remaining travellers, magicians to the fore, surrounded him. “You have come to save your friend. Go on then. I won’t put up a fight.”
Mahudia, Lenares sent, her whisper travelling instantaneously along the tenuous connection to her mother. Now.
The great storm had killed many thousands of people north of Patina Padouk; the huge earthquake and accompanying waves had ended the lives of many more. Mahudia had explained that the void pulsed with a myriad new stars, all once nodes in the wall of the world, now torn untimely from the pattern of life and cast into the ever-widening maw of the hole in the world. Many are still nearby, Mahudia had said to Lenares. They are frightened and they are angry. They have agreed to help us.
Lenares waited, but saw nothing for some time. She ignored the threats coming from the monster’s mouth, watching for any change—and finally saw it: a pulse in the broad connection between Cylene and the quarter-sky hole in the world hovering above them.
“What are you doing?” Keppia said, an edge to his voice.
“Nothing,” Lenares answered him. “None of us is doing anything.”
“Then what… is that you, Umu?”
The pulse arrived at Cylene’s body and the thing’s mouth opened in a bellow. But it was Keppia’s voice, not Cylene’s, that came out.
It is working, Mother, Lenares sent.
Good, said Mahudia, her voice faint. Few here want the gods to break through into the world. They think of their loved ones still alive, and, apart from a few selfish ones, do not want them to die. And there are those who simply want revenge.
Lenares glanced upwards and saw a multitude of stars glittering beyond the hole in the world.
She returned her attention to the animated corpse before her and watched as the black began slowly to leach out of it.
“Stop this! I will kill the girl, I swear I will!”
“She is dead already,” Lenares said to him. “And we cannot stop what we did not start.”
The monster began chuffing heavy breaths, undoubtedly summoning all his power. The conduit expanded still further as he drew on the void. The blackness began to return to Cylene’s body.
“All you magicians!” Lenares commanded gleefully. Truly, she was the centre of the world at this moment. “Use your magic to see the dark essenza in this body before you. Pick at it, grasp it, and push it away from Cylene, towards the cord. Draw from those around you who are not magicians. Now!”
At her command a dozen bright blue filaments snapped into existence, arcing towards the monster. Keppia threw back his head and howled.
“He will flee,” Kannwar said. “We will have saved Cylene, but lost Keppia.”
“He will not flee,” Lenares said. “This will weaken him so much that Umu could destroy him should he abandon Cylene’s body. This is his only chance. He will try to hold on.”
Blue fire assailed the monster from all sides, and the hungry conduit continued to suck at him. Around them people began to collapse.
“Lenares! They’re dying!” someone cried.
Oh, I never thought of that. “Stop drawing on them!”
“It’s not us. Keppia is draining them dry,” said Kannwar.
“Then some of you must protect them!”
Instantly six of the blue arcs vanished and the bystanders were surrounded by a faint azure glow. Keppia roared and began to reclaim Cylene’s body.
“Umu! Help your brother!” the monster shouted, his attention fixed on a row of denuded trees lining the side of the road. His sister, if she was anywhere within earshot, gave no answer.
The very ground around them began to shrivel and crack as the warring magicians drained essenza from every source. Plants withered, grass collapsed into a grey mat, insects were fried where they crawled or flew.
“I have never… been this deep… into magic!” the Undying Man said.
“This is my world!” Keppia screamed as the black began once again to fade. “I belong here! I was tricked into leaving! You cannot dooooo this to me!”
Lenares saw the moment Keppia gave up trying to remain in Cylene’s body and attempted to flee. All the black collected at the entrance to the cord—which was now as wide as Cylene was tall—and made to run, taking the cord with him.
There came a faint cry from her own conduit, and at the same moment Keppia’s cord suddenly stiffened, locking more firmly into Cylene’s body. Keppia shrieked, then was jerked bodily into the cord, from where he fell upwards, twisting and jerking, towards the distant hole in the world.
“Push!” Lenares cried.
All the magicians united in one final effort, their