Page 50

Chapter 50

Chaos and Order

During the seven years I spent selling my services as a mage-for-hire I’d fought in plenty of wars. Some of those armed conflicts were big, most were small, and all of them involved a fair amount of chaos. In fact, you could boil down pretty much all military strategy to the precise calibration of order among your troops and chaos in your enemy’s. In all those years and battles, I had never witnessed chaos of the kind unfolding on that unremarkable field outside the ruins of a fortress whose name I doubt anyone fighting that day had even bothered to learn.

Even before Hamun’s fateful words to the mother he’d just touched for the first time in either of their lives, the scene had been something of a shitshow.

‘The Celestines are trying to rally their troops,’ Alice warned, peering at the Auroral army some two hundred yards away. She really does have remarkable vision, even for a demoniac.

‘Which ones?’ I asked.

The vertical slits of her eyes narrowed even further. ‘There appear to be three left alive. The Celestine in command is the one with whom you claim to have fornicated.’

Like that’s something I’d brag about. Still, if the Celestine of Rationality came out on top, that might be good news for us.

‘What about the Devilish?’

‘Dead.’

‘All of them?’

‘Their corpses are being dismembered and eaten as we speak.’ She didn’t sound too broken up about that. ‘Most of their surviving forces have sided with Tenebris and his cabal. All diabolics, naturally.’

Well, they are the best schemers in the Infernal realm , I thought, though I had more pressing matters to contend with than what the new Infernal Hierarchy would look like. I felt like someone had pulverised every bone and sinew in my body to a fine paste, then sculpted it back into a semblance of me, only to have forgotten to let the clay set properly. Shame was barely able to stand and Galass had collapsed into the arm of Aradeus, who was still somehow managing to keep wielding his rapier to fend off some over-eager Demoniac Hellions. Corrigan’s Tempestoral bolts were getting feebler, while a squad of Angelic Valiants and Glorian Ardentors was growing bigger as more of them were deciding killing us was the best opportunity to gain favour with the Auroral Sovereign– who still was only a bullshit story the Celestines invented to keep everyone in line.

I hadn’t seen Temper get struck by any weapon or spell, but the kangaroo looked as if he wasn’t long for this life. He was moving weakly, stumbling over his own feet, still trying to guzzle blood from every single body he could find. Perhaps he thought the blood would cure him of whatever sickness had likely been killing him ever since I’d brought him to this realm.

Sorry, buddy. I should’ve cast that Pandoral spell on some unwilling bat rather than seeking out a willing spirit. I guess your species just aren’t that bright.

Meanwhile, on the patch of dusty field where I was trying to keep myself from vomiting for fear my still-unstable internal organs would come out my mouth, things were getting tense.

‘You know what will happen to him,’ said Fidick. Eleven-year-old kids really shouldn’t be able to sound so ominous, but I could see his words were having an effect on Eliva’ren. ‘Look around you, Jan’Tep. This entire plane of existence is doomed. It was poorly made, the walls between it and other realms too frail.’ He pointed to me. ‘The very phenomenon that allows wonderists to garner spells from those other planes of reality has brought this one to the brink of collapse. You think the Aurorals and Infernals are the only ones seeking to dominate this realm, to harvest the ecclesiasm of sentience so abundant and so wasted on the conscious beings who infest it? You will raise your child in a place where war is never-ending, because consciousness engenders separateness, and from that separation comes conflict. You will die, leaving your son to suffer for your mistake.’

There really wasn’t much fault I could find in Fidick’s argument. Despite everything I’d gone through to try and prevent an eternal war between the Celestines and Aurorals, all I’d really accomplished was to make it easier for Tenebris and his merry band of plotters to replace them. Would the new lords send countless generations of human beings to war against one another like an endless line of toy soldiers? Maybe not; I recalled what he’d said about winning the battle for souls through seduction and sensation rather than combat. Perhaps the entire world would be split down the middle, with brothels and paella restaurants on one side and pristine marble cathedrals on the other. Either way, people like us, wonderists who had just enough power to defy both sides, would become nothing more than targets to be eliminated so we couldn’t interfere in the future.

‘There’s still time,’ Fidick continued, his youthful voice growing more confident as he sensed Eliva’ren wavering. ‘Bring forth the doom of the other wonderists and I will refocus the gate within Cade to lead back to your world, your people, your family.’ He shot me an impressively innocent smile. ‘Alas, with the angelic dead, we’ll have to crack open his chest cavity to make room for you both to pass through, but no one said going home was going to be easy.’

I really wanted to punch that little prick in the face again, just once, but I was so weak it would only have embarrassed us both.

‘Mamma, please,’ Hamun repeated, tugging at his mother’s hand. ‘It doesn’t have to be like he says. We can help make things better here.’

Shouldn’t have added that last part, kid , I thought. Your mamma’s seen too much of this world to believe that.

Still Eliva’ren hesitated. She was watching me now, searching for some sign that maybe her son was right. I could have lied to her– hells, I pretty much had a sacred duty to do so, all things considered.

For once, my talent for deception eluded me. ‘It’s an awful place,’ I said. ‘I’ve travelled the length and breadth of this continent and two others, and everywhere I go, the powerful few find ways to oppress the many. Maybe on your world there are spiritual forces that reward decency and kindness and punish venality and cruelty. Not here, though. Whatever magic comes into this realm is wielded by guys like me– worse than me, for the most part.’

Corrigan fell back, a nasty gash glowing gold on his left shoulder where an angelic’s halberd had sliced him. ‘I really think you should leave the speeches to me from now on.’

‘Now,’ Fidick told Eliva’ren, a command, not an appeal. ‘Cade’s little crew are failing already. The angelic is too weak to fight, the blood mage can’t stand on her own. Their Tempestoralist can no longer summon so much as a spark. Their demoniac and totemist are reduced to fighting off their opponents with swords. The other creature — ’ He made a sour face as he glanced at Temper, who was panting and swaying on his feet, no longer able to bend down even to lap the blood from an open wound. He was struggling to breathe, even as he growled his only word over and over again– and perhaps it really was the most apt word for this screwed-up existence in which he’d found himself.

‘Their doom is already unfolding, Eliva’ren,’ Fidick went on. ‘Your choice is merely to quicken it– wait too long and you will lose your chance to get home with your son.’

‘Cade. . .’ Her voice was gravelly, as if misery had become stones and broken teeth in her mouth. ‘I’m sorry.’

The field around us began to change, grass and weeds withering away. Shadows appeared on the ground in the shapes of the six people– well, five and one kangaroo– I loved more than I’d ever thought possible. The shadow beneath my own feet wasn’t even human-shaped. I guessed it was going to be a bad death for me.

I forced a smile to my lips, which only made me more nauseous. I decided that Corrigan had been right, that if this was the end of my existence, I was going out with a better speech. ‘Hey, it’s okay. I got to live longer than I had any right to. I’ve cast spells from three different planes of existence– three different forms of magic– and witnessed wonders most people can only dream of. I got to fight alongside the best and most ridiculously screwed-up band of mages this world has and will ever see. And I got to make love with the most remarkable person on this plane of reality or any other. . .’

‘Cade,’ she repeated, a lament this time for all the potentialities collapsing between us.

‘. . . the Celestine of Rationality,’ I finished. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, you were great. That thing with the one leg up in the air and — But I guess I shouldn’t get into that with children present.’

Of all the inappropriate jokes I’ve told in my life, and there have been a great many of them, I really thought this one had landed flatter than any other. All of them were staring at me– Eliva’ren, Fidick, Galass, Shame, Aradeus. . . Even Corrigan looked mildly horrified, and he was bleeding out from a golden wound on his shoulder.

Then an odd kind of miracle happened.

‘Motherfucker,’ Temper said.

As that was the only word he knew, I couldn’t be sure he meant it the way it had come out, but the best jokes are those you don’t see coming.

Eliva’ren’s first laugh came out as a perfunctory chuckle, as if she felt politeness demanded recognition of the irreverent way we were facing our doom. Then that laughter became genuine, and because it turns out that jokes are their own kind of spell, with a power to heal, to change and to make us reconsider our fates that may well be limitless, inevitability began to collapse under its own weight, certainty cracked at the seams, the cold grey stone fragmented into probabilities which shed the dust and mortar to float above us as those most beautiful of living things, possibilities.

‘No!’ Fidick screamed, petulant in his outrage. To be fair, he was only eleven, and he’d experienced a lot of trauma in his young life. Also, he was evil to his rotten fucking core. ‘Kill them!’ he shouted to the Aurorals and Infernals now encircling us. ‘ Kill them all! ’

I’m not sure why the angelics and demoniacs appeared willing to follow the orders of a little boy, however beautiful– I suppose he was part of Tenebris’ cabal, so maybe they figured he was destined for big things.

Too bad destiny doesn’t always work out like you hope.

Shame overcame her exhaustion from maintaining my body’s cohesion long enough to grab Fidick by his pretty face and quickly mangle it. Alice shouted something in her own language. I didn’t recognise it, but presumably it meant, ‘Hey, you promised I could cut off his feet first!’ I’m fairly confident in my translation because even as Shame was holding Fidick up by his mutilated face, Alice had whipped out her sword and sliced him off at the ankles. Fidick screamed, but it wasn’t especially loud since he no longer had a mouth.

Not content with that, she began to —

You know what? Given our recent conversion to gallant heroism, maybe I shouldn’t describe the death and dismemberment of a beautiful young boy. Suffice it to say, he deserved it, and it went on for a while.

You never want to believe that brutal murder can be a balm for the soul, but I swear, when it was done, I saw something deep inside Shame unclench. It was as if Fidick had kept her in a binding spell all this time, and only now was she free of him– and free to perceive humanity as something more than unconscionably cruel. Aradeus took the despicable little prick’s remains from her and, with remarkable gentleness, set the pieces down in a dip in the field as if he intended to bury him, should we survive the next few minutes. I would have expected Shame to rage at this act of undeserved compassion for so foul an enemy as Fidick had proven himself. Instead, the former Angelic Emissary looked with curiosity at Aradeus, as if he were a puzzle that she was only just beginning to solve. I think that might be what it looks like when a person is starting to realise they’re in love.

Alas, the numbers of Aurorals and Infernals who’d decided to focus all their attention on killing us had swelled to more than a hundred. Eliva’ren shoved Hamun behind her even as she began unleashing her destiny-summoning abilities on a massive scale. The grass that had been dead only seconds ago was coming back to life, while behind us, the ruined fortress reassembled itself into what I suspect might have become a rather lovely palace had not one of the Valiants got in a lucky shot with a golden arrow.

Eliva’ren screamed. Her son screamed louder.

That had always been the problem with her abilities: although she was unimaginably powerful, her powers were still contained within a human body with all its innate frailties. She’d always been clever about when and how to show herself, always preparing in advance to ensure she couldn’t be taken unawares. She’d never before exposed herself to this many opponents.

‘No!’ I shouted, fighting against my own weakness to draw on my Pandoral attunement. It was too late, though. If that chaotic realm still existed, it was completely cut off from this one. I was, for the first time since I was a teenager, just a regular human being without any magic at all.

Eliva’ren fell to her knees and Hamun, brave boy, tried to shield her with his own body. You’d think the gods-damned Angelic Valiants would’ve been moved by such righteous bravery in a child, but they just kept coming, content to murder innocents alongside the same Infernals they’d come to this plane of reality to exterminate.

Corrigan did his best, managing a trickle of Tempestoral magic that was just about enough to give the same Valiant who’d shot Eliva’ren a nasty burn on his cheek. Alice and Aradeus were both caught in Infernal man-catchers, the long poles with spiked levers that wrap around the victim’s neck, digging into their throats the more they try to resist. Shame was unconscious, having wasted the last of her strength on me. Well, also on murdering Fidick, but you can’t blame her for that. Galass, usually loath to unleash her blood magic on living beings, was so weakened by helping Shame to keep me alive that she barely managed to bring a pink blush to the cheeks of the enemies she was trying to exsanguinate.

‘Sorry, buddy,’ Tenebris said, approaching the ring of soldiers surrounding us. ‘I would’ve tried to warn you off, but you never did listen to reason. . . Or Rationality.’

Void take me, how many deaths will I need to suffer to live that one down? The answer turned out to be at least one more.

Tenebris was accompanied by his two fellow diabolics, a pair of Glorians who I guessed were also part of his cabal, and a brand new convert to his cause.

‘Oh, he listens once in a while,’ said the Celestine of Rationality in a rather naughty tone of voice. I suppose with both the Celestines of Chastity and Humility dead, she could afford to be a little risqué. ‘But he never did learn to heed what he hears.’

I saw something then, just a strange jerking motion in the corner of my eye. I knew it might be nothing, but some small part of me, the part that trusts in the perversity of the universe and the unexpected redeeming power of unusual friendships, decided to go out believing that I was due for a second miracle.

‘What did you say?’ the Celestine asked, stepping through the soldiers, both Auroral and Infernal, who made way for her. ‘Come, Cade. There’s something tragically disappointing in the only Mortal I’ve ever taken to my bed making his last words a vulgar insult.’

‘Just one word,’ I corrected her, then I looked to Corrigan, who was only barely conscious, but not even impending death could keep the grin from his face as we said together, louder and prouder than any battle cry, ‘Motherfucker!’

And because the universe is just as perfectly perverse and wondrously insane as I’ve always believed, that’s when the kangaroo exploded.