to burn us both?”

“Do you ever get tired?” I smiled rudely. “You know, of being wrong all the time.”

For the tenth exchange, I opened a gate into Arcadia and stepped through it.