[M] Runes

[Azazeal849]

Spoiler: Secrets - Volume 5 

“That’s the difference!” the Leveler shouted, her voice echoing across the plaza where the old Masters had once watched their own armies depart. “Between us and the Lightmen. Between us and the Risemen. Between us and the old orders of the Ash city! We have strength and purpose and heart, when everything else is grey and stagnant.”

She stood alone, atop the stepped atrium of the great library. She was not a tall woman, but no-one - living or dead - could ever make the Leveler seem small.

“It’s time for a new dawn. We are about to cast a light over the Valley, and every slave that falls under it will have their chains struck from them! Every tyrant that falls under it will be struck from the face of the world!”

The forest of spears rippled as men raised them high, bellowing the Leveler’s name. Former slaves all; what they lacked in experience they made up for in devotion. There were mages standing among the spearmen, more subdued but as attendant as the rest. After several months of campaigning together, it was easy to pick them out of the crowd. Her Apprentice, who had joined out of loyalty. The Blademaiden, who had joined out of respect. And Redmoor, who had joined out of the promise of power. Rune-weavers of many colours and creeds, like the slave-soldiers around them - some were even former slaves themselves, for whom she had done the unthinkable and gifted them the touch of her own runes, raising them to her equal.

Well, the Leveler thought wryly, Almost.

Each one had come to her for their own reasons, but all of them were willing to fight for her.

All hers.

But, it was her alone who had marched into the council chamber and broken the old Masters. It would be her alone who set the world to rights.

“Why?” the old curator whispered when she padded back into the library, her slippers clapping against the stone floor.

“You know why.” the Leveler told him tartly, sweeping her cloak from her shoulders and tossing it over a nearby chair. The curator had been a good mentor to her in her parents’ absence, and an even greater comfort afterwards, but she was no longer a teenager poring through dusty volumes to earn the right to touch her first rune.

The corners of the curator’s mouth pulled down into a troubled frown. “Dear one...the Ashmen are free. The rulers who sent your parents to die are gone. Why should we now go after the Enlightened? It’s not just the rulers who suffer in a siege - you have already seen that.”

The Leveler exhaled heavily. She looked not at the curator, but at the candle on the desk in front of him, slowly trailing wax down into its copper holder. The flame illuminated some old scroll of historical records, yellowed and smelling of dust. The candle’s light was small against the vaulted vastness of the library, but it burned bright enough to draw the eye.

“You know better than most what kind of mages the Enlightened are.” the Leveler said at length. “You know why we never see the Mer any more.”

The curator folded his hands. “I know of the War of Faith, yes.”

“The Mer were strange, they did not think as we did, but they walked among us in peace. Then the Enlightened started to worry what if the Mer started thinking the same way they did.”

The Leveler shook her head, slowly.

“It’s funny isn’t it? For the keepers of a faith that teaches we all stand equal when our souls dissolve back into the magic of the world, they didn’t find it hard to call the Mer’s shapeshifting a blasphemy against the gods. They used their religion as their weapon instead of raw power, but in the end they and the old Masters are the same. Everyone is either a pawn or a threat.”

The Leveler rested her hands on the back of the chair, knuckles white as she stared into the flickering candle.

“It’s time for a new order.”

Part 5 - The Leveler

A hot, midday wind was sweeping ripples across the brittle grass as Apprentice and Blademaiden stepped out of midair and collapsed, panting, amid the scrub. Down the mountain slope was the city, grey and frowning, seemingly untroubled by the chaos they had just unleashed in the heart of it. When the two mages had vanished from the market square there had been screaming and death; out here, there was only the wind, moaning across the mountainside.

Blademaiden was first to push herself shakily up onto her hands. She coughed and spat into the grass. “Fucking city.”

The Apprentice cuffed blood from his nose. The second teleportation coupled with the brief but savage rune battle had left his fingers trembling, and his head searing with bright streaks of pain.

I am not here. the Wanderer had said to him. You do not see me. She had asked for his help, to let them escape. To betray the Leveler just like Illusion had. Something he could never do.

Could he?

“Any sign of the others?” he coughed. He tried to look around their designated meeting place, but his eyes were still swimming with painful flashes.

“No.” Blademaiden responded, “Nowhere.”

No sooner had she said it however, then Redmoor appeared before them in a sudden swirl of red. The man spasmed and nearly fell to one knee, the rune-inflicted tics wrenching at his face more than normal.

“Redmoor.” the Apprentice mumbled.

“Apprentice.” Redmoor craned his neck hard to one side and then the other, which seemed to still the worst of his spasms. “I guess your friend Wanderer did us a service by getting rid of the turncoat.”

Apprentice thought of Davin, disappearing beneath a press of seething Risemen. He had neither liked nor trusted the Lightman mercenary, but he still remembered the screams, and Redmoor’s flippant comment angered him.

“You’re bleeding.” Redmoor remarked.

Apprentice cuffed at his nose once again. He looked the red-robed mage up and down.

“Did you bother to fight?” he challenged. “You’re not even scratched.”

Redmoor gave him a twitching sneer of a smile. “The Shattered Gods love me, baby boy.”

“Call me that again and you’ll find them turning from you.” Apprentice warned through gritted teeth.

“I was fighting,” Redmoor said calmly. “With the other turncoat. Unfortunately when I cornered her she turned out to be mist and shadow.”

The Apprentice struggled to his feet, snarling. “Illusion has a mirror rune! If you spent just an hour talking to any of us you’d know that, you arrogant piece of shit!”

He began to walk, even though each step drove a knife through the inside of his skull, and stalked away through the gorse and ferns that cloaked the mountainside. He had gone a good hundred metres before he realised that Blademaiden was walking alongside him. The older woman’s face was neutral, her deep brown eyes impassive.

“I’ve often wondered why he joined us,” she said as they paced. “What he wants.”

Apart from a good slap, you mean? “He wants runes.” Apprentice growled. “That’s all he cares about - no liberation, no higher cause, just fucking power.”

Blademaiden was silent.

“So why do we fight alongside a monster?” Apprentice suddenly blurted.

Blademaiden looked at him stonily. “Because I gave my word.”

By the time they returned to the meeting point, the Leveler and Hole had reappeared. The Hole was laid out on the ground, in obvious pain, while Leveler pressed a spread hand to her forehead, a soft glow bleeding out between her fingers.

“My lady.” the Apprentice said hurriedly, dropping to one knee beside them. The Hole had fallen into sleep, her starlit hair matted and dishevelled. The Leveler turned towards her two returning acolytes, and the Apprentice almost recoiled.

The Leveler’s robe was spattered with blood, and it was not her own. It formed dark outlines to her fingernails, though she had done her best to wipe it away. She had missed a spot at the corner of her mouth. The Apprentice tried not to let his eyes linger on it, but she caught him anyway, and brushed the clot of red away with her thumb. Her expression was ice hard, with balefire glinting in her blue eyes.

“So.” the Leveler rasped thickly. “They got away.”

“We…” the Apprentice found himself stumbling for words. “I’m sorry, my lady. We did everything we could.”

“I know you did.” the Leveler said stonily, no warmth in her words. She exhaled a leonine growl. “But they still have the Book.”

“Can they read it?” the Apprentice ventured. “Without the Teacher?”

The Blademaiden pressed her full lips together into a severe line. “We had all better pray not.”

The Leveler said nothing. The Apprentice had never seen her so angry - she was predatory; cold; seething. The fingers of her right hand were flexing open and closed, as if searching for someone’s throat to wrap around.

“I think I know where they’re going.” she rumbled softly. “When Hole recovers, I’m sending her back to our home city. I want every watchman on alert. We’ll flush them out, and then we’ll hunt them down.”

She shot them a gaze that was more challenging than trusting.

“Are you with me?”

The Apprentice wanted to respond with an emphatic yes. But he also wanted to urge his lady to go back to the city of Light, to secure what they had already won, before it slipped through their fingers and led to more blood and death. While he vacillated, Blademaiden spoke up before him.

“I’d be your shadow, my lady.” she affirmed with a stiff nod.

The Leveler smiled, but it was a dagger smile.

“Then darken heel and let’s get to work.”

* * * * * *

They had rejoined the River and struck out north, where they began to encounter farms and villages again; modest structures of sun-baked brick, with dusty tracks that wove between them like spiderwebs, catching every building. In some of the settlements the villagers still worked, chattering away to each other in trilling Ash - as if the Valley was still at peace. In other places however, whole villages stood abandoned, their fields wilted and colonised by weeds. Some of the buildings had been burned into roofless, black skeletons. The Leveler’s conquest was evident, even though they had seen no sign of pursuit from their nemesis since escaping the Risen city.

Wraith was boiling them a pot of immature rice. Over the past few days they had been able to trade for food at some of the villages they passed through, but those supplies were running low, and they had been reduced to scavenging through a fire-gutted farm and its untended rice paddies. Ambassador was drifting aimlessly among the stalks, knee-deep in the waterlogged field. Insects buzzed, and a raptor circled lazily overhead, but other than that they might have been alone in the whole world.

Illusion paused to look west, where the sunset had turned the sky pink and the clouds to molten gold. It was too beautiful a scene for such a sombre moment. She tore her eyes away from it, and refocused on the lines she was tracing through the mud at the edge of the field. She dug her finger back into the silty clay and traced another spiked glyph.

“And that’s a ‘g’.” she said to Wanderer.

Dirt covered fingertips drifted over the letter. Tracing it slowly as she sounded out the letter like a child would. She was glad the others were busy, if they were all watching her...she wouldn’t do this. The Wanderer was doing this with one task in mind. Once she knew vague letters, she could spell something. Something important.

When she felt happy about it again, the Wanderer let her hand move to her small dirt workspace. The letters were crude, small pauses were clear. Illusions letters were clean, they had neat swoops and it took no effort at all. The Wanderer’s looked like Illusion’s...if Illusion was drunk and wearing heavy set gloves. The final small swoop, she did with her tongue between her teeth. There was a small pause and then a deep breath left her nose. The Wanderer glanced at Ilusion and for a brief moment, she looked young. She looked like a young girl trying to please their teacher. Desperate to do right.

Illusion looked down at the shaky lettering.

“Agrona.” she read, and her freckled face creased in a smile. “My name was the first thing I learned to write too.”

She sat back with a sigh.

“My father made me burn the parchment afterwards. Names are dangerous, he said.”

The wanderer flinched gently when she heard her name. She hadn’t heard it in so long. She was not gifted the luxury of her true name in her time in the mines and after she left, she refused to tell anyone it. Her eyes dragged over the swoop of the G again before she let her gaze move to Illusion. “Names are very dangerous. Giving someone your name shows trust….and foolishness.”

Illusion chuckled as she looked down at the scratches in the dirt. “You must trust me, then.”

A single eyebrow was raised and the Wanderer let out a small hum. “Perhaps. It is difficult to know who to trust in this world.” Her attention returned to the letters before her. “I am glad that I have someone to watch my back. We will need that in the journey to come.”

Illusion folded her arms across her knees and rested her chin on them, her auburn hair falling to either side of her face. “I can understand that. I trusted the wrong people for a long time.”

She sighed and looked again towards the distant mountains. As the sun dipped the moons were becoming visible - the bone-white curve of the Elder Brother shone in the sky, like a tusk made of light, while the Younger Brother was half hidden by a band of cloud.

“It makes it easier...after everything that’s happened. Knowing that even if I end up like Solar or Raven, and no-one even remembers that I existed...at least this time I picked the right side.”

“Trusting the wrong people is just a fact of life. It’s a hurdle everyone must cross and it makes you stronger.” The wanderer could tell the woman had raised her head but she didn’t copy her. She used to welcome the night sky with open arms. It gave her more places to hide, a way to escape. No longer did she feel that she couldn’t sleep safely. She had rested herself in the groups presence and she had never truly felt like that before.

“You will not end up like those who have passed. You will see this to the end. You will get vengeance for your mother. I will make sure of it.” It was a small gesture but it meant a lot coming from the Wanderer. She would not let this woman fall like the others had. Illusion had so much faith in the Wanderer, she had not experienced this for a long time. She could not fail her.

Illusion took Wanderer’s mud-stained hands in her own and squeezed them. “Thank you, Agrona.” She looked towards the campfire where Wraith sat backlit by the flames, and stood up, smiling. “Coming for dinner?”

The Wanderer gifted the woman a small real smile. She let the woman take her hands and squeeze them gently. “You’re welcome, Sage.” Small flecks of sand drifted off the woman when she stood and the Wanderer nodded. Her fingers reached out for a long flat stone that she promptly pushed into her pocket. It took only a few seconds and she followed the other woman back to the campfire.

Wraith had already divided the thin rice soup into their three worn clay bowls, and was now kneeling beside them with his head bowed, praying to the shattered gods in his native Rise. Though the two women didn’t know most of the words, they caught the names of their friends Solar, Archer and Raven...and then the name Weaver as well.

“Her too?” Illusion asked, frowning as she sat down.

The Wraith paused in his prayer and opened his eyes. “In death, all sins are forgiven. I pray for the better paths that they might have taken.”

[Azazeal849]

“It’s changed.” Wraith observed as they looked down.

“Yes.” Illusion agreed. “It has.”

A bank of thunderheads had rolled in unexpectedly from the sea, cloaking the City of Ash under a snarling and thunder-bruised sky. The cloud front was already trailing misty bands of rain as it climbed the mountains, and the rain was washing down to swell the headwaters of the River and soak the city clinging to its banks. The dormant volcano that gave the city its name loomed behind, a truncated spire among the other peaks, with its arms enfolding the fertile ash plain.

The plain was a semi-ordered scatter of villages with crop fields spiralling out from each, connected by a web of roads that funnelled back to the city. The city itself started in the River valley and crept upward towards the shoulders of the mountains; rising in distinct tiers with the affluent districts clustered around the River and the more ramshackle areas relegated to the stony slopes above. People were working in the fields and going to and fro about the mine entrances above the slum districts, but from a distance the scars of war were still obvious. Some of the villages were blackened skeletons, leaving deserted islands of weeds and burned-black crops amongst the still-tended farms. Scaffolding had been erected around the city’s southern gate, but beyond it there was a traceable path of ruined and damaged buildings scarring the rich districts by the riverfront.

“Well there’s the library.” Illusion pointed. Around a wide muster square in the southern quarter were stepped stone platforms, raising up the great quartz and marble buildings that sat atop them - the council chamber, the palace of justice, the great library. The Wanderer knew them by sight; by design the symbols of the Old Masters’ power were visible from almost anywhere in the city. The Leveler’s revolution had left the buildings mostly intact.

“The question is,” Illusion went on, folding her arms and tugging at her necklace, “How do we get in? After the Risen City, I bet the Leveler has told everyone who we are and what we look like.”

“Swim up River.” the Ambassador suggested. It was the first thing the Mer had said that day, and her voice was distant and cold. She had been that way since her battle with the Hole.

“Find one of the old mine entrances?” the Immortal offered instead, frowning down at the Ash city from atop Wraith’s horse. “Work our way through the tunnels, and then down through the shanties.”

“That’s crazy.” Illusion scoffed. “All the former slaves will know every secret way we could take.”

The Immortal smiled toothily. “Perhaps. But how many of them would willingly go back down there?”

[Scottie]

It had been a silent promise. One whispered to the skies as she scrambled free of this city. She had promised herself she would never return here. She would never step foot into that city when it was missing the only person she cared about. It was a simple promise but it clung to her bones. It pained her to even come close to the city. The power of the city echoed through the villages. When the power left, it had shattered them. They were mere flecks now on a disintegrating map.

Thin strips of cloth had been wound around the handle of her axe. Her blood had coated it and sunk deep into the grain of the wood. The dirty cloth helped to hide the obvious murderous weapon. The library. It sat like a pristine beacon. Beside the council headquarters and the place of justice. She knew them well. Even from a distance, they were hated. They were a symbol of something she could never get. Freedom to educate herself. Freedom to speak her mind and have others listen. Freedom to have justice in this land. Every single slave that roamed the mines and fields hated those buildings. How they sat kissing the clouds.

It was a surprise to see them intact. Surely….a woman out to bring down the slavers and everything they hold dear….would destroy the biggest symbol of their control. No slave had ever stepped foot in the library. Why would they need to? The words of the others brushed past her skull as her gaze remained on that building in the distance. “We cannot swim up the river. The current is too strong and there are many rocks hiding under the water.”

Broken fingernails dug deep into her palm. He knew what he was saying. It was directly thrown at her. One swift movement and she was sliding off the horse. Worn sandals felt every pebble underneath her. The wanderer dragged her fingertips along the length of the horse as she moved before the others. The city looked like an empty shell of her former self. She was no longer the weak fearful woman who had fled the city.

“None of them will enter that darkness again.” She kept her back to them as she spoke. “Even those who only experienced it for a few months...it eats at your soul.” The wanderer slowly raised her chin. There were families working on the fields in the distance. The war was clear on them. One was missing an arm and...burn marks covered the child of 10.

It had been one silent promise. Could she break that promise to herself? Her gaze did not leave that child. Whoever was following them...would do whatever they had to get what they needed. Go through whoever they had to. Kill whoever they had to. Do whatever they had to in order to succeed. She would do the same.

The axe was slowly slipped down into her tight grip as she turned towards the group. “I will lead you.” Her stony gaze was gifted to every single member of the group before she took in a deep breath. “You must do every single thing I tell you. I mean it.” The last instruction was thrown at the Immortal. “I do not care for your opinion or what stupid joke you want to throw at me. I will not hesitate to leave you in another fucking hole.” The threat was left hanging in the cool air as she turned to her right and started picking her way down the path. “Follow me.”

[Azazeal849]

After only a few minutes in the twisting, crook-backed tunnels, it was easy to see what Wanderer had meant. The rocky passageways were airless and pitch dark, and Wanderer’s rune-cast light threw ugly shadows across the walls. The dark mouths of branch-tunnels wriggled off to either side, some looking barely big enough to crawl through. More than one had clearly collapsed. The mountains surrounding the great volcano were rich in copper, iron and tin, and all of it had been bought with the blood of slaves like Wanderer.

“You weren’t wrong about this place eating at your soul.” the Immortal murmured as Wanderer led them through the haunted mine-tunnels.

The sound of rain outside was deadened to nothing, though water still found them in the silty sludge pooling around their feet. Every now and then a breath of wind blew through, like the whisper of ghosts. Sometimes the way led them back up towards the surface, only to plunge down again towards the heart of the mountain. When the patter of rain became audible once again, heralding their return to the light, even the Ambassador sighed.

The tunnel widened steadily and then opened into a quarry of piled earth and mossy stones, standing like islands amid the wash of rainwater. Even here there was no-one - the freed slaves kept well clear of their former hell. But that did not mean they had abandoned the mines. Over the drumming of the rain they heard voices, and peeking out between the piles of rock they saw a large group of men working far off to their right.

The air was vibrating with runesign, and as the men lifted their arms large chunks of stone excavated themselves from a former tunnel mouth, raising into the air trailing hourglass trickles of soil and ore. The mages floated the huge mounds of earth over to a quarry pit and then let them fall and smash for their comrades to sift through.

“Big change, as Ambie would say.” Wraith said quietly. “Perhaps not all of it was bad change?”

They pulled up their cloak hoods against the rain, shadowing their faces from prying eyes. Two men resting outside a mudbrick hovel looked up as they passed, but gave them no trouble.

The streets of the city were built narrow, and the tenements tall. It was intended to shade pedestrians from the sun, but at the same time it was oppressive, lending the city an ominous air of surveillance. They wondered if the old slave-masters had planned that too. Down in the lower districts, the buildings became more ornate, but the atmosphere became grim. The rain had made its way down into the city now, where Ashmen went about the business of buying, selling and working in front of buildings that were nicked by blade impacts and stained by smoke and old blood. Some of the buildings were deserted. They passed a fire-gutted mansion, scrawled with venomous graffiti directed against its former occupants. SLAVER. RAPIST. MURDERER.

In a temple courtyard, a group of men and women knelt despite the rain, praying aloud for their children to come home safe from the war. As they skirted the plaza before the justice building, Wanderer saw that the posts once used to tie up rebellious slaves were still there. A group of armed men bearing slave brands were in the plaza, escorting a shuffling line of men whose faces and wrists were unmarked. Standing by the posts, an armoured man was shouting curses and threats. He was too far away to make out the words, but at the sound of his voice Illusion stopped and went pale.

“What?” Wraith whispered.

“That’s my father.” Illusion’s hands balled into fists, the rain dripping from her whitened knuckles. She took a step forward, but Wraith’s hand clapped down on her shoulder.

“Not now.” the big man cautioned. “Too many guards, and too much attention. Justice will be done...but later.”

The rage cleared from Illusion’s eyes, and she pulled her hood lower as she turned away. “Later.” she agreed.

The library stood alone, the great mustering plaza before its steps lying empty. At the top of the staircase of rainwashed marble was an atrium sheltered from the rain, and the great wooden doors stood open and unguarded.

Hushed voices greeted them as they stepped inside. Candle-bright and smelling of wood and old paper, the library split off into long galleries divided by tall bookcases. Down one, a woman with a slave brand on her cheek sat at a table with a young boy. A scroll was unfolded in front of them, weighted down with candles, and the woman was pointing through the letters of the alphabet while the boy hesitantly repeated. They looked happy.

The entrance way to each gallery was marked by a faded mosaic fresco on the floor tiles - here a sun and moon, there two soldiers with spears crossed.

“The old man said a crab.” the Immortal reminded them, peering out from the crook of the Ambassador’s arm, beneath her cloak.

“Not yet.” Wraith murmured. “We’re being followed.”

Illusion, who had been watching the woman and her son, snapped round. “What?”

“He crossed the plaza after us.” Wraith shushed her, and motioned them all to follow him. As they twisted deeper into the library, Wanderer began to hear it to - the sound of creeping footsteps against the tiles. Wraith ducked into a side room, and flattened himself against the doorframe.

As the stranger passed through a doorway, Wraith lunged and seized him by the neck, dragging the pursuer round to slam against the wall so that his choked-off yelp left him in a winded gasp.

“Wait!” the man rasped as Wraith’s blade hissed from beneath his cloak and found his throat. “I know who you are! I want to help!”

“Oh?” Wraith whispered, acidly.

“I know who you are.” the man repeated. He was middle-aged, ruddy skinned, with a neat beard that had begun to grow ragged. Beneath his sodden cloak, his neck bore no collar scars. “The usurper warned everyone about you, that you were trying to bring back the old order...are you?”

Despite the blade to his throat, his dark eyes were hopeful. He switched from Wraith to look at Wanderer.

[Scottie]

It was suffocating. The darkness slithered down her throat and forced her stomach to drop to her ankles. One hand remained tight on her axe, the other was hidden in the folds of her clothes. It gripped the small pouch of runes. They were all she had. They were the only reason she entered these caves again. No one could get the better of her. No one could force her to taste blood again...if they did, they would surely regret it.

It was strange. Seeing the old slaves use runes. They could get through things with less effort and in a fraction of the time it took by hand. She remained silent through their journey. Partly because nothing needed to be said. Partly because she didn’t need anyone recognising her. She didn’t need anyone to say her name, to remind her of her life in these caves.

The posts still stood. Blood of hundreds of slaves had sunk into the wood grain. Screams and pleas of mercy were buried in those posts. She could not understand why they still stood. A shuffling group of weary looking men moved by. The wanderer ignored them and headed for the library. Something stopped her from entering. Countless insults and threats echoed in her mind, no slave was allowed past those doors. Now they stood, open, welcoming...welcoming her into the library. A place that was once only for a choice few.


It took a few moments but she pushed herself past the threshold. A deep breath of relief left her chest. The smallest of smiles curled onto her lips and she pushed herself further into the library. There was life everywhere they looked. A woman teaching her child, a man brushing worn fingers over the spines of books. Slaves that had never seen true writing could now hold it in their hands. She had forgotten their reason for being here. She had become so wrapped up in all the joy surrounding her where there had only been misery.

“We’re being followed.”

The words pierced through her happy haze and brought her back to the truth surrounding them. She had been foolish. She hadn’t been paying attention. She thought this area would be safe. Soft footsteps came closer, creeping over the tiles in a stupid attempt to follow them. She let the Wraith take control of the situation. The man was slammed against the wall with ease. It was only one man. It wasn’t a real threat, especially as it appeared he was not a mage.

The cloak was dropped and she found herself thrown violently back in the past. His beard was neater, his skin was cleaner and his clothes were free of any dirt. Where his eyes were filled with hope, they had once been brimming with hatred. Glee had crossed his features when he tore families apart and forced cruel unnecessary punishments on young children and women. She remembered her punishment. The way it stung. The way she bled for hours after. He was no slave.

The blade was kissing the skin of his neck. His gaze snapped to her but still he did not recognise her. “Move.” She told Wraith bluntly as she took one step forward. “I need to speak to him. Move.” It was not a request, more an order thrown at the Wraith.

She saw the prisoner’s eyes dart around before settling on her once more. He stared for a long moment, eyes narrowing as they searched her face, her neck, her scars.

And this time he saw.

She could tell, from the way the trepidation in his eyes flickered into recognition, and then began to curdle back towards foreboding.

“You?” he hissed venomously. She saw his teeth and lips move, coming together to begin forming a familiar name, a hated name. “V-”

In the time it took his lips to curl back over his teeth, her mind had changed. Before recognition had poisoned his tongue, she was going to act differently. She wasn’t going to bring violence into this place. As that name burned on the tip of his tongue, a handful of fabric was tightly gripped in a scar ridden fist. Yanking him forward like he was nothing more than a rag toy, her nose nearly brushed his.

“Go on.” The look in her eyes was something unlike he had seen before. It was rage...yet it was gleeful rage. She had been waiting so long to stumble across a familiar face when she held this power but her refusal to come back here had stopped that dream from becoming reality.

“Say that name.” A gentle warmth radiated down her shoulders towards her fingertips as she lifted the man off the floor with ease. His feet barely brushing the ground. “I dare you.” The phrase held something more than just a simple set of words. It was a challenge. She was pleading with him to give her a true reason to make her dream come true. “Say it.”

She saw his fear reflected back as her rune-cast strength thumped him back against the wall. But in a moment it had calcified back into stubborn defiance. The old masters’ sense of superiority to slaves was too deeply ingrained.

“You’re only proving exactly why you needed to be kept in chains.” he sneered. “Vexie.”

It was all the reason she needed. “Good. You remember.” Her grip slackened enough to drop him to his feet and her hand moved swiftly to around his throat. Dirty fingertips dug deep into the skin of his neck as she pushed him back against the wall. “Your old way is dead, Slaver.” Her eyes lit up as she spoke. “I’ll never be back in chains.” Her grip grew steadily tighter as she once again lifted him off the floor. “Just like you will never have power again. You will die...slowly...and in pain.”

She knew her grip would eventually stop him breathing or break his neck. “I spent too many days cowering in fear.” Her fingers twitched gently as she lessened the grip on his throat. “I spent too many years thinking Slavers were all powerful gods. I know now. You are nothing more than a pitiful flea in this world. You control nothing. You are nothing.”

Instead of letting the man die, she pulled him sharply forward and then harshly back again so his head hit the wall. As he drifted from her grip, he left a thick trail of blood down the painted tiles. The wanderer waited until he had reached the ground and then scrawled something above the blood trail in crude Ash.

“Let us continue.” Her words soft as she turned and passed them all to head down the corridor.

[Azazeal849]

Wraith looked from Wanderer walking away back to the unconscious Ashman, grunted, and hauled a scroll-stacked bookcase round to partially hide the slumped body from view.

“That might have been too loud.” Illusion said anxiously.

“He will be louder, when wake.” the Ambassador remarked, tapping pale blue fingers against her lips.

“So let’s be gone by then.” Wraith ended the conversation, starting after Wanderer.

Not once did she glance back to see if they were following her. She knew they would. The Wanderer didn’t want to hear their questions, to have sympathy drip from their tongues. She wanted silence.

The three trotted to catch up with her, the cool stone walls echoing their footsteps back to them. The whisper and shuffle of Ashmen wandering the great building continued, seemingly undisturbed. Fingers of sunlight shafted dimly through windows to their left, carrying the sounds of pattering rain and the river running by outside.

“You know, Wanderer,” the Immortal spoke up from within the cradle of Ambassador’s cloak. “I have to admit again that you surprise even me.”

The shuffling of footsteps would have been the perfect companion to the silence that enveloped them. But the loaf had to speak. She didn’t turn towards him, she kept walking but let him speak his piece.

“Like me you’re not an idiot,” the Immortal explained, “Which is good. And also like me I get the impression that you’d rather the idiots leave you alone. But then there’s all this around slaves and slavers. Between Illusion’s crusade and Wraith’s justice, you’re all fighting for some dangerously big ideas.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Illusion challenged him.

“I was hoping you were smarter.” Immortal said, twisting his eyebrows in the facial equivalent of a shrug. “Leveler had big ideas too, and look how that’s turned out.”

“Big ideas are change.” the Ambassador said, quietly. “Some good, some bad.”

“See, I prefer small, achievable things. Like getting a body back so I can piss on Leveler’s corpse. I’d be a lot less worried if Wanderer and Illusion were just out to avenge their families, without all this doing-the-right-thing baggage.”

The Wanderer rolled her eyes before responding. “Getting your body back is very much a small achievable thing. I hope you haven’t been naive enough to not consider what your future would be if you cannot sprout limbs from that neck stub of yours.”

The Immortal’s mouth opened and closed a few times.

“Hypothetically,” he said at last, “Hypothetically, mind you...well...well yes, that kind of immortality would fucking suck...”

He made the admission slowly, and in a surprisingly low voice.

“But!” he rallied. “We’ve heard the Scorpion and the Leveler’s own goons swear by her power to change form.”

That was true, Wanderer supposed.

“And while I’d normally consider a lot of those people morons, that’s a lot of corroborating evidence.”

Also true.

“I’m entirely confident that as soon as I touch the moonstone I’ll be able to get out of your hair and back to my own business...under my own power. Entirely confident.”

And that was a lie.

“And you?” the Immortal deflected, his tone sharp but his eyes avoiding hers.

The Wanderer stopped, waiting for the others to slow to a stop behind her before she turned to look at him. “I am not out to avenge my family. I just want peace.” She interrupted the snarky response that would surely come. “I want to sit somewhere for longer than a few days without some twat-faced witch of an overlord thinking that I must choose a side in this pathetic war. I want to sit in silence and watch the sun come out without worrying who is following the light.”

“That sounds nice.” Illusion opined, thoughtfully.

The Immortal chewed the inside of his cheek. “Small, achievable.” he allowed. “Alright, you’ve restored my faith.”

Tired green eyes dragged over the weary group before landing back on the Immortal. “If you can, and I know it is a massive ask, keep your mouth closed...at least until we get there.”

“Crab.” the Ambassador said.

Wraith raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Crab.” the mer woman said again, pointing. The next branching gallery was empty like the others, but the faded mosaic beneath the doorway showed the image of a jewel-shelled sea crab.

“Like the Teacher said.” Illusion breathed, and then pointed. “I see it!”

Nestled among the boxes and books stacked across the shelves was a distinctive gold leaf case, dusty with neglect. Illusion ran forward, but as she reached out for the box a flare of light filled the room, and the mage whipped her hand back as if stung.

“Ow! Fuck!”

“What is it?” Wraith asked, striding forward.

“I don’t know.” Illusion muttered, flexing her burned hand. “Barrier magic’s not my strong point.”

“No, it’s mine.” the Immortal said, with a hint of his usual pride. There was a pause. “And I won’t know what the hell it is either until you hold me up, Ambie.”

The Ambassador blinked, and then hurried into the room, drawing the head out from under her cloak. The Immortal cocked an eyebrow, and Wanderer could feel runesign sizzling through the air as he regarded the innocuous golden case.

“It’s a ward.” the Immortal surmised. “The kind mages put around their runes to keep other people from stealing their shit. In layman’s terms, it’s a phantasmagorial barrier.”

The Ambassador tilted her head. “Phanta-what?”

Wraith looked between them and folded his arms. “Traditionally, big words are for philosophers, not mages.”

“Well philosophically traditions are for idiots,” the Immortal countered. “So there.” There was another, smaller flash, and the crackle of runesign vanished from the air. “There, it’s all yours. But we now have a big problem.”

“What?” Illusion asked, her eyebrows twitching in alarm.

“No, not what. Why. This was a ridiculously elaborate rune to cast around a random scroll. And the Leveler didn’t know we were looking for it until after we left the Risen city.”

The Immortal huffed out a sigh.

“Which means she’s already here, and standing right behind us.”

“Well, you’d be right about that.” a contralto voice admitted.

The Leveler was standing in the main gallery, framed by the door arch leading into the crab section. She stood clad in regal silks, hair pinned up, hands clasped behind her back. On her left side was Redmoor, scarlet-robed and twitching, and the Apprentice with a grim, resigned look on his young face. To her right was the Blademaiden, sabre drawn, and the Hole, starlit hair shimmering dully in the candle light.

Illusion balled her fists. Wraith drew his paired swords with a hiss of intent.

“I guess that means the time for sneaking around is over.” the Immortal grunted. A blaze of light rippled and spread across the entrance to the side gallery, shielding the group behind a crackling, shimmering wall. The disembodied head narrowed his eyes, features drawn down in a scowl.

“Alright Leveler. You owe me a body. Which means you owe me a fucking moonstone.”

The Leveler was unmoved. “I don’t owe you anything, Dara, son of Rhianne.”

Wanderer had a split second to see the Immortal’s lips part in shock, before a far brighter spray of light overwhelmed her senses. For a moment the group’s shadows splashed giant and jagged across the walls, the Leveler and her men dire silhouettes framed in the warded archway.

Then the light faded. The wards fizzled away into nothing. And the head in Ambassador’s hands hung unmoving, its dark eyes glazed and lifeless.

“Your Teacher talked.” the Leveler shrugged, brushing the sleeve of her gown. She locked eyes with the remaining mages. “I’d ask who the rest of you are, but you’re going to be dead in a moment. Hand over the Book and I might let you live slightly longer.”

Illusion sidestepped to bring herself shoulder to shoulder with Wanderer. “Never.”

The Apprentice dropped his gaze. Redmoor smirked. The Leveler herself just exhaled down her nose, a slow breath of disappointment. “How did I know you were going to be difficult.”

“You are like icicle, Leveler.” Ambassador said quietly, still holding on to the Immortal’s lifeless head.

The Leveler rolled her eyes. “What, cold?”

“No, fragile and doomed.” The Ambassador’s eyes drifted from the Leveler onto the Hole. “You play with powers you do not understand.”

The Leveler peeled back her lips for a brief moment, baring her teeth. “You’d be surprised how often I hear that. Spare me the banter, the obvious jokes and the cliches.”

She raised her arms, and screaming light began to build between her splayed fingers.

“Just die.”

Wraith glanced over at Wanderer and Illusion. “Grab the scroll!”

Sparks flew up like a cloud of fireflies as Wraith’s swords swept outwards, trailing flame. Old, bone-dry paper caught light in an instant, and a blinding scatter of embers swirled through the air.

[Azazeal849]

The Wanderer didn’t know what she had expected of the Leveler. A tall massive mountain of a woman, one whose muscles made even the strongest of men quiver with fear. Or perhaps a rattish woman whose mind was her greatest weapon. A woman who had been torn from the mines just like her. The scars that littered Wanderer’s body told her story clearer than any word could. Not this. Not this...woman. A slave would not stand so comfortably in those silks, they would never think they truly deserved them. The pride and confidence she stood with...this was forced into her mind from birth. The Leveler was no slave trying to right the world, she was a disgruntled woman of wealth...and that made the Wanderer furious.

Her axe slipped in her grip, letting the head of the axe gently hit the group before her fingers tightened back around the handle. She had to hope that none of them knew that she had strength on her side. She hadn’t used it fully when dealing with the scumbag from before, it still echoed in her bones, waiting for the right moment….

Dara, son of Rhianne.

Dots of light took their time disappearing from her view. She had forgotten that. She had forgotten that he was human. That he had a name. That he had a mother. Fuck. His eyes were still open but no life remained. Shock still etched onto his features.

Tears gathered, threatening to spill onto her cheeks. Yes, she had joked before that she would rejoice the day he was gone from them...but she had never truly meant it. Hell, if he had remained a loaf, she would have taken him with her. He could have watched the sunrise on the highest peak with her when this was all over.

The Leveler shrugged. She took the life of another so easily...and all she could do was shrug afterwards. It had no effect on her at all. Illusion stepped beside her and Wanderer raised her axe, shielding the woman from the others. Her eyes burned a hole through the skull of the Apprentice. Ambassador spoke to the Leveler but she was of no concern to the Wanderer.

“Every drop of blood shed today will be on your hands. I hope our faces haunt you.”

Her gaze never left the Apprentice. He may have his eyes on the ground but she knew that he would feel those words on his soul.

Sparks flew up like a cloud of fireflies as Wraith’s swords swept outwards, trailing flame. Old, bone-dry paper caught light in an instant, and a blinding scatter of embers swirled through the air.

Before she could open her mouth again, sparks licked at their skin. The Wanderer jumped backwards, dragging the Illusion with her. “Move. Go.” she told the woman, “Do whatever you have to.”

Clenching her left hand, she tried to help the distraction created by the Wraith. This was an old library. Dust filled every corner, lined every bookshelf, even the texts themselves had dust burrowed into their covers. Rage always seemed to have an effect on her powers. Dust joined the clouds of smoke before shooting forward, aiming for those that had been attacked before. Mages shielding their faces from the burning embers reeled again as everything became a blinding haze. The Leveler cursed as her focus was broken, shards of lightning chasing across the floor as she flinched away. A sliding table thunked into the wall as the Apprentice lost control of his telekinesis.

Commanding the battle, a roar erupted from Leveler's Hole, her dear, wild, star-struck killer who kept her vision on the sheltered Mer female among them. The final encounter, the last fight before world liberation! A glimpse of movement through the grey fog was all it took. At Leveler's front, Hole opened with a wave of her hand, releasing acid needles straight to the Ambassador. She saw the Mer stumble and clutch at her shoulder, crying out as one of the fizzing needles raked past her upper arm. The others thunked into wood and stone, hissing venomously as they dissolved.

Suddenly the Wraith was there, hauling the Ambassador behind him with a swirl of his cloak. One of his swords flicked out and more fire streamed from it; a blazing arm lashing a red-orange whip. Blademaiden stepped to Hole’s side and a shimmering dome enveloped them both, the fire clawing over it as it washed to either side. Bookshelves caught fire, records and histories bursting into flame.

Redmoor staggered back, spitting out a glob of dusty saliva, and found himself surrounded by library patrons who had come running towards the noise instead of fleeing away from it. They stared wide eyed, clamouring questions.

“What is the point of you?” Redmoor bellowed at them, his eye and cheek spasming. “Get water, you dumb fucks! That fire isn’t sacred to the gods, it’s the kind that needs putting out!”

“No!” a curator yelled, waving his voluminous sleeves. “Water will damage the scrolls!”

A burning bookcase popped, spitting a cloud of burning paper fragments. Redmoor’s head wrenched to one side, and a runecraft prickle thrummed through the air as the stones pillars around him shivered with jagged cracks. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”

“Call the guard!” Leveler shouted over him, slashing an arm in furious command. “The guard, now! The rest of you, with me!”

Illusion barred their path, and the Hole opened with a quick attack at the first contender standing before the Leveler and her followers.

It was only a phantom of light; the mixed woman's sparkling star weapon cut through the deception, prompting it to begin fading and leave her without an opponent. Turning behind her, the Leveler's aggressive Hole waited for the woman's insertion.

"I can't see past the smoke." she admitted, lowering her eyes with shame.

“Stay close.” Blademaiden advised, taking the lead with sword drawn. Her blade ran with liquid light.

* * * * * *

Their quarry were already fleeing across the library, cloaked in smoke and dust. Wraith was dragging the Ambassador, while Illusion divided and divided again as she ran, mirror images sprinting off in different directions or standing their ground to give the pursuers pause. The real Illusion had the scroll in one hand, and was fumbling with the Book of Names with the other.

Wanderer’s sole concern was Illusion. She needed to keep the woman safe. She could read and she could interpret the texts. The Wanderer knew that if it was up to her...they would die in seconds. Her grubby fingers would drag over the letters and she would fail. She would fail them all. The concern was Illusion. The Wanderer kept close to her, shielding her back from any potential attacks. The area was bursting with life. Men and women were running towards the library. She had never seen this area so...chaotic. In past days, it would be neat and quiet. People walked in straight lines towards the library and other important buildings; if there was any noise it was from pleading slaves.

A man barged past the Wanderer, throwing her off her path. She reached her free hand out and rested it on the back of Illusion.

“Calm. You can do this. As soon as you know it, scream it as loud as you can.” She gave the woman a nod before turning, axe raised before her body. “I have your back.”

The Illusion nodded with silent determination. She halted beneath a skylight that was draining the fire smoke, granting them some respite from the choking fumes. Above them, thunder rumbled in the grey sky.

Her chin was raised up as she took two steps away from the woman, prepared to defend their last chance to her dying breath. She could hear the Leveler’s mages approaching, calling to each other through the chaos. Smoke crawled across the ceiling in pale waves, and the fire cast shadows that her imagination turned into long-limbed creatures, clawing across the walls.

“Just picture them…” Illusion mumbled to herself, remembering what the Teacher had said. She fumbled the Book open to a random page and splayed her hand to hold it flat. “Which one was the symbol for Leveler?”

“Think.” Wraith urged as he took up position across from Wanderer. The Ambassador was close behind, her eyes wide, still gripping the Immortal’s lifeless head.

“I’m thinking.” Illusion protested.

“Think harder.”

“I’M THINKING!”

“Think faster!” Wraith yelled back, and sent a blaze of lightning jagging from his sword tips as a familiar group took shape through the smoke.

* * * * * *

Apprentice’s throat was raw, dry with the taste of burning ash. The smoke was stinging his eyes, threatening to close them. Around him beams of rune-cast light flashed, causing the air to scream.

He wanted to have faith, but it seemed to have deserted him. He looked at Blademaiden, her mouth set in a grim line as she stalked forward. She used to have faith too, but now she only mentions duty. He was not so sure that he had either any more.

He looked at the Hole; the woman he had once called a friend, now alien in almost everything except her devotion to the Leveler. How do you keep your faith, Cara? he wondered. Is this what you pictured after we won back the Ash city?

The Leveler fired a ray of killing light through the first enemy to show themselves, and swore when it proved to be just another of Illusion’s phantoms. In reply a flicker of lightning burst across the gallery floor, shattering the tiles and filling the smoky air with the metallic reek of ozone.

The Leveler’s mages bolted for cover behind columns and bookcases. The Leveler herself stood her ground, great bolts of scream-light lashing from her hands. Her face was an inhuman snarl. The Apprentice noticed that the fingertips of her right arm - her regrown arm - had burned and blackened from the runic discharge, but his mistress gave no sign of having felt it.

He glanced around, looking for something he could jerk up and throw with a pull of his runecraft, but as soon as he leaned round the column a burst of sparks cracked off it, almost blinding him.

“Shield me, will you?” he yelled across at Blademaiden.

Blademaiden was struggling to advance, her bubble of protective magic pushing against the coiling snakes of Wraith’s lightning. She laughed grimly at his request. “Could you ask someone who’s not up to their neck in enemy heroes?”

Apprentice looked around again. “Where the fuck is Redmoor!?”

* * * * * *

It was the Ambassador’s cry that alerted them. Redmoor had worked his way forward around the edge of the gallery, his red cloak swirling around him as he limped through the smoke. One of Illusion’s phantoms lunged at him from behind a stone column, but he let the projection’s blade sweep through him, his dark eyes fixed on the real Illusion huddled over the Book.

“No tricks this time, traitor!” he shouted, the tic-spasms wrenching at his face. He swept a thin arm round, and a lump of marble the size of a horse tore itself free of the wall and came rushing towards Illusion and the others.

It stopped in midair. Wanderer saw Redmoor through an oil-slick shimmer, trapped within a bubble. His eyes widened in recognition of the spell, and had just begun to raise towards the roof when the chunk of hovering rock threw itself sideways into a nearby stone column. The column exploded into pinging fragments, and the roof above it gave way.

There was a roar of falling masonry, and a shattering of dislodged roof tiles, and Redmoor vanished beneath them. Another figure, also red, swung down from the skylight and dropped to the floor, her cloak fanning behind her like scarlet wings.

“Was that a fair fight?” she asked, cocking her head at Wanderer.

“Red!” the Ambassador exclaimed, unnecessarily.

Red switched her gaze towards the Mer, a smile playing across her thin lips. “Hello Ambie. I knew that wherever you went was going to be interesting.”

“What kept you?” Wraith asked sourly.

“I knew you’d be coming to Ash eventually. I just had to wait for the screams to start and follow them.” Red smirked, and looked at Wanderer. “So who do you need me to kill?”

If it had been any other time, she would have rolled her eyes at Red. But now, they needed her more than ever. The Wanderer had forgotten that she knew little about these bastards’ powers, flying slabs of marble at Illusion hadn't been at the forefront of her mind.

"Kill anyone who isn't us." she yelled at the woman. "Illusion needs time. We need to give it to her."

[Azazeal849]

The Apprentice cast a blinding flash across the gallery, and Blademaiden darted forward, only to be met blade-to-blade by the crushing, lightning-wrapped arcs of Wraith’s swords. The Leveler was in the centre of the gallery, hurling fire, rocks, and spears of black shadow indiscriminately into the smoke.

She looked round at Hole, and the starlit mage saw that her eyes were smeared pink by the smoke and by the runecraft surging through her. “Would it be asking too much for you to kill something!?” she thundered.

Hole turned back once to the unfolding battle. In the haze their liberator was the beacon, light searing from her hands like the golden promise of better tomorrows was in her grasp.

That earthly power was worth everything. The Leveler's being demanded she surrender everything for freedom. Her words change the world, she must continue to speak! In a flurry of movement, the Hole swirled her starry pike, bringing forth the strange cloudy construct, partially obscured in the smoke.

Its twinkling, alien light flickered through the burning library, Cara’s hair its midnight cloak as she mounted upon its back. Taking the cloudy beast ahead, Cara screamed, raising her pike above her as a freedom fighter.

The absolute speed of the beast whipped her hair back as they cut through the smoke, its loosely bound figure creating no sense of weight or power in its charge. Gliding on the back of her creation, the mixed woman came upon the group like the end of sunlight: bringing the time of darkness. The cosmic figure beneath her leaped over the front line, filling Hole's lungs with the library's burning scraps. She saw figures blurring by beneath her - a ragged woman, a familiar figure in red, a masked giant locked blade to blade with one of Leveler’s chosen. All eyes were drawn up, mouths agape as her beast soared over them.

Watery eyed, she looked for the shining hair of the Mer who had dared touch her mind. Such beauty was seen even in the obscurity of destruction, Hole waited moments for her rise to fall. Next to the Ambassador, with brazen, death-crazed recklessness among the Leveler's antagonists, she drove her pike straight through the lithe beauty, feeding her rune-weapon the blood of the Mer's heart.

"THE WORLD IS THE LEVELER'S, WE ARE FREE!"

The Ambassador’s hands came up to clutch at the pike driven through her. Cara saw sea foam bubbling at her lips and leaking from her eyes in place of blood and tears. As she struggled with the weight impaled on the end of her pike, a furious scream turned her. The turn saved her life as the blade aimed at the gap between shoulder-guard and neck crunched into metal instead, the full leaping weight of the red woman carving through her armour and jarring against bone. Cara thought she heard the Apprentice shouting her name, but over the runesign keening through the air she couldn’t be sure.

Both Cara and Red tumbled from the cosmic monster’s back. The Ambassador’s knees hit the floor at the same time as they did, followed by the back of her head as the Mer slumped to the ground still impaled on the pike. Cara’s mount reared, screeching the fury of distant stars.

Wraith fell back from Blademaiden, fired off a burst of flames to give himself space, and sent the creature tumbling away with a flicker-blast of white lightning. “Quickly!” he implored Illusion.

Illusion gripped her head, struggling to focus through the screams and the carnage. From memory of Wanderer’s dust-raised letters, she had narrowed the scrawls down to two. Ignore the squiggle, it’s in all of them, it must mean ‘child of’... Her heartbeat was thudding wetly at her temples as she slapped a hand down on the scroll of Ancient Ash letters. And that’s an M...

“The music’s still playing, Wraith!” Blademaiden shouted in challenge. “May I have this dance?”

Wraith’s swords came round, dragging contrails of flashing light. Blademaiden skipped round them, her own rune-bright sabre lashing out.

Still guarding Illusion’s back, Wanderer saw the flame-shadows on the walls begin to twist, forming thorny tentacles that began to slither down towards the floor. As they fell they grew more solid, more sharp.

“ENOUGH!” the Leveler screamed as she came stalking through the whirling ash, broken fingers of smoke clawing at her robes.

Illusion whirled, surging to her feet as she thrust a slender finger straight towards Leveler. “Mira, child of Gail!”

A blinding flash filled the gallery, banishing the tarry shadows that the Leveler was conjuring. At the centre of the light a figure stumbled, a black silhouette at the centre of the white, until the released magic faded and the empty shell was revealed.

Not the Leveler.

Blademaiden.

Wraith caught himself on his back foot, one arm still up to shield his half-blinded eyes. Lightning sparked and growled around his sword blades. He saw Blademaiden’s eyes lock onto his own through his mask. There was pain in them - and resignation - and pride. A smile ghosted across the woman’s lips, only to be hidden by the guard of her sabre as she raised the depowered weapon to her face in salute. She charged.

* * * * * *

Wanderer heard Illusion swear, and a rustle of papers as she scrabbled for the second name. She didn’t get the chance as the Leveler yelled a curse and sent a stormfront of rune energy ripping towards them. Wanderer saw it as a bow wave folding and tearing at the mosaic floor, before it lifted her and Illusion up and hurled them across the library, bookcases splintering and shattering as they collided. Somehow, she was able to snatch the scroll out of the air before it was lost among the debris.

The roof caved, admitting a sheet of rain which met the rising dust and ashes and turned them into gobbets of liquid tar. Illusion coughed on the mix as she fought to rise, the Book still clutched to her chest.

Pain ricocheted through the Wanderer’s skull. Her vision doubled as small flecks of wooden bookcases danced through the air. A shaky breath left her dry lips as she pushed herself to her feet once again.

“Are you o-” Illusion began, but it turned into a cry of “Look out!” as she looked past Wanderer to what was storming towards them from the great exterior doors.

“Those who oppose the Leveler oppose me!”

The shout came from a man, punctuated by the tramp of five armoured guards running at his side. Wanderer recognised him as the man Illusion had nearly rushed down to the punishment stakes to kill. Up close, she could see that he had his daughter’s red hair and hazel-brown eyes, though these eyes were full of fanatical determination.

The sharp cry of Illusion had the Wanderer shaking her head, trying to regain her vision. Recognition hit the man leading the charge; he looked Illusion’s double. The same determined hazel brown eyes. Wanderer’s trusty axe was gripped tightly as she let her gaze drift to the five men behind the red haired man. Soldiers; no doubt former slaves, like the ones she had fought at the rune mine.

“Sage?” The leading man’s eyes slid off Wanderer without recognition, but widened in shock when they fell upon Illusion. They darted to the tome in her hands, and blazed anew as the man understood what he was seeing. His clenched teeth snapped open to loose a shout.

“Sage, daughter of Scar-!

Wanderer paused letting the family recognise each other until a familiar name left his lips. In one swift movement, her axe was hauled up. Rage filled his face, etching into deep lines on his forehead. A name that should be said with love with spoke with such hatred. Not when their child was still living. It was a blessing that Illusion had survived...this should be a time of joy...not pure hatred.

That familiar warmth flooded through her muscles. The axe was hauled back and swiftly brought forward making contact with the man’s exposed throat. The weapon slid through flesh and muscle like it were softened butter. Her left hand swung forward to grip the man by the front of his shirt. Blood trickled down his chest in large clots as she let the sight of his death sink into the minds of those who followed him.

“You keep her name out of your mouth.”

With little effort she threw the man behind her, letting the corpse slide towards his daughter as she stood watching with mouth hanging open. “I’ve got these five, Illusion.”

She swung the blood slick axe at the men before her. The small woman was filled with a rage deeper than any of them could fathom. It radiated from her skin in every movement.

“Come on then.”

Two of them did, but after Wanderer crushed them aside with superhuman ease the remaining three were not so keen. They edged back, clutching their spears. Scrabbling with the Book on the floor, Illusion sucked in a sudden breath; half a gasp and half a laugh.

“It’s Evelyn!” she cried out, looking up at Wanderer. “And her mother is…”

Black, slithering shadows raced across the floor to coil up her legs, wrestling her up into the air. They coiled around her, thick ropes of glistening black. When she opened her mouth to scream, they poured down her throat. The Book and the Scroll fell from her hands as she struggled, landing near Wanderer’s feet.

Her axe was slick with the blood of two of them. Sh had raised for the next when Illusion shouted. She sounded so hopeful, that hope was wrestled from her with the shadows of the Leveller. The book landed with a thud by her feet and the wanderer felt every small flicker of hope she had felt previously disappear as she realised what was happening.

* * * * * *

Downed, Hole was in a life or death struggle with Red. Her right shoulder was a geyser of blood, tensing her face with pain. A bestial focus was in her eyes even as her joint threatened to fail her. With a quick wit the blood was made her weapon, her left hand smearing itself in the juices of her wound and diving into Red's mouth.

The woman who had been screaming in a fit of angered grief was soiled with the taste of Hole's blood. The runic fluids instantly brought a sickness, bringing the icy chills and defiance of her digestive tract. Before Hole could pull her fingers out, Red hurled, spraying vomit across Hole's hand, up and around Red's mouth. The woman's grip of her blade faltered, shivering with poison.

Rolling over, Hole, the sparkling murderess, grabbed the sword which was once to end her life and dove it through Red's vomit-stained face, cutting through the forehead and out the back of the skull. Huffing on top of the quivering body, another enemy of the Leveler was slain and the Hole rose to her feet gradually, stealing Red's sword and in search of her next target. One hand dripped with blood, the other with a dead woman's sick. Though the real illness was in the searching eyes, detached from the debauchery of her methods.

All around her was death. Redmoor, the Ambassador, the red woman - even the faithful Blademaiden, lying with her sabre cleaved in two beside her. Wraith was gone, running towards the other battle, but he would be too late. Leveler had the traitor Illusion in a vice, choked by runic shadows while the Wanderer could only look on in horror.

Her liberator had won.

[Azazeal849]

The shadows formed a great black fist around Illusion, ready to crush the life out of her. The Leveler stood with her own fist clenched, held out in front of her as she stalked towards them. The Apprentice followed behind her, a pale shadow.

“Shh.” Leveler soothed the struggling Illusion. “It’s alright. It’ll be over soon.” Her bloodshot eyes darted towards Wanderer. “Who was this one, again?”

She didn’t gift the Leveler her gaze. Instead it burned through the bowed head of the Apprentice.

The Apprentice’s eyes flickered to the scroll at Wanderer’s feet, then to the Leveler, then to the floor. “Wanderer. The slave, like me. She can’t read.”

His words started that bubbling rage. She could feel it pin prickling through her chest, snaking up her back and gripping her by the throat.

The Leveler almost visibly relaxed, but her eyes hardened. “You’re a traitor to your people, Wanderer. If you’d rather stand with the Lightmen, then you can perish at the hand of their god.”

Finally, she allowed her gaze to snap to the Leveler. The rage in her eyes was like a rabid dog ...a desperate cornered rabid dog that would do anything to escape.

The last word dissolved into a hiss as the Leveler’s face seemed to twist and stretch, bulging outwards to accommodate pale, dripping fangs. Scales spread around her eyes and down her neck as she reared upwards, taller and taller, shredding out of her silken robes. In a heartbeat nothing remained of the woman, only a vast black-scaled snake that thudded to the ground and came winding towards her, forked tongue darting, jaws hinging wide.

Only Mer can change their form. Only Mer can change their form. The words stung as she mouthed them silently. She was just a slave. She couldn’t even read. She was nothing...how was she to stop this thing before her by herself? Rain stained the paper pages of the book by her feet. She let her eyes glance down, knowing full well that if she tried this..it was her last chance. She would never again look up at the sky if her words were false.

The Book was at Wanderer’s feet, the pages spotting and running as the rain fell on them. The Leveler’s symbol jumped out at her as if the letters were made of fire. Beside it was a meaningless jumble of glyphs that Illusion had insisted meant Evelyn, child of… Child of who? The last phrase was short, but it might as well have been the language of suns and stars.

His words echoed in her mind. Over and over again. “The slave, like me. She can’t read.” Evelyn. She had heard that clearly when Illusion had triumphantly screamed it.

The Scroll lay next to it, two columns of blocky, carefully inked symbols, as if designed for children. The first jagged glyph from the name was next to a symbol that she was sure was ‘i’...but the other three -

The other three. She knew them immediately, because they were the last three letters of her own name. O-N-A. Wanderer might only be able to read like a child, but she knew her own name. The letters that she had scraped into the mud while Illusion watched.

A-G-R-O-N-A.

I...O-N-A.

Iona.

Evelyn, child of Iona.

She could hear that fat belly scraping across the tiled floor. The rain bouncing off her scaled back as her followers, the few that were left, stood waiting for the end to this small rebellion. The Wanderer knew she was nothing in this world. A slave who escaped and managed to scrounge some runes. She couldn’t even read...She could barely read.

Defiant green eyes turned up to the black snake winding its way closer to her, its jaw wide with a sticky substance glistening on its fangs. This was her last stand. She had nothing else to protect her now.

The words were strange on her lips. A name not uttered for years. Something precious. Something so very powerful.

“Evelyn, daughter of Iona.”

Wanderer wouldn’t have thought it possible to see shock in the eyes of a serpent.

A low vibration coursed through her, too low for sound, shivering her ribcage faster and faster until it rose into hearing as a very human scream. Light boiled across the library, banishing every shadow, fracturing into brilliant rainbows as it passed through the sheeting rain.

Candles snuffed out as if caught in a driving wind. Illusion dropped to the ground as the glistening ropes that had bound her evaporated, like mist before the sun. She fell with a thud, retching. Apprentice and the Ash guards were reeling, arms thrown up to their faces as they tried to shut out the light. At the centre of the blaze Wanderer could make out a great shape writhing, twisting into coiled knots as it screamed.

And shrinking. Before her eyes the vast snake was withering, growing smaller and paler, curling and cowering down. Gaping jaws became a tortured face. Scaly coils became arms wrapped around a bowed head, fingers clawing at the scalp through straggling hair. The light pulsed once, guttered out. And when darkness fell there was only the Leveler, curled in on herself on the shattered mosaic floor.

Water dripped from her rain-soaked hair, and traced rivulets across her bare, gooseprickled skin. She was trembling as she lurched onto all fours, her arms seeming to quake with the effort of simply holding herself upright.

“No…” There was no command in the contralto voice now. No confidence, no malice. Only shivering terror. “No, no, no, NO!”

None of the Ashmen seemed able to move. They stood like statues, immobile against the swirling rain.

Illusion coughed, began to crawl. Wraith slowly lowered his swords, alone in a pool of light as his rune-lit blades danced rays across his silent iron mask. His eyes found Wanderer’s from behind the slits.

Alone in the middle of the gallery, the Leveler slumped onto her side and curled into a foetal ball. Her blackened right hand was cupped to her stomach, cradling something that shone pale and blue through her fingers.

The Wanderer would never get that scream out of her skull. It felt so familiar. Pain filled every moment of it and it had originated from deep within the Levellers bones. It was like the fall of a god. Power had radiated from her with every movement...now she was shivering like a beaten dog. Droplets of water hit the tiles beneath her face as her cries shook from her chest. The once supreme Leveler looked more like a child.

Cara watched freedom die. The synapses of her mind stopped and she became nothing. A stare honed and void, her body without a flinch. The humanizing figure on the floor swallowed her sight. In Hole's reality this was inconceivable; there existed no way for the devoted to think her goddess, her living sense of justice, would perish or worse, fail.

The entirety of Hole's devotion had been built upon a promise. Freedom for all had cleared every obstacle, had come within moments of victory, to end. That promise, reinforced by all the blood on Cara's hands was now a lie.

"G...get up my lady…" Cara whispered to the whimpering Leveler on the ground. Nothing came of it, no steps were made. Her ruler was entirely without power.

"Leveler...Le...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Shattering into pieces, Hole's mind ripped open through layers of paradigms, beyond the shattered gates of once iron-sealed faith. Sweating, manic with confusion and rich in panic, the Hole had no future without Leveler leading it.

Her screaming took over the ruined library.

Scared whispers left the lips of the woman across from them. Scared whispers quickly devolved into a gut-wrenching screech. The Wanderer flinched violently as she had not expected such a passionate response.

“S...Stop….”

Her words faltered until a surge of confidence tingled through her body. Steaming from her ankle where the Illusion had touched her bare skin, the older woman glanced down and saw hope had returned to the youthful face of the Illusion.

“STOP.” She let her words carry across to the small group. “It is done.”

Looking around she saw guards and civilians looking at each other, whispering. The same name was on every tongue. The Leveler. Evelyn, daughter of Iona. Some of them turned and fled the library. Rain pattered against the broken floor.

The Wanderer raised her chin to look at the group across from her. “There will be no more fighting. I am no more a traitor to my people than you are to yours. This must become a thing of the past. No more should one person hold so much power. No more.”

The Apprentice limped forward. “And what will you do with the Moonstone, huh? Go on your own rampage based on what you think is right?”

His eyes held the pain of a loyal son who had done everything ever asked of him, and yet seen all his works die in bloody futility. For a moment, he and Wanderer stared each other down. I’ll win that battle, Wanderer knew. The problem was, the other former slave did not know it.

At the last, the Apprentice turned away.

“I was with her, you know.” he said, his gaze dropping to the floor and dragging across to the shivering Leveler. “When we found the Moonstone. We knew it was powerful, even if we didn’t realise what it was - and the Immortal had beaten us to so many other Seeker caches, we were loathe to let him have this one. I remember how she burned when she touched it.”

At the sound of his voice, the defeated Leveler raised her head fractionally. Her blackened hand curled tighter around her stomach.

The Wanderer tried not to lash out at the Apprentice. How dare he say his name. How dare he think they were better than the Immortal. If he could have heard her thoughts, she knew that loaf’s ego would soar highwards...would have soared...She couldn’t bring herself to cast a glance over at the lifeless skull.

“She said it wasn’t safe to share,” the Apprentice said quietly, looking back at Wanderer. “And after what happened to Hole, I believed her. She told us what it was. I asked her if she knew what it meant for us. That it could be her symbol of the new order. She said that it would be her reason that we would never fear anyone again. Not the Old Masters, not the Lightmen, no-one. We’d be invincible. I trusted her to use that power to protect us. I wanted to believe.”

Illusion struggled to her feet to stand beside Wanderer. Her eyes were on the Apprentice.

“I did too.” she said.

“You…” Leveler rasped from the floor. She was struggling to raise her head in the Apprentice’s direction. “Lied...you...said she couldn’t read...”

The Apprentice’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I didn’t know if she could or not. But it was the one thing I could say that would stop you from killing her right away.”

The Leveler’s eyes crinkled, glistening as she processed the second betrayal. Her left hand made a fist and slapped down wetly against the mosaic tiles. Her forehead bowed to rest on the trembling fist, hair falling like a curtain to hide her grief-contorted face.

“No one is invincible.” The Wanderer spoke softly. There was little pity for the mess of a woman before her.

There was a clatter of dropped swords as more guards fled the library. The rain continued to weep down through the broken roof, plastering the Apprentice’s curly hair to his face. He raised his dark eyes towards Wanderer.

“So what happens now?”

Abandoned at center stage, the Hole entered the scene and fell beside the Leveler. Sprawling in a desperate plea everyone around the two women became obscure in her view - no, invisible as Cara had to see their leader this way. In the wet Hole accepted Evelyn's fingers, holding them in the warmth of her touch.

"This...is a mistake. You will stand again, won't you? Please...if you don't free us the chains will come back" Beginning to soak with the Leveler, the half-mad woman seemed to speak as if slavery were a beast alive and capable of action.

“The chains will never return.” She looked not at the Hole but at the Apprentice who seemed thoroughly defeated. “You killed half of the slavers and the others will never be able to stand proudly again. You have allowed slaves to hold runes, to hold power for the first time in their lives. Do you really think they will allow chains to slink back around their throats?” There was a small pause, a chain would never rule her life again.

The Apprentice’s hand rose to massage his neck, plucking at the scarf that hid his collar scars. “You…” he said quietly. “We…”

“You are free. You are all free.” That was aimed at the woman who huddled beside the Leveller. “What happens now...the Mer…” The Wanderer finally looked to her right, seeing exactly who in their group had fallen. The Mer lay lifeless. “We return the moonstone to the Mer...or we destroy it. You said it was not safe to share but we know it is not safe for one person to hold it by themselves. It is either given back or destroyed. Only then can we move forward.”

“No…” It was the barest whisper, but it was enough to make them look down. The Leveler’s hand clawed harder into Hole’s, nails digging into her brown skin. Her voice was a hoarse rasp, forced through gritted teeth. “You’ll never have it.” The sharp cut was the jolt of a quickened chance dashing with the fleeing pain. If Hole did not bend herself to Leveler's quiet command now, then she herself had no hope.

“Cara,” the Apprentice blurred as he sensed the building magic, “Wait!”

The Leveler threatened a dark promise and in smoke was gone. With her, the last follower had ensured Evelyn, daughter of Iona exited from possible demise.

- - - Updated - - -

The shadows formed a great black fist around Illusion, ready to crush the life out of her. The Leveler stood with her own fist clenched, held out in front of her as she stalked towards them. The Apprentice followed behind her, a pale shadow.

“Shh.” Leveler soothed the struggling Illusion. “It’s alright. It’ll be over soon.” Her bloodshot eyes darted towards Wanderer. “Who was this one, again?”

She didn’t gift the Leveler her gaze. Instead it burned through the bowed head of the Apprentice.

The Apprentice’s eyes flickered to the scroll at Wanderer’s feet, then to the Leveler, then to the floor. “Wanderer. The slave, like me. She can’t read.”

His words started that bubbling rage. She could feel it pin prickling through her chest, snaking up her back and gripping her by the throat.

The Leveler almost visibly relaxed, but her eyes hardened. “You’re a traitor to your people, Wanderer. If you’d rather stand with the Lightmen, then you can perish at the hand of their god.”

Finally, she allowed her gaze to snap to the Leveler. The rage in her eyes was like a rabid dog ...a desperate cornered rabid dog that would do anything to escape.

The last word dissolved into a hiss as the Leveler’s face seemed to twist and stretch, bulging outwards to accommodate pale, dripping fangs. Scales spread around her eyes and down her neck as she reared upwards, taller and taller, shredding out of her silken robes. In a heartbeat nothing remained of the woman, only a vast black-scaled snake that thudded to the ground and came winding towards her, forked tongue darting, jaws hinging wide.

Only Mer can change their form. Only Mer can change their form. The words stung as she mouthed them silently. She was just a slave. She couldn’t even read. She was nothing...how was she to stop this thing before her by herself? Rain stained the paper pages of the book by her feet. She let her eyes glance down, knowing full well that if she tried this..it was her last chance. She would never again look up at the sky if her words were false.

The Book was at Wanderer’s feet, the pages spotting and running as the rain fell on them. The Leveler’s symbol jumped out at her as if the letters were made of fire. Beside it was a meaningless jumble of glyphs that Illusion had insisted meant Evelyn, child of… Child of who? The last phrase was short, but it might as well have been the language of suns and stars.

His words echoed in her mind. Over and over again. “The slave, like me. She can’t read.” Evelyn. She had heard that clearly when Illusion had triumphantly screamed it.

The Scroll lay next to it, two columns of blocky, carefully inked symbols, as if designed for children. The first jagged glyph from the name was next to a symbol that she was sure was ‘i’...but the other three -

The other three. She knew them immediately, because they were the last three letters of her own name. O-N-A. Wanderer might only be able to read like a child, but she knew her own name. The letters that she had scraped into the mud while Illusion watched.

A-G-R-O-N-A.

I...O-N-A.

Iona.

Evelyn, child of Iona.

She could hear that fat belly scraping across the tiled floor. The rain bouncing off her scaled back as her followers, the few that were left, stood waiting for the end to this small rebellion. The Wanderer knew she was nothing in this world. A slave who escaped and managed to scrounge some runes. She couldn’t even read...She could barely read.

Defiant green eyes turned up to the black snake winding its way closer to her, its jaw wide with a sticky substance glistening on its fangs. This was her last stand. She had nothing else to protect her now.

The words were strange on her lips. A name not uttered for years. Something precious. Something so very powerful.

“Evelyn, daughter of Iona.”

Wanderer wouldn’t have thought it possible to see shock in the eyes of a serpent.

A low vibration coursed through her, too low for sound, shivering her ribcage faster and faster until it rose into hearing as a very human scream. Light boiled across the library, banishing every shadow, fracturing into brilliant rainbows as it passed through the sheeting rain.

Candles snuffed out as if caught in a driving wind. Illusion dropped to the ground as the glistening ropes that had bound her evaporated, like mist before the sun. She fell with a thud, retching. Apprentice and the Ash guards were reeling, arms thrown up to their faces as they tried to shut out the light. At the centre of the blaze Wanderer could make out a great shape writhing, twisting into coiled knots as it screamed.

And shrinking. Before her eyes the vast snake was withering, growing smaller and paler, curling and cowering down. Gaping jaws became a tortured face. Scaly coils became arms wrapped around a bowed head, fingers clawing at the scalp through straggling hair. The light pulsed once, guttered out. And when darkness fell there was only the Leveler, curled in on herself on the shattered mosaic floor.

Water dripped from her rain-soaked hair, and traced rivulets across her bare, gooseprickled skin. She was trembling as she lurched onto all fours, her arms seeming to quake with the effort of simply holding herself upright.

“No…” There was no command in the contralto voice now. No confidence, no malice. Only shivering terror. “No, no, no, NO!”

None of the Ashmen seemed able to move. They stood like statues, immobile against the swirling rain.

Illusion coughed, began to crawl. Wraith slowly lowered his swords, alone in a pool of light as his rune-lit blades danced rays across his silent iron mask. His eyes found Wanderer’s from behind the slits.

Alone in the middle of the gallery, the Leveler slumped onto her side and curled into a foetal ball. Her blackened right hand was cupped to her stomach, cradling something that shone pale and blue through her fingers.

The Wanderer would never get that scream out of her skull. It felt so familiar. Pain filled every moment of it and it had originated from deep within the Levellers bones. It was like the fall of a god. Power had radiated from her with every movement...now she was shivering like a beaten dog. Droplets of water hit the tiles beneath her face as her cries shook from her chest. The once supreme Leveler looked more like a child.

Cara watched freedom die. The synapses of her mind stopped and she became nothing. A stare honed and void, her body without a flinch. The humanizing figure on the floor swallowed her sight. In Hole's reality this was inconceivable; there existed no way for the devoted to think her goddess, her living sense of justice, would perish or worse, fail.

The entirety of Hole's devotion had been built upon a promise. Freedom for all had cleared every obstacle, had come within moments of victory, to end. That promise, reinforced by all the blood on Cara's hands was now a lie.

"G...get up my lady…" Cara whispered to the whimpering Leveler on the ground. Nothing came of it, no steps were made. Her ruler was entirely without power.

"Leveler...Le...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Shattering into pieces, Hole's mind ripped open through layers of paradigms, beyond the shattered gates of once iron-sealed faith. Sweating, manic with confusion and rich in panic, the Hole had no future without Leveler leading it.

Her screaming took over the ruined library.

Scared whispers left the lips of the woman across from them. Scared whispers quickly devolved into a gut-wrenching screech. The Wanderer flinched violently as she had not expected such a passionate response.

“S...Stop….”

Her words faltered until a surge of confidence tingled through her body. Steaming from her ankle where the Illusion had touched her bare skin, the older woman glanced down and saw hope had returned to the youthful face of the Illusion.

“STOP.” She let her words carry across to the small group. “It is done.”

Looking around she saw guards and civilians looking at each other, whispering. The same name was on every tongue. The Leveler. Evelyn, daughter of Iona. Some of them turned and fled the library. Rain pattered against the broken floor.

The Wanderer raised her chin to look at the group across from her. “There will be no more fighting. I am no more a traitor to my people than you are to yours. This must become a thing of the past. No more should one person hold so much power. No more.”

The Apprentice limped forward. “And what will you do with the Moonstone, huh? Go on your own rampage based on what you think is right?”

His eyes held the pain of a loyal son who had done everything ever asked of him, and yet seen all his works die in bloody futility. For a moment, he and Wanderer stared each other down. I’ll win that battle, Wanderer knew. The problem was, the other former slave did not know it.

At the last, the Apprentice turned away.

“I was with her, you know.” he said, his gaze dropping to the floor and dragging across to the shivering Leveler. “When we found the Moonstone. We knew it was powerful, even if we didn’t realise what it was - and the Immortal had beaten us to so many other Seeker caches, we were loathe to let him have this one. I remember how she burned when she touched it.”

At the sound of his voice, the defeated Leveler raised her head fractionally. Her blackened hand curled tighter around her stomach.

The Wanderer tried not to lash out at the Apprentice. How dare he say his name. How dare he think they were better than the Immortal. If he could have heard her thoughts, she knew that loaf’s ego would soar highwards...would have soared...She couldn’t bring herself to cast a glance over at the lifeless skull.

“She said it wasn’t safe to share,” the Apprentice said quietly, looking back at Wanderer. “And after what happened to Hole, I believed her. She told us what it was. I asked her if she knew what it meant for us. That it could be her symbol of the new order. She said that it would be her reason that we would never fear anyone again. Not the Old Masters, not the Lightmen, no-one. We’d be invincible. I trusted her to use that power to protect us. I wanted to believe.”

Illusion struggled to her feet to stand beside Wanderer. Her eyes were on the Apprentice.

“I did too.” she said.

“You…” Leveler rasped from the floor. She was struggling to raise her head in the Apprentice’s direction. “Lied...you...said she couldn’t read...”

The Apprentice’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I didn’t know if she could or not. But it was the one thing I could say that would stop you from killing her right away.”

The Leveler’s eyes crinkled, glistening as she processed the second betrayal. Her left hand made a fist and slapped down wetly against the mosaic tiles. Her forehead bowed to rest on the trembling fist, hair falling like a curtain to hide her grief-contorted face.

“No one is invincible.” The Wanderer spoke softly. There was little pity for the mess of a woman before her.

There was a clatter of dropped swords as more guards fled the library. The rain continued to weep down through the broken roof, plastering the Apprentice’s curly hair to his face. He raised his dark eyes towards Wanderer.

“So what happens now?”

Abandoned at center stage, the Hole entered the scene and fell beside the Leveler. Sprawling in a desperate plea everyone around the two women became obscure in her view - no, invisible as Cara had to see their leader this way. In the wet Hole accepted Evelyn's fingers, holding them in the warmth of her touch.

"This...is a mistake. You will stand again, won't you? Please...if you don't free us the chains will come back" Beginning to soak with the Leveler, the half-mad woman seemed to speak as if slavery were a beast alive and capable of action.

“The chains will never return.” She looked not at the Hole but at the Apprentice who seemed thoroughly defeated. “You killed half of the slavers and the others will never be able to stand proudly again. You have allowed slaves to hold runes, to hold power for the first time in their lives. Do you really think they will allow chains to slink back around their throats?” There was a small pause, a chain would never rule her life again.

The Apprentice’s hand rose to massage his neck, plucking at the scarf that hid his collar scars. “You…” he said quietly. “We…”

“You are free. You are all free.” That was aimed at the woman who huddled beside the Leveller. “What happens now...the Mer…” The Wanderer finally looked to her right, seeing exactly who in their group had fallen. The Mer lay lifeless. “We return the moonstone to the Mer...or we destroy it. You said it was not safe to share but we know it is not safe for one person to hold it by themselves. It is either given back or destroyed. Only then can we move forward.”

“No…” It was the barest whisper, but it was enough to make them look down. The Leveler’s hand clawed harder into Hole’s, nails digging into her brown skin. Her voice was a hoarse rasp, forced through gritted teeth. “You’ll never have it.” The sharp cut was the jolt of a quickened chance dashing with the fleeing pain. If Hole did not bend herself to Leveler's quiet command now, then she herself had no hope.

“Cara,” the Apprentice blurred as he sensed the building magic, “Wait!”

The Leveler threatened a dark promise and in smoke was gone. With her, the last follower had ensured Evelyn, daughter of Iona exited from possible demise.

[Scottie]

Smoke rose from the ground in steaming swirls where the Leveler had been. The fires surrounding them hissed as they were dampened into nothing by the steady rain.

“Where did they go?” Illusion gaped at the floor where Leveler and Hole had vanished, then around the ruined library, and finally at the Apprentice. She seized him by the collar. “Where did they go?”

The Apprentice’s hands hovered, as if trying to decide if he should raise them to shield himself. “We took the Scorpion’s traveller rune.” he said, “The same one he gave you. If that’s the case they can’t be more than a mile away. But if Hole used her own runes they could be anywhere - you know it’s impossible to tell unless you know who she last bonded with.”

“Then she may return.” Wraith’s voice was a low growl, his blades already back in his hands.

The Apprentice considered that for a moment, then exhaled in defeat. “To what end? You...we...have her name now, and soon enough everyone in the city will know it. Including the old slavers and more than a few ambitious slaves. If she doesn’t want the Moonstone taken from her, she can’t set foot in Ash ever again.”

“What about the city of Light hm?” Her eyes had not left the scorched mark on the floor. She had been so close, one swift blow and all their problems would have been solved. “What about the Risemen?” Her frail hands looked old as her grip remained tight on her axe. “Nothing you say will make me feel like this has ended.” Rage filled eyes dragged up to the poor man across from them. “When at full strength, she had the power and presence to command thousands to march behind her… She'll never get those numbers again… But all she needs is one person.”

A side glance was given to the Wraith, she knew that he would agree with her. The masked killer nodded silently. A threat was not truly dead until you could see the blood trickle from their mouth.

“We need to return this book to the Mer…” she said. “Then..then we do all we can do. We fix this mess as best as we can, and we stay vigilant. Always.”

The axe was raised a few inches off the ground as she made her way across to the Apprentice. He looked like a cornered dog, fear sat plainly on his face no matter how hard he tried to hide it. The Wanderer raised her hand to him, ready to brace his arm in an act of acceptance if he took it. "Do you agree?"

The fear was still plain on his face as he searched hers. Slowly, his hand raised from his side, and his manacle-scarred wrist touched Wanderer’s as they clasped arms.

“I agree.” he said. “I make no apologies for freeing other slaves like me. But the Leveler was wrong to take them to war.”

The Wanderer locked eyes with the Apprentice. She could not truly judge him, she would have done the same. She would have broken every shackle if she had the choice...but what the Leveler did was wrong.

“There’s going to be another century of enmity between Light and Ash after this.” Illusion sighed. “But...we can talk to the Blue Lady. Reparations...something to preserve peace.”

“Things will change.” Wraith said. “But as the Ambassador said, not all change is bad.”

“The old way of the slavers needed to die.” the Apprentice affirmed, standing a little straighter.

“So what will you build instead?” the Wraith challenged him.

Illusion blinked. “You?” Her eyes dropped to Wraith’s still-drawn swords. “Not we?”

“I’m going after them.” Wraith said, deadpan. “Sins require punishment, and the Leveler will not escape hers. I will seek her for as long as it takes.”

The Apprentice let out a long sigh, and let his arm fall from Wanderer’s grip. “Cara.” he said. “The Hole’s name is Cara, daughter of Keeva. Please don’t...don’t kill her. She was just like me, until she touched those runes from the fallen star.”

The temptation to raise her hand and slap the man firmly across the face was strong but she held back from the act of violence. The Apprentice was stupider than she had first expected to think that strange woman did not deserve death. She brutally killed others and helped their biggest threat escape. She was just as bad as the Leveler.

“Her fate is in her own hands.” Wraith answered, sternly. He watched as the Apprentice bowed his head in defeat. “But there is no time to lose. I need to go now.”

Illusion stared at the Wraith for a moment, and then flung herself at him and wrapped her arms around his much broader frame. Wraith staggered a little under the force of the tackle.

“I…” he protested. “I don’t really do hugging.”

“Tough shit!” Illusion told him, and clung on tighter before finally letting him go. “Take care.”

The Wanderer turned her body back towards the Wraith. Her arms folded over her chest as she thought for a moment. “If there is anyone who will find them, it is you. I trust you to bring them to justice.” She noted the obvious discomfort of the large man as Illusion wrapped him tightly in a hug. The wanderer shook her head softly with a slight smile crossing her lips as she wandered closer to the two. She raised her hand as before, ready to brace his arm for a final goodbye. Though she knew that his name and legend would continued to be whispered in the wind for many a year to come.