Page 70 of The Malevolent Eight
And she does smile.
Shame, her age matching his, as it has all these years since at last she consented to marry him, doesn’t take the rose from him. Instead, she wraps her hand around his, steadying him as she inhales not only the familiar scent of the flower but that of her husband. The smile that comes to her lips is made all the more brilliant by its imperfections, by its mixture of adoration and sorrow, uncertainty and gratitude, and all the fragrances of humanity the former angelic has come to embrace.
She’ll never know that life, Cade. How could she, fighting alongside you in an endless failure to prevent an endless war? There is no end to the story you offer them other than death and ruin.
‘Don’t gild the fucking lily. Show me Alice.’
No words this time. Instead, I saw a woman, a demoniac, dressed in gleaming armour I’d never seen before yet recognised instantly by the steady, determined gazes of those following behind her as they pursue a fugitive murderer whose wonderist spells have left a trail of bodies behind him. She and her squad wear the raiments of a new order of Justiciars. No longer beholden to the Glorians, they serve the laws that Alice herself helped set right: laws which shield human beings from the foibles of the Lords Devilish, who prevailed against the Lords Celestine only to find that people like Corrigan, like Galass, like Shame, Aradeus, Alice and even that gods-damned vampire kangaroo Temper, never fail to hold them to account. Heroes, one and all. And if, admittedly, the name ‘Malevolent Six’ never quite had the same ring to it, still, it’s a legend others will seek to reinvent generation after generation.
And all it requires is that you let the Aurorals and the Infernals have their war, Cade. You resist until the right moment so that Tenebris can betray the Pandoral and take what’s left of the power of that doomed realm for himself and his co-conspirators. My son is freed, a war that might have gone on for millennia is reduced to mere decades and your friends find such happiness as people like you and I could never even imagine for ourselves.
‘You’re right,’ I said, and I definitely heard myself speak this time. ‘This is a better destiny than any I could ever give them. A just compromise between the prospect of humanity’s eternal enslavement and merely losing a few generations of its children and the chance to choose their own gods. And hey, one thing about me? I don’t give a shit about religion.’
Eliva’ren was so deep inside my mind now, my very spirit, that she already knew the gambit had failed. ‘I don’t understand,’ she murmured, unleashing wave after wave of alterations to my thoughts and instincts. The surgeries became so fast that all I saw were the flashes of images, most abstract, some literal, each representing choices I might make and the destinies to which they would lead. One after another they faded from potentiality, always leaving behind the same decision.
‘How are you doing this?’ she asked aloud, her tone sharp, anxious, her breathing haggard. ‘Every time I alter one aspect of your personality, some other part of you becomes even more entrenched in following that path to the Pandoral.How are you doing this?’
Despite my affection for her, what I wanted to say was, ‘Because I’m not an amateur, Princess. I’m a former Glorian Justiciar who broke away from the brainwashing righteousness of the Lords Celestine themselves. I became an Infernalist who trafficked in spells and horrors, yet eluded every attempt by the Lords Devilish to align my spirit to their intentions. I’ve survived enemies whose power over-matched mine a hundredfold. I’m still here and they’re dead because I don’t walk into a fight unless I know exactly how to win. I’m a fucking tactical genius, and the only reason I don’t shout it from the rooftops is because tactical geniuses like me are too gods-damned cunning to let people know just how much better we are at this shit than they are.’
What I did say, however, was equally true but less suicidal. ‘I didn’t choose to risk destroying myself and my friends out of pique, Eliva’ren. I didn’t do it because I lack pride or dignity or as a gamble. You and Tenebris and the Pandoral and everyone else keeps trying to argue with me about which destiny humanity must follow, but that’s because you’ve forgotten what it means to be human.’
‘Because your Justiciars took that away from me!’
‘I know, and I’m sorry for my part in it. But nobody’s suffering gives them a licence to take away someone else’s freedom.’
‘Yet you’re willing to deny the six beings you’re closest to in the entire world their chance at happiness?’
That made me laugh. It wasn’t a happy laugh, mind you, but then, happiness had never been the point. ‘You still don’t get it, do you? I can’t give my friends those pretty little futures you showed me because they’re not mine to give. Me, Corrigan, Galass, Shame, Aradeus, Alice and even that fucking lunatic kangaroo, we already made our choices. We swore we wouldn’t let the Mortal realm become anyone’s plaything, no matter what the cost. We’re not wide-eyed idealists, Eliva’ren, and we sure as shit aren’t the good guys. I may play the hero these days, but I’m fighting the fightmyway.’
She leaned closer, placing her hands on either side of my face. Her fingertips pressed hard into my skin, but I didn’t feel any magic passing between us. This was something else. She was trying to make sense of me.
Good luck with that, sister, I thought.
Realisation dawned on her slowly, and her brow furrowed as she wrestled with the implications of what had happened. ‘With each alteration I made to your mind, some other part reshaped itself into finding a different, yet equally determined, commitment to your decision. Nothing I can do will move you without destroying you entirely.’
I took her hands away from my face. ‘You asked earlier why I wasn’t resisting? It’s because I don’t waste time fighting when the opponent has already lost.’
I felt her make one final, almost feeble attempt to invoke her silk magic, but too much intimacy makes the romance go stale. I sent a sudden, sharp jolt against the connection between us. Had she been prepared for opposition as she’d been earlier, or had she not been so exhausted, it might not have worked. But the tether between our minds snapped so hard the two of us recoiled from both the pain and the sudden loss.
I heard the sound of footsteps coming down the passageway, and something that sounded suspiciously like a swarm made up of thousands of buzzing bees. I rose to my feet, forcing myself not to immediately topple over when the dizziness hit me. ‘Come on,’ I said, extending a hand to her. ‘Time you got me out of here.’
The Spellslinger, utterly baffled by what had happened, accepted my hand. We stood side by side and waited as the key turned in the lock of the door.
‘Guess we’re going to have to fight our way out,’ I said. Under normal circumstances I would’ve left it there but, you know, people who mess with your brain should expect consequences for their ill deeds. That’s why I added, ‘Sweetheart.’
Chapter 39
A Brief Guide to Magical Battles
Violence is a misunderstood art-form. If you require proof, close your eyes and imagine a weapon– any weapon will do. There, see? You’ve already screwed it up. I’ll bet all the money in my pockets– which is none, since my captors left me naught but filthy rags– against all the money in your pockets that you’re picturing a sword or a spear or perhaps a siege cannon. I don’t blame you; most people would. But what you’re focusing on in your head isn’t the actual weapon: it’s not the cause of the damage you’re about to inflict on your fellow human being, merely the conveyance. It’s not the edge of the blade that cuts flesh, any more than the tip of the arrowhead pierces armour. The actual slicing or piercing or hacking is caused by an amount of force directed along a particular axis and delivered to as tiny a target as possible. Sharpening the sword blade makes it deadlier only because it means the force of the blow is distributed along a thinner line. The cannon does no damage to the castle wall; it’s simply a means of sending a great deal of pressure to a relatively small area.
And the weapon’s only dangerous if it’s within range, correctly aimed and delivering enough force to a sufficiently small target to overwhelm whatever material it comes in contact with. The greatest fencer in the world armed with the sharpest rapier is no threat if you’re standing half a mile away. The mightiest trebuchet is irrelevant if the engineers aiming it can’t see you.
Magical violence works the same way. It’s not the potency of the spell you need to worry about, but where it’s directed. Direction, velocity, distribution of energy: these are the tactical considerations in surviving an assault by a coven of enemy wonderists.
‘Is there a reason why you’re giving a lecture on mystical battle tactics in the middle of a fight?’ Eliva’ren asked.
I hadn’t been aware that I was talking out loud. I locked eyes with the felinist slashing at me with the two-foot-long razor-sharp claws she’d manifested from her fingertips, who helpfully nodded to confirm that, yes, I was talking like a lunatic in the midst of a fight for our lives.
