Chapter 17
The bagua assembling in the circle around me quickly became a blur or dark fabric, horns, and weapons. Inkiri held me, then licked my neck one more time.
“My light in darkness. I will protect you, sadir, with all my skill. I’m right behind you.”
I looked into his indigo eyes, the slitted pupils small in the construction lights so that the color of them stood out all the brighter. I opened my mouth to tell him that I would protect him too, with all my skill, with all my magic, but I wasn’t sure whether that would upset him.
Instead, I blinked and said, “Thank you. I trust you. I always trust you.”
He clicked and cupped my cheek. “I’ll not disappoint you, my Rory.”
The land sighed happily as if this were the most romantic thing ever. It seemed not to care that we were going out armed to the teeth.
Honestly, the land was weird, but okay. I liked having weird people around me.
The commotion around us suddenly quieted as everyone found their place. Inkiri stepped back.
Kinnek took my right hand, the one in which I also held the pigeon bag. Vergis took my left, and then the two of them clasped hands so that we stood there, a circle in a circle, almost like children playing Ring a Ring o’ Roses.
But what we were doing was not a game. If I hadn’t already known that for a fact, it would have been clear when the magic flowed through me, and seconds later, we hopped veils.
The pigeons in my bag stilled, and the weight of them vanished as they turned to sacrificial ash, leaving only silence behind. I dropped the bag on the ground.
The darkness that welcomed us was perfect. I reached out to the land, which easily pulled me apart, my attention spreading far like an arrow taking flight.
I had to concentrate to keep my body moving, to keep watching my guys and the rest of the Raikengana and make sure they were all safe. Making my feet move like they should took extra effort still.
Everything went like we’d planned it. Vergis joined Charles, who had his night vision goggles on already, both of them moving in deadly synchronicity and perfect silence, and Kinnek and I went next.
The Raikengana fanned out behind us. I didn’t hear them at all, even though my magical sense let me watch them. Inkiri and my guys stayed close to me.
I knew I would set the pace. I also knew it would exhaust me, walking this long and keeping my magic going at the same time.
Could you—
The land was already on it, powering me up while at the same time grumbling that it would’ve been easier if I’d been barefoot. With my out-of-body senses, I checked everyone in the group, and my pace now seemed to be just right.
With the darkness and the magic, I quickly lost my sense of time.
The land was very focused, but I caught glimpses of its unease, literally.
They showed as ghostly shadows. The girl running past a certain rock we were passing, or one of the older anointed that I only recognized because they wore white lying flat on the ground with blood on their robe.
When we got to the Hill, the land said, There are many tonight. Them gathering here has been happening more. They are in the church where the bones are. They rarely come out, but when they do, it’s in pairs to walk a circle around the Stone. None from your knights’ home are there.
Can I speak without the humans hearing?
Yes.
“The land says there are several humans in the church. No Koa Esher. No beasts near. I think they patrol the Hill every once in a while in pairs.”
In my outside sensing mode, I saw Hove and a few of the other Raikengana nod while Lueris translated.
We jogged on for…well, I had no idea. We jogged on for a bit longer, then Kinnek leaned over.
“Call up some fog now.”
I did, and the land provided it straight away.
From my outside view, I saw a wispy fog rise from the ground. It quickly gathered into a sound-eating blanket. The land left our group in a fog-free bubble, making it so we could see each other.
The land shuddered with unease when we got to the wide field at the top of the Hill. There were humans there, two of them, just walking.
“What’s this fucking weather?” one of them asked. He sounded English, not Irish, and I heard a lighter click. He was smoking.
“Dunno. Maybe it’s ghosts. Dave said there’s ghosts around here.”
Vergis had his gun ready. He aimed it at one of them. His death vision seemed to have engaged, but he stopped just short of shooting.
The other Raikengana slowed, keeping away from the human voices they could undoubtedly pick up, and edging closer to Kinnek and me.
Kinnek took a tighter hold of my bicep. We were ten steps away from the Stone, eight, five.
One more step, another. Before I knew it, I had my hands on it, the rough surface digging into my palms and the tips of my fingers.
The humans were still on the Hill with us.
“Do you reckon we’ll find that shaman soon? Or maybe the monsters will. Bloody hell, can you believe how eager Mitch was to fuck one of them horned ones? I mean, where’s the appeal?”
“Some people don’t much care about so long as the hole is warm and soft,” the smoker said. What a certifiable a-hole.
I did my best to tune them out and concentrate. Kinnek stood behind me, close, and put his hands over mine.
They will know. There will be song, the land said.
I looked around with my outside-of-me sense. Vergis was so ready to get a few shots off. The other Raikengana were taking up positions around the Stone. This was happening. There’d be a fight. It would be fine though. It had to be.
I exhaled, and just like Kinnek had taught me, I dispensed like nobody’s business. The land poured power toward the magic, a lot of power, more than I had ever handled.
The Stone sang.
The guards heard it. “What the—”
Vergis’s first shot went straight for the smoker’s head, his second hit the non-smoker in the throat.
Blades were pulled free of their sheaths, the sounds merging with the Stone’s song like an orchestra’s crescendo, and the Raikengana stood firm, waiting to protect.
Nokim pulled things out of his bag—several small glass vials.
The noise was not something anyone could have missed. The church doors were flung open, the mages inside came toward us at a run, and they were armed and angry.
“Focus, sweet pea,” Kinnek said in my ear.
He was right. I forced the outside awareness out of my head and was left in the dark, surrounded by fog, my guys, and the other Raikengana.
“Better.”
Kinnek started doing something, started working with the remnants of the spell that had happened here two and a half years ago. He began to unravel and reverse it, part of it.
I helped. It wasn’t as easy or straightforward as turning a bowl of water into ice. If this magic was like Kinnek painting the walls with beautiful murals, I was the guy with a too wide brush and only two colors. I did my best.
“There. The Lagasar,” he mumbled, and I felt it, more so through the Stone and the senses of the land. There were openings—cuts, really—all over the place. Not just here, but everywhere on the planet. It was like a sieve.
Except…not exactly. Unlike with Aer, most of the tears that connected the beasts’ world were one-way, allowing the beasts to come here but not allowing humans through. When I had gone there with Vergis, it had actually happened because I’d used extra magic, I could see that now.
We hadn’t expected there to be that many openings to close. We’d thought it could be done in one fell swoop, like the spell that had made the Lagasar, but even as untrained as I was, I could see things wouldn’t be that simple.
Kinnek, undeterred, was attempting to close these openings, and it was working. The land moved around in my mind, relieved by his skill and anxiously watching for him to close all the connection points.
I did my best to help, pouring out sacrificial energy for Kinnek and holding up the spell here and there when I sensed he couldn’t.
It was easier for me to see what was Earth and what was Aer, what was the beasts’ place in a lot of the cases, and Kinnek let me point that out to him, swooping in with his sophisticated surgical magic once I had.
Opening by opening, we closed the beasts’ place off, repairing the tears in the fabric between worlds. I couldn’t believe how feasible this seemed once we got into a rhythm.
That was when I heard another shot.
Kinnek’s hold on me tightened. “Concentrate. They will guard us.”
I fell back into doing, but the sounds… I couldn’t completely shut out the sounds.
Guard them, protect them, help them, I told the land.
It nodded and jumped right into action for Fellisse. I wasn’t sure what the wound was exactly, but Fellisse’s leg was bleeding. The land healed it, fast, using me to pour out the magic to do so.
That was more magic than I was already dispensing. I winced. I was getting woozy, but this had to be done.
I decided then, in that moment. I would give everything here today, at the Stone. All my power.
The land had told me before that using that much magic could hurt me.
I had no idea what might happen, whether I would fall unconscious and never wake up again, but it didn’t matter.
I wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t. The Lagasar had to be closed, and none of the protectors would die doing it.
I couldn’t let Charles get hurt, or Kinnek.
I had power, and I would use it to protect all of them.
Tonight, here on the Hill of Tara, I would be a magical twink badass, and damn the consequences. I’d be a dispensomancer to reckon with.
The land agreed. It forced me outside of myself again, letting me see what was happening around me.
That hurt, but I could see why the land was doing it. It was whack-a-mole, closing the veil and helping the Raikengana all at the same time. The land had an easier time helping when it had my attention.