He tried to remember which way he’d fallen. No memory: he’d closed his eyes on the way down.
Kannwar’s muffled voice came from somewhere close, just left of his feet. Stella would be there. All he had to do was raise his head a few inches.
He couldn’t do it. The Destroyer had taken strength from him, stolen it, and though Robal knew it had been for Stella’s benefit, the simmering anger he’d been resisting finally exploded into a brilliant, perfect rage. He wanted to release everything he was in one howling conflagration aimed at the Destroyer. His fury seared almost everything left within him. Memories, love, virtues: all began to melt, to change shape in the fire.
The Destroyer gave a shout. Was Stella alive? Had she moved? More likely he was reacting to the healing of the breach in the canopy. Let the thing go. Let fire and death rain down. If she is dead, let no one else live. Especially not him.
With an audible snap, the canopy vanished.
Robal exulted, and prepared for a fiery death.
A shriek issued from the figure high above as she fell. Another snap and the canopy reappeared, this time lower—but too late to save the cosmographer girl. Directly above him her body continued to fall, twisting and tumbling. A myriad lightning spears were thrown down from the storm, every one absorbed by the new barrier. The crashes of thunder were drowned out by a howl of anger. Robal tried to move his drained muscles, to roll away from where the girl was about to land, but could not raise even a twitch. He closed his eyes.
And opened them again to see the petrified face of the cosmographer suspended a few feet above his own. Her scream had stopped, replaced by frantic panting. He had never seen eyes so large, or a mouth describe such a perfect circle.
Without warning she fell the rest of the way, landing squarely on him. Her knee caught him a blow square in his privates, but he felt nothing. She sprang up, her lower lip bleeding, and looked at him with something approaching horror.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, then bent down and picked up a small stone that had clattered to the ground with her.
Is this condition permanent? Robal wondered. Has the Destroyer done to me what he did to Ma Umerta? He decided it didn’t matter. Perhaps he and Stella could be left lying here together. It seemed the only way he’d get to be alone with her.
No, not permanent, he realised as his legs began to ache, then twitch. The returning feeling grew into an agony of hot pins thrust into his muscles and joints. His voice returned and he bellowed with pain. His mouth filled with phlegm. He managed to raise his head enough to spit, and saw Stella’s body lying prone about five paces distant. Willing his leaden limbs to move, he crawled to her side, to touch her ruined skin, her cold hands, her pale face.
“She can’t be dead,” he rasped.
“She is.” The Destroyer’s voice.
“I thought she was immortal.”
“No one knows the limits of what the Water of Life gives a human body. Clearly we have discovered that immortality requires a beating heart.”
Robal grated a derisive laugh. “All life requires that, fool. If it were in my power, I would take it from you and give it to her.”
“As would I,” the Destroyer said, and it sounded so very sincere.
“I am willing to give it a try,” Robal said, levering himself to his feet. “Come now, Destroyer, cut open a vein and give her a drink.”
The man looked taken aback. “It does not work that way,” he said.
“No? I have seen her killed once, throat slashed by one of your Lords of Fear, and she came back to life. First thing she did was to drink her own blood.”
The Destroyer frowned.
“You didn’t expect to be taken at your word, did you?” Robal laughed. “Gather around, everyone!” he called, his voice cracking. “Witness your beloved Undying Man, your heroic saviour, refuse to save his most faithful companion!”
He stepped back a pace to the upper edge of the path, next to a collection of digging implements.
The Destroyer took a step forward. “Be silent, you fool, about things of which you are ignorant.”
“All I am ignorant of,” Robal said as people came closer, drawn by the shouting, “is why you would refuse to renew the blood of immortality you have already bestowed on her. You captured and abused her seventy