Chapter 18: Rushdown

I.

Liz clasped the bottom of the wagon’s seat. It rattled against the shifting road. She peered past the children and the elderly couple in the wagon. The shadows moved like ghosts, maneuvering through the air as if it were a matter of course. Leading the procession of shades was Arula. Her form had completely shifted. A long white dress of silken thread flowed from her form. The shadows behind her marched in procession, their legs not even touching the ground. A figure dashed behind the wagon in the space between the advancing shadows and the rickety wagon.

It was Melania. She leaped into the air, daggers brandished, cutting at the threads dangling over the shadows. Each strike delayed the shadows, but it didn’t stop them. There was no sign of them slowing down. Melania clicked her tongue before leaping away from the wagon.

A ball of flame sparked at the back of the wagon. Aria clasped it in her hand, clutching the sideboard before firing. It flew past Arula as she ducked under, pirouetting on one foot before continuing her violent charge forward. A graceful movement. Liz wondered if Arula was a dancer. A question she would have to ask if the two could talk after all of this was over. Or, if it ever ended.

“Come on, girl, you can do it!” Baqus lashed the reins. Odette bellowed before continuing her charge. Trees sprung up from the ground like a pop-up book. She darted left and right to avoid them. She pounded the painted pathway with her hooves, struggling to keep pace with the winding road. The shadow puppets threw their arms up in a frenzy as they closed in.

“Alright,” Vlad said, moving toward the back of the wagon.

“Old man, you’re going to hurt yourself. Sit down.”

“Kid, shut up,” Vlad mumbled. “Aria, can you actually hit them, or are you just using them for target practice?”

“I’ll fry your eyebrows off your face if you don’t let me focus.” Aria didn’t look back at Vlad when she spoke. Her open hand grasped at the distorting air. A tiny spark blossomed into a second fireball. Another shot. Another miss. She clicked her tongue.

“What’s wrong, Aria?” The top of the wagon shook. Melania’s voice.

“I’d like to ask you the same thing. No luck cutting the threads?”

Melania shook her head. “They’re tough. If someone had a soulforged armament…”

“What?” Vlad narrowed his eyes.

“Nothing.” Melania continued her sprint, peering back toward the mobile darkness behind them. “If nothing changes, then I’m not sure how we get out of this. The mistswell is way too large.”

“That’s—” Liz opened her mouth.

Then, she stopped.

Paper tore.

The sky ripped open.

“What in the Sea…?” Baqus mumbled as he looked into the sky.

They were greeted by the red of the evening sky. Liz wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It seemed as though they lost most of the day to their struggles. It didn’t feel like much time had passed. An hour or two, maybe, but why was it evening? A better question was why was the sky tearing?

“What’s going on?” Liz turned to Baqus, then to Aria.

“Everyone, look,” Aria said, pointing.

The puppets had stopped their advance.

They hung limp in the air, their arms and legs pointed toward the ground.

“Did Alex find the remnant?” Melania mumbled.

Liz looked at where the tear was. Through the growing seam, she saw a familiar mountain. The path Liz and Alex ventured down with Baqus was right there. “Baqus, go that way! That seam is over the Verconis manor!”

“That it is!” Baqus smiled, looking back toward the stationary puppets. “I’m sorry about this, friends. We’ll get you back to normal soon!”

Baqus lashed the reins forward.

The tear slid slowly down the mountainside.

The winding path that Odette had been forced to follow became more stable the closer they got. Liz held her head high, keeping her eyes on the sky.

“Please be safe, everyone.”

II.

Thaleo stood at the door, arms crossed as the servants tended to their father. Ahmel stood, each arm around Mare and Marna. He had no right to grieve, no right to be here. Their father wasn’t dead, but his life was in danger. Half of the room prayed to Serya, including his own siblings. Their mumbled prayers may find Serya—it was another question if Serya would listen. He gritted his teeth as he pulled away from the open door. He walked away from the corridor and down the wooden hallway, toward the back porch. As he passed the end of the hallway, he turned.

“I wouldn’t go outside if I were you,” Jagna said. She wore the black robes of a servant, with a hat to hide her ears.

“I don’t think a building will stop whatever that is.”

“Seems being in the Upper Ring weakens it. Might be that ‘Serya’s blessing’ you’ve complained about so much.”

Thaleo frowned.

“What? Don’t like being coddled by divinity?”

“Silence.”

“Hey, I’ve done nothing more than what you ordered me to do,” Jagna shrugged. “You wanted remnants, you got three of ’em. You got my buddy Cyrus working overtime.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“No, you did.”

“I did not! I wanted…” Thaleo sighed. “I wanted to scare them, to equip them with the tools to brave the coming storm.”

Jagna snorted, shaking her head. She laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. You’re cute.”

“Cute!?” Thaleo grabbed Jagna’s shoulder and pressed her to the wall. “People have already lost their lives, and you think it’s cute?”

“That right there is what I mean.” Jagna gripped Thaleo’s wrist and pulled him forward. She reversed the hold, pressing him to the wall. “Did you think this was a game? Remnants eat people, you know. It ain’t pretty.”

“I know that, but—”

“If you knew it, why are you regretting it now?” Jagna smiled wide, her fangs glistening under the lantern light. “Did you think the remnant would stop hurting you uplanders the moment you cried ‘mercy’?”

“That’s what the Pathfinders were for!” Thaleo wrenched Jagna’s hand free. “They were there to help, there to protect. I’ve seen firsthand the work they’ve done.”

He had admired their work from afar. People who dedicate themselves to a thankless job. A profession in which many either quit or die young. He thought that if he hired her, the Pathfinder whom he admired, if she came to the Verconis manor, somehow things would be alright. Yet, when he had dealt his hand, he only spelled his own ruin. Nico knew that girl. He wasn’t shocked nor perturbed. That must be the person he was trying to feed. The person he was trying to protect.

It was all over two weeks ago.

“Then you could’ve just brought them up here, couldn’t you?” Jagna’s smile broadened.

“I tried to get approval. I tried to argue that we needed to defend ourselves. That’s why—”

“So, you got approval for the remnants?” Her words lingered in the air.

Thaleo paused. He stared into her eyes for an answer. The faint scars that lined the bottom of her eyes. Tiny cuts that told another story all their own. He shook his head.

“My intent was to prepare Serya for what was to come. I understood full well what I was doing!”

“Do you now?” Jagna caressed Thaleo’s chin with her claw. Its touch was light enough to scratch, but not puncture.

“If you understand, then perhaps you’ll be fine with the consequences.”

Was he convinced that he would get away without repercussions? Thaleo shook his head and clutched his head.

“Can you live with the guilt, Thaleo Verconis?”

Thaleo frowned, turning away from Jagna.

For the first time, he couldn’t answer her question. Instead, he walked forward and peered through the sliding door.

Alex landed on the split cobblestone pathway. Her eyes were toward the splitting sky, sword in hand. The spider remnant struggled from the crevice. It lashed its hands out in a desperate attempt to clamber its way back into the sky. Its threads tore it in too many directions for it to maintain balance. If they were going to strike, it had to be now. In her experience as a Pathfinder, the longer you took to finish a remnant, the worse things became.

“I’m not too late.” Alex walked forward, standing next to the boy called Nico.

Nico gritted his teeth, pulling on the strings to tear the spider remnant from the sky.

“Are you Alexandria?” he asked.

“Alex is fine.”

“It’s an honor to meet you!” Calidum spoke.

“A solchild blade?” Rinzai said, a hand on her hip. “You certainly don’t see those every day.”

Alex looked to the girl who struggled against her own nature. The shaded giant gripped the strings to help Nico. A remnant and another person working side by side. Again, she should be shocked, but the past two days have been filled with all kinds of miracles. She sighed, shaking her head.

“Keep her steady,” Alex said. “I’m going to need some help getting up there. Ezia, Rinzai.”

“Of course,” Ezia nodded. “But what did you have in mind, Lady Alex?”

“Rinzai, throw me as hard as you can.”

“Oh, done,” Rinzai nodded.

“Ezia, speed me up with the current.”

“I can do that, but even with that blade, I’m not sure that you can…”

“Fear not, madam,” Cal said. “I’m a soulforged of the highest quality. We will return to the sun’s shine to Serya’s shores.”

The thread screeched as Nico and the child continued pulling. The transparent arms that extended from Nico’s body began to dim. They really didn’t have much time to deliberate. Alex walked toward Rinzai. Rinzai crouched low, cupping her hands together. Alex placed her foot on the center of Rinzai’s palm. She lined her back up parallel with Nico. The spider remnant was above. Its body desperately grabbed at the canvas world as the Sea’s unseen water continued to flood the mistswell.

“Are you ready?” Rinzai said, a broadening smile on her face.

“Go!”

Rinzai threw her entire weight into the throw. Alex barreled into the sky, Calidum gripped in her right hand. Flames spewed forth from the tip of the sword. Alex breathed deep as she submerged herself into the Sea’s embrace. From her feet to her waist, from her arms to her shoulders, the water flowed forth. The spider approached from the horizon as Alex continued her ascent.

It roared. Threads thickened to vines as they ripped through the air. Spiders crawled along the thickened threads, growing in size. Alex flipped forward, landing one foot on the thread. She stabbed one foot into the threads, then leaped. The air assaulted her body as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Each step put her closer and closer to the spider’s head.

Alex jumped from threaded vine to threaded vine. She avoided the spiders lunging at her head, her shoulders, her waist. She swung Calidum’s flaming blade to bat them away. Two, three more struck. She smacked away four. Up, down, left, right. Calidum struck true each and every time.

Then, another torrent of threads thrust forward from the creature’s maw.

“From the mouth?” Alex’s eyes opened.

Dicing winds ripped forward.

Alex looked left.

Ezia ran up the shrinking thread to her left.

“Keep going!”

“Got it!” Alex yelled as she continued her run.

No, not a run, a series of mad leaps.

Another dash for the face.

There wasn’t much left between the creature’s face and Alex’s blade.

“Cal!”

“Got it!”

In unison, their bodies burst into flame. The golden scars screamed as steam flowed forth, burning the Sea’s vapors. The long, red coat vanished in the plume of consuming fire. Her arms were exposed to the open air.

The spider remnant raised a single leg high, then brought it straight down.

Alex couldn’t dodge it.

She braced herself, getting smacked through the air onto one of the enlarged threads. She slid back, then dashed again. She flipped through the air, landing on another thread. Another leap, another thread. She continued on her mad sprint toward the spider’s open maw.

It raised its leg a second time.

Thunder clapped.

Lightning ripped through the ground and into the spider’s leg.

“What?” Alex looked down.

A wagon rolled against the path.

“Don’t hog it all for yourself!” Aria yelled.

“Aria. Wait, then.”

The air splashed.

A second strike from the leg.

Shadows rose out from under the leg, constricting it. The dog that left to protect Persal had returned. He wasn’t even gone for very long. He bound the leg. The way was open. Cal’s flames roared. Alex raised the sword overhead. As she descended upon its maw, it felt as though time slowed to a crawl.

“My pain will ripple through the Abyss. More will yearn, more will cry, and they will never be sated.”

A voice mired in sorrow and grief.

Alex sighed.

“Maybe, but that won’t stop me. Sorry it had to end this way.”

Cal’s heated blade tore into the spider’s hide.

Alex swung forward.

The sword tore through the spider’s mandible, its head, and its neck. A pillar of light ripped through the heavens. The canvas world had been burned. Calidum’s flames ate at the paper, forcing it to retreat far into the horizon. Alex sighed as she began her fall. She rerouted herself, grasping onto one of the woven thread trunks that the spider remnant had created. Calidum dug into its side as Alex glided down. After a moment, she leaped off. Ezia’s wind blew forward, circling at her feet as she descended. She landed on the ground, shaking her head as she looked back toward the manor.

The fight was over.