LXIV

FEAR IS A LACK OF control, realised.

My father told me that, once. Explained that it is not the absence of control itself, but the understanding of it. The true, stomach-churning grasping of the fact that we have no significant way to affect what comes next in a given situation.

As I retreat, my limbs leaden with exhaustion and lack of hope, my options turn to the desperate. I try rapidly forcing aside the massive stone blocking the exit, to no avail. I try touching the Aurora Columnae again, but nothing happens. I even try hammering at it, quickly finding the metal of my sword does even less damage to the glowing stone than it does to the statues stalking me.

My blade is blunted, now. Still pulsing with Will beneath my grasp as I stumble through the eerily motionless pool. UNWORTHY. I am so tired. Cuts across my torso and arm bleed down onto my hand, drip into the motionless water. I bat away more strikes clumsily, barely staggering away again. UNWORTHY.

And then, as the Will throbs against my hand, I suddenly register that I can feel it.

A force that, if I want to, I can use.

I don’t know what makes me think it’s possible. Some desperate memory pulled from some obscure text I read in the Academy, I suppose. Maybe just instinct. But I focus on the blade. Set it in my memory, using the same technique we were taught to imbue something.

And I take the Will from it.

There’s a hollow, screeching impression of a scream that makes me stagger, slow, almost lose concentration, but then it’s gone and I feel suddenly sharper. Too late, though. Precious seconds of movement lost to mental disarray. The closest statue jabs with its spear and I slide aside, but before I can dive away, its hand is snaking out, clamping on my shoulder with an impossibly crushing grip.

I cry out my pain as it lifts me from the water one-handed. Reach out and fumble against the symbol of its face. There’s Will inside it too, but this time there’s a resistance, whatever I managed to do to with the sword failing. The statue’s other hand reaches for my throat.

Harmonics.

I’ve been practicing the mental forms for it a lot, this past month. A mixture of Pádraig’s exhortations and gut instinct that the nasceann, the connection to their weapons, have something to do with that branch of Will usage. Still, it’s no different to my taking the Will from the blade. Instinct rather than thought, reflex far more than any logic. And once again, I cannot say what drives me to attempt this particular technique as my only, desperate chance, when imbuing something that’s already imbued should be utterly impossible.

But I imagine us both as warriors. Me, and the statue. United by the fight.

Connection.

“STOP!” I scream it desperately, almost weep it. My hand still miraculously against the lines of its face, metal vibrating beneath my palm.

There’s a full second where I’m frozen, expecting cold silver to wrap around my neck; when it doesn’t come, I manage to croak “Let go,” just as the other statue gets in position and pulls back to strike.

I fall to the water as its spear slices the air where I was hanging a moment earlier. Pain arcing through me I manage to roll forward, evading another jab and slapping my hand against the first, still motionless, statue’s leg. Hope firing in my chest. “Protect me.”

It moves.

The unaffected statue—the one with its head still completely intact—tries to skirt it to stab again, but the one I commanded attacks, swift and violent. It doesn’t bother with its spear, bodily slamming into its counterpart and wrestling it into the water. Metal screeches and the unnatural liquid sprays, though still refuses to ripple. Silver hands scratch and punch and claw. I scramble to my feet and away to the safety of the columns, shaking.

The one following my order seems to swiftly get the upper hand, straddling its twin and grasping the silver knot of its head.

With a wrenching twist, it tears the symbol clean off.

The pulse of Will from the beheaded statue vanishes. The silver body in the water lies still, and the one on top of it stops moving too.

I watch for an eternity. Still slowly backing away, past the black statues until I am in shadow up against the slick wall. But nothing more happens. The two masses of silver are as motionless now as when I first arrived.

I slide to a seated position and, hiding from the virulent, unceasing glow of the Aurora Columnae, weep my relief.

I DON’T ALLOW MYSELF LONG to recover, nor consider the impossibility of whatever it was I just did. Not because I don’t need to, but because I know that outside, the moon is travelling across the night sky, and I am still very much trapped in here.

I examine the stone covering the exit, first. Hoping for some hint of how it might open again. But it’s smooth, Will-cut like the rest of the structure. I can’t even get a fingernail beneath it to try and pry it upward.

It still takes some resolve, after that, to approach the motionless silver statue again. But there are no options and no time so I do, ready to spring back at any sign of danger. Tentatively crouch behind it. Place my hand on its shoulder. I feel it in my mind. A true extension of myself. I cannot comprehend how fortunate it was that the bizarre Harmonic connection I chose to try for the first time, in the heat of the moment, worked. Nor, in fact, how I was even able to get the Will to create it.

That’s a puzzle for later, though.

“Get me out of here.”

I flinch back as the statue stands, then moves calmly to the entrance. It presses its engraved silver palm against the surface blocking my path.

With a shudder, the stone rises.

I resist the urge to sprint and leave all of this far behind. That sharp sense of Will has faded a little since I touched the Aurora Columnae, but I can still feel more pulses out there. A lot more. I step out and creep along the short passageway. Inch to the edge of the exit, still curtained by thin dribbles of water, and peer into the moonlit streets of Fornax.

I was half expecting what I see. My heart sinks anyway.

The black, polished statues that knelt along the way have risen to their feet. Hundreds upon hundreds of them clog the streets, completely motionless but all facing the archway where I’m concealed. Pulsing with Will, just like the one inside.

I watch for a few minutes but there’s no movement, no change.

Heart in mouth, I take a single step out onto the street.

Motion, sharp and violent. A thunderous clacking as the horde of dark statues burst at me with terrifying synchronised intent; I shout and leap back, about to flee, but as soon as I’m beneath the archway again the things stop. Shocking in their abrupt freezing, snapping back into the same ready pose they were in before.

Just… closer now.

“Not this way, then,” I eventually mutter shakily to myself as I retreat to the pool.

I sit with my feet in the water for a while, staring at the faint shimmering of the scattered, submersed weapons that lie throughout the atrium. Even if I took Will from each one of them—and I’m not sure I could, given the mental effort required to keep all of them locked in my mind—it would be impossible for me to imbue more than a few of the statues outside, the way I did the one in here. Not nearly enough to fight my way through.

I hesitate, then stand. Walk farther into the pool and scoop up the first weapon I see. A knife.

UNWORTHY.

“Rotting… gods-damned vek.” I drop it again into the soulless water, gaining instant relief from the staining discomfort the impression brings. This test has almost certainly gone wrong: I’ve assumed as much ever since the panicked voice screamed “synchronous,” and I very much doubt that whatever I did to command the statue was an intended part of the trial.

“Don’t suppose you could tell me what to do next?” I ask the symbol-covered silver figure that still stands motionless by the entrance. There’s no answer, as expected, but my weary smile slips as I consider. The worthy or the riven. The first is clearly not happening. The second… gods. I have no idea. But what it does suggest is that the druids’ task is different: If nothing else, there are no staves lying around in this pool to administer the same sort of test.

So perhaps what I managed to do to this sentinel, is at least an approximation of what they are meant to do?

I haul myself to my feet and grasp its shoulder. “Get me past the black statues outside. Alive,” I add, as a hurried afterthought.

There’s a long moment where nothing happens, and my heart begins to sink.

Then the silver form grips my arm, and starts to drag me toward the entrance.

“Ow. Vek. Wait!” I wrest myself free again. Shake my arm, glare irritably at the frozen-again statue, and think. Tara’s comment to me as we parted makes more sense now; I suppose that by using the nasceann before coming here, my spear has already implied that I am “worthy.” So I could surely use it in battle, rather than one from here. Still. I need something to prove to Lir—truthfully or not—that I went through this gods-damned test. “Just… wait.”

I spend the next ten minutes picking up every sword, knife, and spear in the pool. Some are beautiful weapons, the nine symbols on them gilded and masterfully crafted. Others are roughly made, entirely unremarkable except for their inscribed patterns.

No matter their appearance, though, every single one shivers a sickening UNWORTHY through me, again and again, until I drop it. Without fear for my life coursing through me, I’m barely able to withstand the nauseating wave of sensation that accompanies it.

Eventually, I return to the silver statue. Stand, and peer out over the pool grimly. I just don’t know. Perhaps if this test had gone the way it should, I’d at least have a better understanding of what I need to show on the other side of it.

“Rotting…” I put my hand on the statue’s shoulder once more. “Bring me something I can use to prove to a draoi that I passed this gods-damned test.”

The silver form doesn’t move for a second, and I sigh, assuming it’s not going to work.

Then it turns. Strides through the pool and over to the body of its fallen counterpart. Reaches down and with a series of sharp, twisting motions, wrenches the body’s left arm from its shoulder joint.

I watch the violence with vaguely disturbed horror, even if it’s not against flesh. The statue returns and thrusts the arm at me, an almost angry motion.

“No need to be petulant.” I take it. It’s hollow, though the silver is still thick enough that it’s almost too heavy to hold one-handed.

“Alright. This will work,” I eventually mutter, understanding even as I struggle with its weight. There’s no way I can secure it to the stump on my arm, but it doesn’t matter. The symbol alone will be enough.

I stare at the statue. Motionless again in front of me, but this… this choice was a reaction. Based on situational awareness. Based on me.

I put my hand on its shoulder once again. “Are you able to communicate?”

No answer.

I hold my breath until I’m certain nothing is forthcoming, then let it out with a sigh. Above, the moon has started heading for the horizon. “Probably for the best; I get the impression you don’t like me much. Get me safely out of Fornax.”

The statue moves and before I can resist, wraps impossibly strong fingers around my waist, painfully tight. I shout in alarm, drop the silver arm and try to twist away, but it’s hoisting me, throwing me unceremoniously over its broad shoulder and pinning me there with one hand. Then, as I snarl against the uninvited abuse, it crouches and picks up the arm.

Leaves the massive atrium, and the golden glow of the Aurora Columnae, behind us.

I recover my senses enough to put my hand against its silver flesh. “If it’s… safe for me to… just walk… then let me down… you ass,” I gasp as the air is jostled from my lungs.

The statue keeps on moving.

“Rotting… gods-damned… vek.” I force myself to stop fighting the thing’s grip, and do my best to position myself more comfortably. The statue is moving at the same deliberate pace it adopted when chasing me. We have two or three miles to travel to get to the other side of the lake. Probably an hour of this, at minimum.

I grit my teeth, and try to ignore the powerlessness of the situation. If this is what it takes, then this is what it takes.

I’m carted in undignified fashion out through the short, dark passageway. Can’t help but tense, heart pounding, ears straining, as the dribbling water runs over me and then the outer archway is in my sight behind us.

Cold, thunderous clacking of stone against stone again, and my breath shortens to panic.

I twist around as best I can, trying to see what I’m imagining in my head as every muscle waits for the attack. There are dark shapes from the corner of my eye. Moving, but—I realise after a rattled few seconds—not madly rushing like they did when I came out here alone.

Finally, some of them come into view. They’re crowding around us but pausing a few feet away, as if at an invisible barrier. Not reaching out, even if menace rolls off the inscribed obsidian discs that comprise their faces. Each one is turned toward us. Toward me. And every step the form carrying me makes, every single obsidian statue takes a corresponding one.

They’re coming from everywhere. More. More. Flowing around us, barely any space between them. All pulsing in my mind. The silver statue walks on, a bright island through a sea of black. They follow in a rippling, dark wave. Clogging the street, now. Still only a few feet between me and the nearest of them. Never any closer. Never any farther. Only the thundering clattering of their polished feet against damp stone to accompany us.

“Um,” I whisper shakily. “Could we go a little faster?”

We do not.

We move on, shadowed by our eerie, massive coterie. Me barely able to breathe from both position and dread. Willing the body beneath me to increase its pace. There’s a faint light in the sky to the east. Getting rapidly stronger. I don’t have long, but I think we can make it.

We walk the slick streets for twenty minutes. Forty. My muscles ache from trying not to move, from the constant tension and terror. The glow on the horizon is too bright. The clicking roar of a thousand feet stamping in time to keep up, never breaking position, never getting too close or too far.

Then, finally—abruptly—we stop.

I have time only to register the sudden lack of motion before silver hands are hauling me upward and then tossing me bodily forward. I shout and twist awkwardly in mid-air, manage to land on my side and roll to lessen the impact. Scramble to my feet and then backward, hand out defensively, expecting a flood of obsidian to be rushing at me.

Instead, I am met with a sea of silent, motionless black forms on either side of the silver one. They are arrayed in a perfect, invisible line that extends between the edges of the two last buildings on either side of the street, and I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to find only cobbled stone and an archway, identical to the one through which I entered the city, ahead. The shore of the lake past it is tinted a rapidly lightening blue-green as it reflects thickly forested hills beyond. A lone, white-cloaked figure waits beneath the trees.

We’ve reached the outermost edge of Fornax.

The silver sentinel suddenly moves again. Tosses its counterpart’s arm after me with a disdainful, almost peevish motion. It makes a hollow ringing as it clangs and clatters and rolls to a stop next to me.

“A pleasure spending time with you, too,” I mutter acerbically. Cautiously pick it up, struggling again with its immense weight. Never taking my eyes from the massive crowd of watching, pulsing statues only a few feet away.

The first rays of sunlight hit the buildings behind me, and the ground trembles.

Vek.

I run.

Nothing chases, no terrifying clatter of feet in pursuit as I struggle with freezing, stiff limbs and the burden of my trophy. The water over the steps ahead, leading down from Fornax, has started to froth. The stone begins to sink.

Then I’m stumbling through the archway, leaping wildly. My feet hit the sludge of the lake’s floor. I splash madly toward the shore, ignoring the renewed shock of the icy water.

Lir is waiting. The white-robed druid looks horrified as he watches, his gaze fixed behind me. I don’t dare turn until I’ve reached the safety of the small beach; when I do I see the city has already sunk several feet, the heads of the statues that followed me just now level with the surface. They are still gathered, crowded at the city’s edge. Motionless. No struggle as they slip beneath the waves.

I collapse onto the shale. Breathing heavily.

“Deaglán.” Lir’s voice shakes. Something is wrong—anger or fear, and either way not a good sign—but he is following the forms. “What favour have the gods shown you in Fornax?”

With an exhausted motion, I slap the silver arm down in front of the dismayed druid.

“A great gift.” The heavily engraved limb lies there, palm upward, the three interlocked whorls of Fornax visible on it. Lir pales as he stares, transfixed. The dawn casts his haggard features in sharp relief.

I take in his expression. Unease suddenly overcoming relief.

“A great gift indeed.” The deep, amused voice from behind him sends my bare hands twitching for a weapon I no longer have. A hulking shape emerges from the trees. Then three more behind it, cutting off any thought of flight. “Surely the gods have favoured you.”

There’s motion, the tossing of something toward me. Several pieces of wood, rent and splintered and hacked and charred, scatter in front of me. I stare, confused, until I gradually spot familiarity in the symbol-covered remains.

My heart drops. No pulse coming from any of the pieces, but I know straight away that I am looking at the shattered remnants of my spear.

The largest of the shadows steps forward out of the forest and into the dawn.

“Good to see you again, Leathfhear,” says Gallchobhar.