Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise (22 page)

I turned to Allit and didn’t even need to ask.

“A day, at most, before the really big machines get here,” he said. “I can’t – I think I can see what they’re for. I wish Pasha was here so I could show you.”

“So do I,” I said, though the picture of them was indelibly printed in my brain, had haunted what little sleep I’d had since Pasha had shown them to me. Machines with teeth and claws. Not guns… more like animals designed to pull things to bits. Maybe pull a city to bits. Or people. I hoped like hell that Perak’s plan, whatever it was, worked. It had better, because I was fresh out of ideas and didn’t have a clue what good this rising was going to do, what
I
could do. Not a damned, Goddess-fucked clue.

I could feel myself sinking then, weighed under the grey of the clouds, under the song of the black, ever calling, ever tempting me. I’d driven it back a for a while as we’d fought in the square, as we’d carved our way to here, but now it was back. It lurked behind my eyes, in the ever-present throb of my screwed hand, coated my mouth when I went to speak.

You could end this. Right now. If you had the guts you were born with, you could blast it all to the moon, lay this city bare, let the sun in Under. If you had the guts. Come on in, Rojan, where it’s warm and you never need fear again. Just one little thing, and we’ll be together. Always.
 

My vision had drawn down to a cold hard point, a glimpse of light in darkness, and my hand moved on its own, no thought of mine telling it to bunch, to grind the fractured bones together. Just a little pain and it could all be gone.

The grip on my arm, the voice next to me, jolted me out of it so hard I leapt back and smacked into a wall, heart shuddering at how close I’d been. Dendal was right – right then, the way I was, it would only take one little spell and I’d be lost. And
still
I was tempted.

“Rojan?”

The voice sent it shrieking behind me, lost in the whirl of grey daylight coming in the windows that burned my eyes. Erlat – I never heard the black at Erlat’s. My mind grabbed for that thought, for the voice, willed her to speak again so I could hold on.

“Dendal sent me. He said – Are you all right? Rojan?”

A smooth voice, calming, serene like nothing could touch her. Bollocks, of course, because she’d known worse than I ever would, but you’d never know it to hear her speak. Erlat was always strong. Not like Jake, not whirling with swords and anger yet brittle as glass none the less, just strong inside, like a smooth and wickedly sharp blade hidden under a beautiful scabbard.

“I’m all right,” I managed, and found to my surprise that I was. Or about as all right as I could be under the circumstances. I stood up straight and tried to look like I wasn’t about to keel over or go batshit. “Where’s Jake?”

Erlat stepped back a pace and turned away to answer, an oddly taut undercurrent to her voice. “Back where she always used to be. Trying to get herself killed, but too proud to let anyone beat her.”

I pulled Erlat gently round to look at me, expecting to find her crying, but she was stronger than that, stronger than me because I wanted to cry. “Because Pasha’s gone? And it’s all my fault, all of it. I started this whole hot mess, I screwed with what worked, and that action led straight to this, and it should have been me on that stupid machine, right?”

I was kind of hoping for a bit of sympathy perhaps, her to say, “No, no,” or because that wasn’t really likely, “Yes but you did it for good reasons.” Instead I got the full force of her glare and “Yes. You started all this, and I know why, and I think you did the right thing, but it remains that you started all this and Pasha’s gone, Jake’s sort of… shrivelled up inside and won’t let anyone see it. But the Rojan I know, or used to, wouldn’t be standing here whining about it. He’d be hating everything and everyone and he’d be swearing fit to bust, but he’d be
doing
something rather than feeling sorry for himself. Because this” – she waved her hand at Quillan and his friends as they bickered quietly and not so quietly – “anyone can do that, and yes it needs doing but you aren’t even doing anything with them.”

She pulled herself up straight and got me right in the eye with her glare. “So what are you going to do, Rojan?”

Sometimes it takes a good verbal slap from someone to really clear the crap out of your eyes. I counted myself lucky she hadn’t followed it with a real slap, restrained the urge to kiss her and pulled myself together because she was right. She always was, and it annoyed the crap out of me. Besides which, I have this in-built wish to not look like a complete chicken in front of ladies.

“Firstly, we’re going to find that telescope,” I said. “Then we’re going to listen to what Yagin’s scouts have to say. Then we’re going to storm Top of the World. I think.”

I was rewarded with a firm nod and a hint of her teasing smile. It was enough, more than enough because I felt a new surge of energy, of hate, like she said. Not for anyone in particular – all right, perhaps Dench but I couldn’t even muster much for him – but for the sheer futility of everything, the stupidity of it all.

This was my chance to stop the stupidity, maybe for good, but I needed to know what I was up against first, so Erlat and I went to listen in at the bench where the scouts were reporting back.

“Looks like the Storad are determined to make a go for Top of the World. Bunched up at the top of Clouds for now, and it seems like they’re being held off. That’s where all the other roads stop, and it’s just the Spine, so a narrow place to defend. But the guards won’t last for ever. They know it too – they’re defending just below the cut-off, and getting out as many people as they can down the side roads.”

“Who’s defending?” I asked.

Yagin still scared the crap out of me, but I tried not to let it show. “What’s left of the guards and Specials. None of the cardinals, obviously, nor any of their men. But the Archdeacon —”

“Perak’s
fighting
?” My stomach went cold at that. Perak wasn’t a fighter; he’d get himself creamed.

“We think so – hard to tell without getting close. What I can tell you is there is some woman dressed in a uniform we’ve never seen before and she’s laying into those Storad like a drunk lays into a barrel of beer. No guns, but she’s got two swords she knows how to use. She’s fast and she’s devious, coming up on them from the back, the side, any way they aren’t looking for her. She’s making them pretty jittery.”

And messy, with all probability. Jake never killed, or hadn’t before. Just enough to wound, to stop them being a threat. But now, without Pasha around, with her comfort gone, all bets were off. I was glad I wasn’t a Storad.

“Between us and them?”

Quillan shrugged. “Seems pretty clear on the Spine. Our lot trying to escape, a few of theirs cutting down anyone they find.”

“And Top of the World?”

“Emptying fast, and Clouds, though that’s been emptying for a while. Pretty good time to kill any cardinals we find, if there are any left,” Yagin said, and his men grinned behind him. Men after my own heart, really. Possibly in more than one sense, so I kept my distance. “Why, you got something in mind?”

My mind clicked over everything, all I knew, all that had happened, every corner of me that wanted to blow the whole Ministry to hell and send the Storad after them.

“You know, I think I just might.”

By the time we left the lab the snow had finally stopped, though the grey clouds lingered and lowered like they wanted to come and play. The light made Clouds into indistinct humps in the greyness, and the snow had turned even the shabby houses we could see Under into magical cottages. Well, magical cottages that some giant baby had decided to stack up like so many toy bricks before it’d got bored and started kicking them about. Underfoot, the passage of the Storad had made the road slippery with slush which had re-frozen into a slick, rumpled sheet, but at least it wasn’t rain. Instead it was cold enough to make your knackers clank.

The cold hadn’t deterred anyone that I could see. The opposite, in fact. What had started as a few hardy souls doing what pathetic little they could had turned into a fairly organised mob. No torches and pitchforks though: this was a different kind of crowd, brandishing appropriated guns, stolen flamers, kitchen knives, planks of two-by-four, knuckledusters, flick-knives and pretty much any makeshift weapon that a city like this could harbour. Halina was there with her Stencher mates, a wicked grin plastered on her face and not caring who saw that she wasn’t so much walking as floating over the ice-stricken way. Lise refused to stay behind and I had no heart to insist – she’d lost as much as anyone, had as much right as I did to be there. With one of Dwarf’s weapons in her hand, no one wanted to get too close in any case, although Yagin was making a valiant effort at appearing nonchalant.

The magelets came too, all of them. I couldn’t stop them, and I didn’t think I wanted to. Cabe was under the protective arm of his father, Quillan. Another boy was bouncing fire on his palm, quenching it, relighting it as sweat popped up on his brow – I could see him becoming very useful, if he managed to stop accidentally lighting his hair. Halina looked exhausted, and her arm was a mass of bruising, but she floated along with one of the others behind her, though every few paces he dropped down to the walkway and had to launch himself again. Halina urged him on with a grim smile. All the rest – they all came, each willing to do their best, whatever that best was. I could only hope they survived the experience. That we all did, but them the most.

The smallest, little Casuco, smiled shyly at me and, with a crack and a hiss, opened his palm to proffer me a sweet conjured out of nothing but his pain. I took it – it tasted even better than it looked – and then Casuco slid his hand into mine. It struck me with a finality that almost robbed me of breath that I was going to have to do something, anything, and when I did it, it was going to be for these little magelets, who were showing more gumption than I’d managed in a couple of decades.
They’re your way back in
, Pasha’s remembered voice said in my head. I shook it away, because I couldn’t bear that it was only a memory.

Along with the diversity in weapons, refugees from the ’Pit mixed with men who’d lived in Under all their lives, gang members walked with priests and housewives, bouncers and businesswomen. Everything else was forgotten in the face of Outsiders, because this was their patch now, their city, and they were scared and pissed off. No one cared which way the other praised the Goddess, or how pale their skin was, what their accent was, because we were all the same.

Erlat came too, along with some of her friends and co-workers. I thought about protesting, but recalled the last time I’d tried, and kept my mouth firmly shut. Instead, I’d asked Erlat if she was any good with that gun. She’d answered by planting a bullet in the wall’s plaster about an inch from my face, so I’d taken that as a yes and said no more about it. “Never argue with a woman with a loaded gun” is a nice maxim to live by, if you like to live.

Allit kept up a muted commentary about what was possibly ahead as he walked next to me – we tried to hide what he was doing, but after a few sideways glances no one took any notice. It was a liberating feeling, people not side-eyeing us because we were mages, and one I could only hope lasted after this. If
we
lasted after this.

Heights passed by in a haze of snow and slush and empty houses, discarded shops. They’d had money here, were probably even now trying to buy a way through the Mishan gate. Some of the Glow globes that lit the way were beginning to fade – since I’d screwed myself over, only Pasha had enough juice to fire up the pain room and power the Glow. One mage hadn’t been nearly enough, and most of what he’d put out had gone to the factories that lay silent under us now. We had some Glow, but no more was being made. We had no raw materials left either, which, for a city that relied on trade, was almost as bad as the lack of food.

Without anyone saying anything, we slowed as we left Heights. The vast mushroom-shaped estates of Clouds seemed to press down on us, or maybe that was just me. We met with a few straggling Storad, looting and looking for anyone left. They didn’t last long.

When the first sounds of fighting echoed down from above, a signal from Quillan stopped us all.

“You’re sure about this?” he said to me.

“No, but do we have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Fine, so we all run away and die of starvation. Or wait to get chopped to bits.”

I felt pretty bad lying to him, to all of them, especially Erlat and Guinto and Dendal, who walked with them, humming his happy song. Pretty bad because I wasn’t sure in the slightest.

But the very simple plan I’d put forward might even work. If it did, then I wouldn’t have to worry about the other one, the one that the black kept on nagging me about, the ultimate one that was feeling more and more the right – and wrong – thing to do. Pasha had shown me the way. It was up to me if I followed. The very simple plan – get in, get Jake and Perak out, blow the shit out of the Storad up there, try not to die – might even work. At least we wouldn’t be fighting on two fronts then. If it did work…

The low cloud helped – it surrounded the Spine here, leaving me feeling like I was encased in a damp pillow, but it also meant that visibility was limited. At least for those using their eyes.

I took hold of Dendal gently and steered him and Allit into a not-very-private-at-all nook by a pillar which announced these were the gates to Cardinal So-and-so’s estates and trespassers would be thrown into the Slump with extreme prejudice, may the Goddess bless them.

Who needs eyes when you’ve got a couple of mages handy?

Between the two of them we got a pretty clear picture of what was going on, who was where, doing what. Allit could see, and it was probably real and now. Dendal could communicate, a perfect conduit for information when he was lucid. The pretty clear picture they gave me was it was all going tits up. Top of the World was almost empty and so was Clouds, near as they could tell. What was left of the guards were failing miserably against a vicious assault on the Spine just under Top of the World, and Perak and Jake were there with them. Typical Perak: never was with it enough to know when to get out of the rain.

Dendal looked at me sadly, almost wistful. “So what are you going to do, Rojan?”

After I’d got over the shock of him getting my name right twice in a row, and wondering why everyone kept asking me that, I said, “I’m not sure.”

“Yes you are.” His voice was unusually firm, which meant I was about to get a lecture on the Goddess and my duty to serve her.

I did my best to forestall him. “No, I’m not. There’re two options. One: head on up, find Perak, beat the living crap out of any Storad we find, get down to the gates before those machines arrive, and hope for the best. We’ve got plenty of people now, all willing to fight. Two: two won’t be necessary. Even if it is tempting.”

His smile was awful, full of pity and sympathy. “You never did really understand, did you? You were saving yourself, your magic, for this, but not just this. It’s why the Goddess sent you to me.” Then he took Allit’s hand and walked off to stand with the rest of them, all the while telling everyone not to worry, Rojan’s going to sort it, he’s got a plan.

Everyone was looking at me, like I had any answers. Little Casuco smiled again at me, seeming confident in my ability to get them all out of this, to fix everything, rearrange it all away perhaps. I wished I was as sure.

They were all looking at me, and then they weren’t. A tremble at first, just a tremor under our feet. A rumble, far off, though not far enough. I looked out. Heights on one side; on the other, where I’d not dared to look because I was chicken, a fading drop that on a clear day would show the Slump, the lasting reminder of what happens when a mage pushes too far, when he goes fully crazy right before he dies. A tangle of girders, vast blocks of stone tumbled in odd patterns, huge splinters of wood rotting gently into mould. A dumping ground. A moving one.

It didn’t register at first – let’s face it, at first all I was thinking was,
Crap, the Spine
’
s going to collapse and I
’
m going to fall to a long and messy death, long enough that I will have time to scream quite a detailed lot of last words
. Once the bollock-clenching panic passed, I realised it wasn’t the Spine that was crumbling, moving, sliding.

A block of stone the size of a house teetered, thought about it, and then said “Screw it” and tumbled end over end, rolling down the battered slope of the Slump, pushing friends in front of it until there was what looked like a whole moving mountain. Smaller stones merely the size of men bounced around that first block like puppies taken for a walk, and girders twisted with a tortured screech, all the while reminding me that down was a long way away.

When, after what seemed like about six months, everything stopped moving, the Slump had shifted downwards. Stones that had stayed where they were for years, since that ill-fated mage had gone boom, now looked like a breath would have them shifting and rolling again. I found that I was holding on to the nearby pillar with my bad hand, pain throbbing up and out, leaching into my head, itching at me, wanting to be used.
Do it, do it, take the whole place down.
Come on, Rojan, don’t be shy.

Tempting, so very tempting. Only two things stopped me. Just two, but I’m not sure now whether the two I thought of were the real ones. Perak and Jake were up there, that’s what the small rational part of my brain said. You can
’
t do it with them up there. You can
’
t. You can
’
t do it at all. No matter how much pain you suck in, you
’
re not going to be able to take it all out, not all of it, and what about the Storad at the gates? The machines even now inching their way over the mountains? Think, for once in your life. Plan.

Whatever we were going to do, it had to be now, before the whole city fell apart and buried us, leaving the remaining Storad to do what the hell they wanted with what was left.

In retrospect it was only the second worst moment of my life, but at the time it was as bad as I thought it could get. Dendal, Allit, Erlat, the rest, they were all looking at me. Perak and Jake were above us, fighting for their lives, and option one – fight on up, take the bastards at their own game – just wasn’t going to cut it no matter how I tried to spin it. We had men willing to fight, sure, but not enough and poorly armed, and only trained in staying the hell alive. We’d be hard-pressed to win over the Storad that were in the city now, never mind the rest that were on their way, almost here.

Instead we had option two, Plan B, the thing I had been trying not to contemplate because I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t going to do it out of personal satisfaction rather than because it needed doing. Because maybe I would, again, make everything worse, which has always been my signature move.

Fucking Dendal and his fanciful notions of what the Goddess wanted from me. That thought of course meant I was going to do it, even if just to stop him looking at me like that.

“All right, Dendal. Tell Perak to get everyone away from Top of the World. Retreat, look like they’re running away. Let the Storad in.”

His smile was almost worth it. I say almost, because this was going to hurt like a bitch.