Chapters 29-End

Twenty-ninth

  

Elizabeth fell out of the dumbwaiter into the secret passage in Adri and Walton’s apartment...now, just Adri’s. She wondered if the woman knew yet that she had been widowed.

The apartment was deserted. The stark silence of the rooms was filled only with the ticking of clocks. This place remained a haven within the chaos of the city. Surely there weren’t many such enclaves that endured untouched by the violence that had destroyed so much of Aldergate.

She paused in the privy and took stock of herself in the mirror. Her hair was tangled and matted with blood, a souvenir from the head-blow that landed her in prison. She would have thought a fall into an underground lake would have been more cleansing, but it was a poor substitute for actual intentional scrubbing. Her cheeks were dusty and smudged with dirt, and a large purple bruise spread beneath the dirty veneer. She thought about washing but decided against it; if she was to move through the city, she would blend in far more effectively looking like someone who had lost everything. Which was not far from the truth.

Adri, Hachi, Quill, and Shrike were still alive, as far as she knew. The Queen as well, though given her association with the traitor Lang, Elizabeth was not eager to meet up with that particular insect. There were other leaders within the revolution, others she had met and had a nodding familiarity with, but of those she was close to, the list of survivors was short.

The kitchen pantry was stocked with food, and she ate with abandon, so quickly that she felt ill afterward. The only other sustenance she had consumed in the past day or two was the dried fruit she had found in the tunnels, and her stomach had forgotten what to do with so many calories at once. There was water in a basin, which she lapped up from cupped hands.

She swept through the apartment, looking for anything that might prove useful. She still had a dagger in her pocket and a short-sword within a scabbard, both salvaged from the guards killed by Graves. In a closet near the front door were a pair of boots that fit well once she laced them up tightly. A brown cloak hung above them, shabby and out of place among the more fashionable coverings; she took this to replace the one she had stolen earlier.

Within the same alcove, she also found a rope, strong and coiled, and she slung this across her torso before donning the cloak. She had hoped to find some clue as to Adri’s whereabouts, but of course leaving such information about would be foolish.

The light of midmorning streamed in through the curtains. Elizabeth had to reorient herself; the hours spent in the prison cell and then in the underground had scrambled her sense of time. While night would provide more cover for movement through the city, she didn’t know if the curfew would be in effect throughout all of Aldergate. Likewise, she didn’t know if the Guards controlled the city entire or just certain portions. She wished she'd had time to get more information from Graves before leaving the tunnels.

Just traveling to the prison would take the better part of three hours. More if she had to skulk around checkpoints. She would have preferred to do the majority of her traveling underground, but that way was closed now. But if there was a chance she could stop her friends from risking their lives in a prison break, she would be willing to walk through fire.

The road outside the building was quiet, but as she began to walk, she could hear the distant sounds of battle echoing from neighboring streets, from the direction she had planned to go to get to the prison. She kept her hands inside the cloak, her head down, and pushed farther into the city.

There had to be dozens of ways to get to the prison-building, and the guardsmen couldn't be monitoring them all. But every street she explored was blocked. Several times she had to run, spurned on by the yells of black-clad officers; luckily, most gave no more than token pursuit.

Dodging a particularly attentive guard, she ducked into an alley and emerged in a plaza deep in the chaos of combat, with soldiers locked hand-to-hand with plain-clothed citizens. The insurgents wore mismatched armor, some of it pillaged from the Guards themselves so that flashes of the gleaming black shone from both sides of the battle. 

Silas’s men held the advantage: guards yielding bows stood atop the buildings and within their windows, picking off revolutionaries with eerie precision. She watched as two men were cut down, one right after the other, their chests sprouting feathers as the arrows found their marks. The city’s men were armed only with knives and swords, and save for hiding under their shields, they had no way to counteract the death raining from above.

None of the guard had noticed her yet, and Elizabeth hoped they had more pressing business than to attack an apparently unarmed girl. She should able to sneak through and be on her way, if she was stealthy enough.

...But she couldn't leave these men to certain death, not without doing something to tip the balance their way.
One of the buildings’ front doors was propped open, an unguarded staircase visible within. A heartbeat later, she had sprinted into it, ascending the stairs two at a time. 
The building stood three stories high, with black-clad men visible on each of the floors, as well as a lone soldier on the rooftop. Four archers in this building. A similar number in another one diagonal to it.

A lone bowman was on the second floor, leaning out a window, choosing his target. The door to the room wasn't even closed. Her dagger was through his throat before he could cry out.

Elizabeth concealed his corpse behind some stray furniture, confiscating his bow and quiver. Archery had been one of the skills Graves had taught her, and though she was far from a crack shot--Quill and Hachi were both leagues ahead of her in skill--she might still do some damage.

She found no other guards on this floor of the building, but there was one on the floor above, and the one above that. Both fell as quietly as the first had. She disabled their weapons and added their arrows to her growing collection. 

The trap door to the rooftop was open, a ladder already propped up to allow access. Elizabeth stealthily scaled the rungs and popped her head through the hole, fearing the archer may have already realized what had happened to the soldiers on the lower floors. But, like his compatriots, the man was focused intently on the crowd below, his arrow already nocked. She watched him loose it, heard him utter a quiet noise of satisfaction, and gather his next shot without letting his eyes stray from the battle scene. She crept close, reached around him, and plunged her dagger into his chest, smothering his death-cries with her palm. She eased his body down to the flat rooftop, his dead eyes reflecting the sky above.

Gripping the top rung of the ladder, she pulled it up onto the roof, closed the trap door, and laid the bulk of the ladder over it. It would not be long before the Guards realized what had happened and sent men up to get her. Hopefully this would slow them enough to allow her to finish what she had come to do.

Elizabeth gazed out at the building neighboring this one. The gulf between the two structures was too far to leap, even with a running start. But it would be an easy shot to hit the soldier who stood atop it. Like the other archers she had encountered, he remained too engrossed in his own task to realize the danger. She landed an arrow in his neck on the first try. His body fell forward and plummeted to the ground, and soldiers on both sides stopped to look as he crashed onto the flagstones.

Flying arrows filled the air around Elizabeth. The other archers could take cover behind the walls or move from window to window; she was exposed. Time to get off this roof.

But as she moved the ladder from the trapdoor, voices echoed up from below. She loaded an arrow while hooking one foot in the pull-ring set into the door and, with one fluid motion, kicked it open and shot an arrow down through the opening, catching one upward-looking guard in the face before letting the door crash back down.

That might buy her some time; they would not be so fast to try to come through the ceiling. But she was trapped and had no escape plan. And all the men had to do was wait.

Unless the insurgents on the street below could win the battle, and then be convinced to storm a building full of guards to free her. But would they do such a thing? It was ridiculous, to risk so many to save one person. She certainly would not advise it, if she were the commander on the ground.

It was then that she remembered the rope coiled around her chest. She could scale down the walls and sneak through a window, circumventing the guards on the top floor. Or, if she could get to a lower floor, she might be able to jump. She secured one end of the rope in a tight knot, slung the bow over one shoulder, and began lowering herself down the back of the building, away from the fighting. She was just as exposed on this side, but there were no soldiers on the street below. If luck were with her, she would only be out in the open for a few moments.

But just as she started to climb down, excited cries filled the streets. In her peripheral vision, she saw a dark shadow cross the sky. This was followed by another, then what she could only describe as a squadron of shapes, a formation of dark blobs moving across the cloud cover.

The shadows grew in size as they descended. Elizabeth first thought was that they were airplanes coming to strafe the city. Had Silas found a way to introduce the weapons of Central into this battle? If so, they were doomed.

But they weren’t machines. As more of their physical details came into focus, she could see that they were birds. Birds whose silhouettes continued to grow until it was clear that they were far larger than any birds in Central, larger than any birds that had ever existed outside of stories.

She climbed back to the roof, watching in horror as the flock descended on the plaza, talons outstretched, black beaks open with raucous cries. Their claws were sheathed in sharpened metal, the design reminding her of her own hand. And, just like her own hand, these could rend flesh. She saw revolutionaries cut nearly in half by the swooping birds, saw men picked up and lifted only to be dropped onto the stones below, their skulls cracking open as they landed.

The battle was over, leaving in its place a mass of panicked, fleeing humanity. Some tried to run for safety into the buildings; they were cut down by guards who had gotten there first. Some successfully escaped into alleys or other tight spaces that prevented the birds from approaching. A few stood their ground, slashing at the raptors with their swords, equal parts bravado and foolishness. They did not last long.

The birds returned to the sky, the flapping of their wings forcing a wind across the plaza, pushing her hair back from her forehead. They rose to the sky, ascending as a group. But then, with a sudden jerk of motion, one broke out of formation, and--Oh no, she thought, Oh no no no no. It was bearing down on her. A cry like the opening of a rusty drawbridge filled the air.

She ran to the edge of the rooftop and began rappelling down the rope, first hand-over-hand, then sliding until her skin stung from friction. The first window she encountered was shut and locked. She kicked at it as hard as she could, but the glass refused to give. She pushed with her legs and jumped off the wall, trying to gain some momentum for another kick, but then the giant beast was upon her, its talons gripping her body, pinning her arms to her sides with its scaly grasp. Its mighty wings beat once, then twice. Her grip on the rope failed, and she was pulled into the air.

Wind rushed against her face. The buildings of Aldergate grew smaller as they climbed upwards. Elizabeth started to panic as she remembered the crumpled bodies striking the ground, lives snuffed out after a moment spent as missiles. 

But the bird’s grip stayed tight. She opened her eyes to examine the beast holding her. Its body was the size of a horse, but its wings were much more massive: from her perspective, their outline blotted out the sky. The beast tilted as it curved to the west, and she saw that it was a raven, or a crow. It bent its neck to look at her, a cruel intelligence shining in the blackness of its eyes.

She thought about cutting it, slicing at the scaly covering of its talons. Though she couldn’t reach her dagger or sword, or the bow hung on her back, she could slip her hand between the creature’s rough toes, and stab deeply enough to loosen its grip. But then she would plummet to her death, and leave this world nothing more than a stain on the distant landscape.

The city below was locked in battle. From this vantage, she saw several skirmishes in various neighborhoods; from this high up, they looked like swarming ants. The outer ring of the city held several collapsed buildings, and she wondered what side had a weapon that would do such a thing, and to what purpose. A fire raged in a building in the waterfront, black smoke painting the air in a wide swath.

She cast her eyes out over the harbor: no warships, and none on the horizon. At the back of the city, large encampments of black military tents covered the fields. The glowing fires of makeshift forges dotted the landscape around them.

But then she saw something that gave her a bit of hope. Long lines of black-suited figures were streaming out of the city into the outskirts: the bulk of the force was leaving the city. Were they retreating, or merely regrouping? Or, she shuddered, were they leaving because Silas had something more sinister planned for the denizens of Aldergate? Some horrible creature that made these birds appear tame by comparison?

The bird continued to ascend. They flew into the thick of a cloud, the mist temporarily robbing her of her sight. She started to shiver; it was frigid this high in the atmosphere. Water droplets coated her forehead and ran into her eyes, forcing her to squint; she didn’t feel safe closing them completely, as though the bird was waiting for her concentration to falter so it could let her fall.

A neighboring bird cawed a thunderous cry; she startled, unaware that they had returned to formation. An answering chorus echoed from unseen members of the group, filling the air with atonal cacophony. She could see their dark shadows slipping through the mist on either side of her.

Her stomach flipped as the beast began its descent. As they surfaced from the cloud, she was surprised to see the ground was so close and realized they must be in the mountains that ringed Aldergate, about to land on one of the peaks she had so often seen in the distance.

But this shock was nothing compared to the revelation of a moment later, when she saw that she was not the lone human in this flock. For just ahead of her there was a bird whose claws held a man-shaped shadow. The grip it used was different, as the figure was wearing a sort of harness that looped around the raven’s talons, then wrapped around the man’s torso, leaving his hands free. Even with her eyelids pressed close together, she could see that one hand held a sword with a deep black blade, one that glowed with a sort of grey-black fire.

As they neared the mountaintop, the birds’ flight targeted a plateau with several scattered figures standing on top, the shapes of their bodies concealed within blood-red cloaks. The beast in front of her skimmed the ground, then extended its claws, releasing its rider. The man rolled in a somersault, vaulting onto his feet, a practiced motion demonstrating an almost unbelievable athleticism. Elizabeth’s raven was forced to flap clumsily to slow its own descent, dropping her unceremoniously onto the stone ground five or six feet from the surface, then pumping its wings to return to the sky.

Elizabeth rolled off her side, jumped to her feet and grabbed at her shortsword, drawing it from its scabbard.  She whirled around, gauging the number and distribution of the people on the plateau, ready to fend them off, to take as many of them with her as she could before their sheer numbers overwhelmed her.

But none approached her. They were aware of her presence, she was sure of it. Some had turned to glance at her, but none gave her more than a fleeting look before turning away, back to whatever business they attended. She spotted the raven's rider standing twenty feet away, speaking with one of the cloaked figures. He had shed his harness, and unfurled a cape that sprung from the shoulders of gleaming ebony armor, simpler than but of the same style as that which outfitted the Guard. The upper part of his face was masked by a leather helmet with strapped-on goggles, an accessory that made her think of early-twentieth-century airmen, or of steampunk novels. Below the eyepieces, a trimmed brown beard spread over his angular jaw, culminating in a sharpened point of a chin.

He sheathed his sword, the grey-black fire extinguished with an audible hiss, and dismissed the other man with a curt nod. Standing with his hands on his hips, Elizabeth watched him appraise the plain with an air of a man surveying a construction job, making notes of the progress of hundreds of small tasks that would add up to one large endeavor.

The man turned as she approached him, facing her for the first time. When she was ten paces from him, she stopped. The lenses of the goggles were mirrored, and her own distored outline reflected across the convexity of their surfaces. “Why did you bring me here?” she demanded. Her voice was hardly more than a croak; the air of the upper atmosphere had done something unpleasant to her vocal cords.

He remained silent. She repeated the question, her voice steadier on the second try. Though she could not see his eyes, she knew behind those lenses his eyes were busy, examining her. Elizabeth decided to give him something to look at.

She lifted her left hand, shaking it and spreading the fingertips out as she raised it. The fingers clinked ominously with this motion; she had practiced it as a means of intimidation, egged on by Hachi and Shrike, until it had been perfected. She took a threatening step towards him.

Her sword was on the ground before she even registered his movement, and his blade was at her throat, the metal glacial ice against her flesh. He grinned; his smile, combined with the goggles, made him look reptilian. Predatory.

He twisted the blade so its point rested beneath her jawbone. He used it to pry her chin up, then shifted the flat of the blade to her cheek and pushed her face left, then right, allowing him a look at each profile. She followed his gaze as it left her face and traveled to her left hand, considering each of the five fingers in turn, down to where the metal melded with the flesh of the forearm.

Then, with as much speed as when he disarmed her, the blade was gone, and her head snapped back down. The man stood as though nothing had happened.

“You’re a good likeness, I’ll give you that. Somebody did their homework.” His voice was muffled, blocked by his forearms as his hands lifted the goggles to his forehead. “The last one I saw was just some sort of modified glove. A shrunken pig-skin with some kitchen knives attached with pine-pitch. Barely any effort at all.

“And the girl was too tall, too thick. A farmer's daughter with grand aspirations. Untrained in combat and, honestly, not too bright at all. A failure at every level.” His voice was genteel, cultured, but his tone was casual, as though this was the continuation of a conversation already started, rather than the first time they were meeting.

Elizabeth looked into his face. She had seen it once before. Carved into stone, but the artist had captured it true.

Silas.

Thirtieth

Silas. The Pretender. The Chzezch. Slayer of gods, and razer of cities. Her forgotten younger brother.

His face was younger than she would have expected. The man who stood before her couldn’t be more than forty, and an exceptionally well-preserved forty at that. Not a trace of gray in his beard, nor, as she saw when he removed his flight-helmet, in his hair, which was tousled from being kept under wraps. Silas had ruled for centuries, undisputed king of the lands of Edge for generations. Shouldn’t he at least look middle-aged?

His eyes were their mother’s, his chin their father’s, his nose his own. His frame was thick and muscular, resembling the men on the maternal side of their family tree more than Jacob’s thinness. Elizabeth realized she was openly gaping at him.

Silas continued. “Who did this to you? Some renegade Weaver, I suspect. Some casual magician who found a book of power and understood just enough to change you into this. Well, tell me their name and where to find them, and I’ll promise you...not mercy, since surely you know the consequences of becoming what you’ve become. But I will promise you a clean death. No prolonged torture."

She found her voice. “Silas...it’s me. Elizabeth.” He cocked his head to the side. “Your sister. Your real sister.”

His grinned, exposing straight, uniform teeth, with the exception of what her father called the “Wilson tooth,” a lower incisor that crossed ever so slightly in front of the other. She had it, too. “Oh, of course, excuse me, my dear sister. How could I have possibly been so rude? Come back to Edge, have you? Let us prepare a feast! The prodigal daughter, returned to us after so much time!”

“It’s me.” She plundered her memories, trying to dredge up something that might prove her identity to him. Facts started pouring from her. “Our parents are Jacob Warren and Helen Wilson. We grew up in an old farmhouse that’s painted white with black shutters, with a red barn behind it. Our father has a bookshop. Our upstairs bathroom was tiled a horrid turquoise when we were kids. There was an ice-cream store in town that was run by an old lady who was barely visible behind a screen, and Mom always joked that she was a troll and called a trip to the ice-cream store 'going under the bridge.' Dad used to sing us sea shanties to get us to go to sleep. Your bedroom is covered in drawings of birds. Your--"

 “Enough.” They stood in silence for a long moment. Silas’s jaw was clenched and trembling. “All your prattle proves is that you have swallowed several of the biographies written during the past few centuries. I have asked, politely at first, that the universities stop allowing them to be produced. It will do no harm, I suppose, to let you know that I remember very little of my first five years in Central. So I am sorry that all of your research has been for naught.”

She thought of another tactic. “Well, then look at this!” She grabbed at her pant leg, pulling the fabric up to show her shin.

His sword was back, nudging at her throat before she could complete the motion. She looked up into his face. His smile had not changed, but his eyes had. They were serious. Deadly. “Move slowly. Show me what you will, then place your hands back where I can see them.”

Elizabeth raised the cloth above the level of her knee. Over her kneecap was a crescent-shaped scar, a keepsake from an accident when she was nine. It had required a trip to the local ER, seven stitches to pull the wound shut. Both her parents had been with her, so Silas would have come as well. “I got this climbing out of the aboveground pool in our backyard. I caught my knee on the metal rim and cut it up real good. Dad said I bled so much that there were sharks in the water.”

Silas hesitated; was that recognition, deep within the black of his eyes? But whatever flicker there may have been fell away without changing his resolve. He shook his head. “I have to admire your bravado, my dear. Of all the prophecy-chasers I have had the pleasure of meeting, you have stuck to your story the longest. Usually just being in the presence of the Chzezch is enough to break these girls into trembling wrecks, begging for clemency. Not you, though, and I must give you credit. Maintaining your composure, trying to convince me that you actually are my departed sister. That takes guts. What my actual sister used to call cojones.”

“Silas, I was brought--”

“Enough.” His hands danced in the air in front of his chest, a subtle sign language that reminded her of the fingering Grim had performed when she first met him. The Shade had done it as part of the magic to remove the blind spot from her. But this was more like pantomiming the act of writing.

She started to speak, to continue her interrupted sentence: if she could tell him about Grim, about the Shade tracking her down and tricking her into leaving Central, then maybe he would believe her. After all, he had sent the birds against the Shade, hadn’t he? Silas must have suspected that someone was trying to draw her back to Edge to get at him. Why else send that flock against the house?

But she could not force words from her throat. She swallowed, trying to dislodge whatever was preventing her from speaking, but nothing would come out. Even her coughs made no noise.

“I know interrupting a guest is the height of rudeness, but I’ve had quite my fill of your lies.” A pair of the cloaked figures, one woman and one man, approached from around a rocky outcropping. It was growing close to noon, and the sun had burned away the cloud cover. The robes must have been thick, too warm for the weather, for Elizabeth could see the faces beneath the cowls were heavy with sweat. The two drew close to Silas and held a whispered conference. 

Silas turned his attention back to Elizabeth. “It is time. I will question you further when we have finished our business. But for now...” His hands were moved quickly again, hummingbird movements too fast for her to follow.

Elizabeth didn’t wait to see what the effect of his magic would be. She sprung at him, drawing her sword as she leapt, intending to interrupt the spell before he could complete it. But it was as if she had hit an imaginary wall: all forward momentum stopped, and she fell to the ground, iron encountering a buried magnet.

She landed facedown, her cheek buried in soil, her nose mashed up against a rock. Every muscle locked in spasm, unable to flex or extend from the position where she had fallen. Her limbs began to burn with a cramping pain, the soreness of being in too restricted of a position for too long. Her diaphragm still worked, but only enough to draw shallow breaths. It occurred to her she should be thankful that she had landed such that the dirt did not obscure her mouth; she could have suffocated. What a stupid death that would have been.

The noise of her three captors padding away reached her ears, but all she could see was dirt and scraggly grass. The pain intensified; she longed to stand and stretch, to feel her joints ease into a different position, any position.

The only part of her that remained untroubled was her left hand, standing like a cool oasis within the desert of pain that the rest of her body had become. She tried to focus her attention there, to lessen the grip the discomfort had on her thoughts. 

When she had calmed herself somewhat, she stretched her awareness outward, to hear what was occurring on the mountaintop even if she couldn’t see it. In the foreground, a wind rustled through the shin-high grasses. In the near distance, she heard chanting, synchronous, droning voices that must have been Silas and his cohorts. Somewhere not far away, she heard the caw of a lone bird, one of the big ones, and the twittering of smaller birds, unperturbed by the giant in their midst.

There was also a quieter sound close to her left ear: a high, tinkling noise reminiscent of wind chimes. After a moment, she realized it was the sound of her fingers, trembling and striking against each other. Elizabeth pushed all her will into her transformed fingers, commanding them to move.

And, slowly, they responded. First her ring finger, then the thumb, then the rest in turn. And from there, a sort of spreading awareness, a ponderous wave of pins-and-needles that swept down her forearm, lessening the pain and restoring her ability to move. It was as though her unaffected hand was reminding the rest of her body how to function.

Now she could flex the muscles within her forearm, making little back-and-forth movements of her left wrist. Her upper arm and shoulder came next, then the left side of her torso, leaving her with the interesting sensation of being able to breathe deeply with only one-half of her chest.

It took minutes and felt like hours, but she wrested back control of her entire body. The muscles were weaker than before Silas’s spell, but she suspected this would pass. Elizabeth lifted herself to her hands and knees, then tipped back into a sitting position, wiping the dirt off her face with her sleeve. She stood, taking a moment to secure her balance, then went to find her captors.

Arranged into a line at the edge of a cliff, the cloaked figures faced the city. Silas’s cape marked him at their center. Between him and Elizabeth stood three of the giant birds, untethered and foraging in the grass, their heads periodically stabbing down into the dirt, their feathers glinting deep blue and purple in the brilliant light.

Elizabeth retrieved her sword from the ground and, stepping cautiously, circumvented the mammoth crows, hoping that they, like their smaller counterparts, were more scavengers than hunters. She was not likely strong enough to fend off all three. The birds cocked their heads at her approach, fixing her with their beady black glare. She walked past without interference, save for a single cry from the closest one. Elizabeth's gaze snapped to the figures on the cliff’s edge, but they stood unchanged, unaffected by this alarm. She exhaled and continued.

Drawing closer, she could see that their hands were busy at work. It was a sort of choreography, with arms thrust in the air all at once, then returning to their sides or in front where, hidden by their torsos, the twitching of their shoulders hinted at more of the hand motions she had seen Silas and Grim execute. Their arms and hands glowed with light, subtle in the brightness of the sun, but one that bent and distorted the flesh within.

Elizabeth didn't know what significance the coordinated movements had, but she suspected their purpose meant trouble for the revolutionaries of Aldergate. The great Silas would not risk exposing himself for nothing.

She crept up on the closest cloak: a man, his balding head ringed by a thatch of yellow-brown hair, looking from behind like a giant egg emerging from a haystack. She waited for him to turn, to give some indication that she had been detected. He gave none. Either he was so focused on his movements that he did not notice her, or his exertions left him with no opportunity to interrupt his hands’ dancing.

The mountaintop provided a view of Aldergate below, its tall spires and grids of neighborhoods, the wall between the inner city and the outer ring forming a crescent through the neighborhoods on the seaward side. And beyond the buildings, the harbor, hiding its legendary gate.

The buildings seemed to flicker and grow dimmer. Elizabeth blinked and rubbed her eyes, trying to dislodge whatever coating would produce such an illusion. But then it happened again: the colors of the bricks and roads momentarily washed out, as though she was viewing a film with select frames left exposed to the elements.

Then she noticed the lights extending from each of the figures on the cliff, linking them in a sort of geometric shape. The glow was barely visible against the blue sky, its shape like radiant wires drawn between each of the figures on the precipice. An additional line from each extended over Aldergate, disappearing into the distance like spokes on a great wheel drawn in the sky. Elizabeth bet that, if she had a strong enough telescope, she would be able to see similar red cloaks standing in a ring encircling the entirety of the border of the city.

The city flickered again, pictures jumping in a poorly threaded projector, and she felt sick. At first she thought is was just her equilibrium, but her mind caught up with the warning her intuition was driving home. Flint’s tales: the legends of Hound’s Tooth, Nest, William’s Keep, and Vyllig, which Flint himself had visited and verified. All proud cities, once aligned against Silas and The Watchmaker. And all gone for centuries.

Elizabeth thought of her friends in the revolution, thought of the people she had met while working at the Griff. All the people in the city below, engulfed by that webbing of pale light. She knew what she had to do.

The man nearest to her still had not altered his motions. Watching the pattern of his hands, she counted and predicted the next time his arms would be outstretched. Just before he reached this, she stepped behind him, waited, then reached around and plunged her sword below his ribs, pushing its point toward his heart.

The man crumpled. She drew her blade out as he fell. The light within his hands extinguished almost immediately. His closest compatriot, a heavyset woman with grey hair braided in a crown around her scalp, stood to his left; as the man died, she stumbled towards him, as though pulled down by a chain that linked the two. Elizabeth glanced to the man’s right, and saw that the cloaked figure on that side, a hollow-cheeked man barely out of boyhood, was similarly affected.

A howl of anger reached her, echoing across the rocks: Silas. He did not abandon his perch, but his hand motions broke from the pattern that the others continued. An arm of dark grey force winked into existence above his head like a small thundercloud and rocketed towards her, careening through the air with the speed of a missile.

Elizabeth turned to run, but there was no way she could match the speed of the dark blot, even if she were fully recovered from Silas's initial spell. She braced herself, readying both her sword and her left hand. It crossed the gulf between them in the space of heartbeats. She slashed at the misty greyness with the sword; it swerved but did not slow, or retreat. It wound around the sword blade like an anaconda, yanking it from her grip and flinging it over the edge of the cliff with a twisting of its mass. 

The cloud flew towards her face. Her left hand rose to meet it, and with the slightest of jabs she bisected the creature. The severed portion fell to the ground, twitching in the rocky dirt. The other section remained aloft, hovering in front of her. It did not cry out, but an enraged whine emanated from its foreparts, the discordant sound raising goosebumps on her skin. The mass regrouped and then struck at her legs, twining about her ankles. She fell to the ground, her feet trussed like a hunter’s prize. With her left hand, she sliced at it.

And missed. Having felled her, the cloudy mass had slithered off her feet and dove down, burrowing into the soil. It surfaced almost immediately in several places beneath her; it had changed to a spiculated mass of tendrils. They shot towards and wrapped around her left wrist, pulling it toward the ground.

Elizabeth twisted her trunk and grasped one of the grey fingers with her other hand, pulling it taut and moving it towards her blades. The first string cut easily and flopped to the ground. She repeated this with another string, and then another, until only a single weakened shoot remained. She stabbed it as it lay on the soil, wriggling like a worm after a rainstorm.

She rose to her feet, scanning the sky for any more gifts from Silas. But he had appeared to have forgotten about her, lost in the task at hand. The light around him had grown in intensity, and even from her current distance Elizabeth could see how labored his motion had become.

He’s taking on the work of the one I killed, she realized. Maybe she didn’t have to attack Silas directly to influence his plan. She sprinted for the closest cloaked figure, the older woman.

Guilt tried to slow her, but the confidence that there was malice at work steadied her resolve. The woman’s jugular was easily severed, and she collapsed to the ground. The cloaked men bordering her staggered but did not fall. The light around Silas again grew brighter.

Elizabeth locked eyes with her brother and waited for his response, but none came. So she strode past the next two figures until she reached the space next to Silas. All he had to do was turn and face her; he had already proven how quick with a blade he was. He could skewer her easily, but he would have to abandon the web of light he cast over Aldergate.

The city continued to flicker; now it was the dimness that held sway, with only the occasional glint of the normal color flashing through. The sky seemed to thicken above it, as though the air had congealed into a liquid lacquer over the buildings. She was too far away to see what this meant for the people remaining on the streets of Aldergate. Did they realize something that their city was under attack from high above? Or were they still locked in battle with the Black Guards that remained?

Elizabeth displayed her hand so Silas could see it, clawed into a threatening position. “I will not hesitate to kill you; I have killed two of your people already. Your spells do not seem to work well on me.” He grunted, his lips curled back, and his forehead slicked with sweat. “Despite what you may think, I am your sister. But if you do not stop this attack on Aldergate, I will cut you down, Silas. I will cut you open and watch you bleed out.” He did not meet her gaze, nor slow his hands, nor allow any words to escape from his gritted teeth. “I am serious, Silas. Your men have killed dear friends of mine, have laid waste to a city I have adopted as my home. Stop what you are doing, or you will leave me no choice.”

But Silas only continued with the intricate motions of his hands. The light blazed around his arms and chest, and she could see that it had swirlings of white and gold within it, like oil on water. Elizabeth clicked her fingers together and prepared herself to kill this man before her, the man who had once shared a home with her, the man who had once been a little boy who had been her brother.

And she realized she could not do it.

She knew enough of the horrible things he had done over the centuries, to man and Shade and beast alike. But she could not make herself murder him. Striking down a stranger was one thing, hard enough on its own. But to do it to this man? Who so closely resembled her parents? Who might not yet be beyond saving? Not without one more chance. Not without a warning shot.

Walking behind him, she thrust her left hand into the back of his thigh, into a joint of his leather armor, cutting into the hamstring. He cried out, and scarlet blood cascaded over the shiny black of his covering. Despite this, despite the growing pool of red at his feet, his arms sped their gesticulations, the pulsing of the glow quickening to a manic strobe light.

She pulled her hand back, readying for another jab. She would cut him to pieces if he did not back off.

And then she was tumbling through the air, over the precipice of the cliff. It only took a split second for her equilibrium and her eyes to reconcile; he had broken with the motion of the other figures, had swung his injured leg behind her and flung her torso over backwards, hurling her downwards and over the edge.

She landed on her back, sliding headfirst down the steep grade of the cliff. Her arms and legs flailed for something to grip.

Her fingers found an outcropping of rock, an edge jutting out through the face of the mountain. Momentum carried her weight, flipping her body over until it hung suspended, her feet over the void, her hands clutching the stone. She pulled herself up to the ledge, a space just barely large enough to accommodate her feet, and started searching for more handholds, for some way to get back up the cliff, back to Silas.

A rush of air, the howling of a gale, rose from the valley below her. She turned and saw that the grid of light that extended out from the cloaked figures above had regained its luminescence. The city was dimming fast. She took a deep breath. She would have to be--

And then it was gone.

The city winked out of existence, the wailing of the wind silenced as though it had been swallowed. A great crater stretching from woods to mountain was all that remained. Gargantuan plates of rock shifted within its depths, settling to new positions as clouds of dust erupted from beneath them, their deep groans echoing up to where she stood.

Within moments, the sea, unhindered by whatever levees and dikes had been in place to protect the city, rushed in to claim this new unguarded territory. Soon even the crater was gone, replaced by a bay with its waters already calming, its whitecaps ceasing, its memories buried too deeply to be seen.

Thirty-first

Her ears filled with a roaring static, a rushing like the sounds of waves crashing against the surf. It came from nearby, closer even than the top of the cliff. Only when her throat began to hurt did she recognize the sound came from within her own chest.

Faces flashed across her mind’s eye, a manic slideshow of the people who had just been killed: Adri, Hachi, Alasia, Quill, Shrike, all the unnamed people she had fought with, all the merchants she had haggled with in the markets of the town, all of the employees and neighbors of the Griff. The people she knew only to nod to. The men and the women and children, the wicked and the innocent and the young and the old, thousands upon thousands of them...all gone. Disappeared, in a space less than the blink of an eye.

Her hands tore at the rock face, her fingers somehow finding grips within the stone, her left hand making holes where there had been none. She scrabbled up the wall, clearing the distance without conscious thought, without fear of falling or of being attacked when she reached the top. She focused on Silas, how he had stood helpless before her and how she had hesitated. And now? An entire city was dead. Because of her.

Elizabeth yanked herself onto the clifftop, its rigid edge scraping into her abdomen as she wriggled over it. Her outstretched hand found the edge of a red cloak. Its owner lay on the ground, out cold, his chest rising and falling with unconscious breaths.

She stood over the man, examining him: the hollow-cheeked boy. She gripped his clothing, lifting his thin frame into a sitting position. His head lolled to one side, but he did not wake, even when she dragged his body across the ground, closer to the precipice. She felt no hesitation: she threw him over the edge, watching coldly as his body plummeted down the mountainside, spinning and bouncing as it struck angles of rock. She watched until she saw a small splash in the water. The first to be claimed by this new sea.

Two more of the cloaked sorcerers met their fate in the fall down the mountain. One of them, a heavyset, bearded man who reminded her of her middle-school librarian, snored slightly and drooled down his chin. His body resisted her tugging; she realized he had a scabbard draped around his torso, and its long strap had become snagged on the rocky ground. She cut through the strap and rolled the man over the edge.

And then her eyes lit upon Silas. He was getting to his feet, testing out his legs. His thighs were slick and shiny with blood from the injury she had inflicted. His movements were stilted and the effort causing him to breathe heavily, and it was clear that he had been weakened, either from blood loss or the effort of the destruction of Aldergate. His face had become sickly, his cheekbones gaunt and accentuated.

Elizabeth picked the sword off the ground and walked towards him. She could see Silas marking the absence of the men she had dispatched. His eyes blazed within their deep sockets, his jaw working as he approached her. Without taking his eyes off of hers, Silas reached down and drew his own sword out of its sheath, black flames engulfing the blade as it emerged from its scabbard.

The two stopped when they reached each other, staring in silence, breathing through clenched teeth, their rage building. Silas was the first to find his voice.

"Those were good men. Great weavers, worthy of their place in history. They were under my oath of protection." He held his sword high, and barked out a short laugh. "This weapon is the one you have heard about, in the tales and legends. This is the Sangredios, the God-bleeder. Forged by the Watchmaker, worked in the flames of Ingrus-modos. It has no equal in Edge, nor in Central.” He swung it through the air, a show of the force and speed he still possessed. “It thirsts for your life-blood, Imitator."

Elizabeth wanted to scream back at him, to call out the names of the friends she had lost, to make him understand the enormity of the destruction he had just caused. Instead, she launched herself at him.

Her metal met Silas's, his great sword against her smaller one. She pushed him away and went on the offensive first, her rage slowly replaced by the automatic motions drilled into her by hours of Graves' instruction. The methodical probing of the enemy’s abilities, working all four quadrants of their defenses for any imperfections in the smoothness of their parries. Silas blocked every strike, wielding the heavy sword as though it had the weight of a knitting needle. His eyes had cooled, his jaw set in silence; she recognized this look, realizing this concentration indicated that he was studying her, in the same manner as she was reading him. He had been taught well, his centuries of survival no random accident.

He countered one of her blows, sweeping her blade aside and twisting into an attack of his own. His injured leg slowed his footwork, but he hid it well, forcing her off-balance, striking at her legs to press her into awkward positions. 

They shuffled across the mountaintop, past the indifferent, grazing crows, past rocky outcroppings and scraggly mountain bushes. The only sounds were the clanging of sword against sword, the heavy breaths and grunts of their exertions, the wind whipping across the mountaintop, the thuds of their feet against the solid ground, and the occasional cawing of a disinterested crow. Silas's visage was starting to lose its calm, his face growing more enraged as the duration of their battle lengthened.

The red-cloaked men and women began to rouse, a few of them getting to their feet. Elizabeth realized with a start that Silas did not need to defeat her; he only had to delay her until his fellow sorcerers awoke and gained strength. She began rotating the fight, shepherding their orientation so Silas's people were behind his back, not hers. She guided him farther up the mountain, away from the edge of the cliff, trying her best to make it appear as though it was he who was forcing her into this semi-retreat. The grunts emitting from his gritted teeth took on a victorious undertone.

The blue sky grew overcast, smudges of grey clouds moving in from the sea, darker thunderheads on their heels, moving swiftly as though homing in on the mountaintop. The wind intensified, whipping Silas's cloak around his legs like waves lapping at the shore.

All of the sorcerers were awake now, though none ventured closer to the fighters than twenty or thirty feet. Elizabeth remembered what her jailer in Aldergate had said, why they didn't simply execute her when they held her imprisoned: Silas preferred to do this himself. They formed a silent line of haggard faces, observing but doing little else.

Silas struck a powerful overhand blow to her outstretched sword, the impact flinging her arm to the side; she was barely able to meet his next thrust. On this pass, his blade passed perilously close to her abdomen before she parried it away; as it came near, it left a trail of coldness that felt as though an ice cube was pressed against her skin.

Sensing weakness, he intensified his attacks, focusing more on getting his blade past her defenses, sacrificing his own. She shuffled backward, her right arm beginning to grow tired, her movements a half-step slower. There was no way she could keep this up forever; her sword, though it was light, still had enough mass to fatigue her muscles, and Silas’s pace was becoming frenetic.

The next time he attempted his overhead strike, she slipped to the side and hooked her foot around his injured leg, snapping her own leg back, hurling him to the ground. He cried out as he fell but kept his grip on the fiery sword; instead, he swung his arm out while falling, catching her flank with the tip of his blade.

An immediate iciness filled her upper back, radiating forward and gripping her lungs like frigid winter air. Her arms and legs still had feeling and motion, no worse than before the blow, and she did her best to ignore this new sensation that was not quite pain. 

Having tasted her blood, the glow that clung to Silas' blade intensified, spreading out to a handsbreath on either side of the metal. The sword started to sing a high, musical cry as it slashed through the air. Silas rolled away from her, then sprung back to his feet and lunged in a snakelike feint.

A vibration sounded in her blade when it struck his, a tone that vibrated both in her sword and in her injured flesh. The sensation remained within her skin after every blow, lingering and drawing goosebumps.

From behind her erupted the noise of a rusty hinge: one of the crows, cawing loudly. The noise made her jump, altering the swing of her arm mid-motion. Silas’s sword caught hers lower than she expected, and the shuddering impact loosed her one-handed grip. She watched helplessly as the weapon flew from her hand.

But her shock was short-lived; she kicked at Silas, her boot smashing into his knee, making him stumble backward, and she spun and began to sprint away, zigging and zagging in case he threw another magical projectile.

Elizabeth ran blindly across the unfamiliar terrain. The peak of the mountain was riddled with cracks and holes, plenty of hiding-places. Maybe she could find somewhere to lay in ambush. If she could stay alive for long enough.

The ground sloped downward to the backside of the mountain, away from where Aldergate had once stood. Here the surface was crumbly and irregular, and she ran as fast as she dared, knowing a fall meant a death sentence. She could hear Silas’s footsteps behind her growing quieter; she was outdistancing him.

Up ahead was the treeline, where the scrubby ground brush stopped and the larger mountain pines held sway. The forest would provide cover and a better chance to escape. If the density of the trees thickened, Silas wouldn’t even be able to find her with one of those large birds.

Then it struck her: she wasn’t without a weapon. Not only did she have her hand, she still had--she reached over her shoulder to confirm that they hadn’t all fallen out--a quiver still half-filled with arrows. Some must have fallen out during her tumble over the cliff, or in the subsequent melee. She wished she had retained the bow; it would be easy to set up an ambush if she had the advantage of a distance weapon. Still, they might be better than nothing.

Elizabeth skated down the slope, nearly losing her footing several times. The pine needles made a slippery surface, and the gnarled roots were perfectly positioned to catch an ankle. She risked a glance back; Silas continued to pursue her and, far above in the sky, she saw the shrinking silhouettes of the giant birds, riders held in their clutches. They rose high into the air, disappearing from her line of vision.

She ran past a ledge of dark rock, flattened at the top, a broad mountain within the mountain, festooned with moss and lichen. Up ahead the ground ended in a precipice, and beyond this she could see the tops of trees growing up from the ground far below. She looked back, craning to see if Silas had drawn closer. But she had outpaced him when she slid down the steep grade.

Elizabeth sidled to the edge; these trees growing there were tall, but the branches within reach were small and unlikely to bear her weight. She might be able to jump onto one of them and shimmy down the trunks, but it would be dangerous.

She scuffed some footprints in the needles leading up to the edge of this cliff, then reached out to snap a few branches from the trees. Then, stepping carefully within the tracks she had made, she doubled back to the raised rock wall. As quietly as she could manage, she scaled it and climbed to the top surface. She scraped away some of the fallen branches and the loose stones, then lay belly-down on the ground, trying to make her shape blend in with the broken rocks.

Silas came into view, slowly moving closer, his eyes on the forest floor, snapping twigs beneath his boots and occasionally swatting at an interfering branch with the flat of his sword. He held his free hand out before him, as though being pulled by an invisible leash, or using it to sense some quality of her passage...her heat, or her scent.

His head swiveled from right to left. She held her breath, praying that her ruse would work, that he would think she had continued down the mountain. There was no way he could climb down the sheer cliff-face, not effectively, not in his weakened condition, and if he tried she could always drop something on top of him. She realized she might not have to wait for that option; if he should walk below her hiding place, there were several fist-sized rocks within her reach. If he remained unaware of her perch, and if her aim was true, she might be able to knock him unconscious when he passed below.

But he stopped, sheathed his sword, and held both of his hands out in front of him, eyes closed, face suddenly serene. He remained still, the only movement the ruffling of his hair in the breeze, looking like a man lost in prayer. Elizabeth was scared to exhale, scared to blink, lest the tiniest motion shake him from his trance.

His eyes suddenly flashed open, his face twisted back into a fierce frustration. He threw his hands into the air in defeat and turned to walk back up the mountain. He had lost her trail. He would be leaving, and she could continue as soon as he was out of sight.

Elizabeth watched his shape recede into the tree cover, waited a few minutes just to be safe, and rolled over to figure out her path down the mountain.

To find Silas standing over her.

“In your next life, if you find yourself in a similar situation, you may wish to stay hidden from above, as well as from below."

She cursed her own stupidity. She had seen the great birds, and the cloaked riders held in their talons. She just hadn’t thought they had seen her, or that they would be able to communicate with Silas on the ground.

He advanced, leading with the point of his sword. Before, she had thought its noise to be a sort of song; now, it crackled and sparked with a sound like fat in frying oil. He stopped when it was mere inches from her throat.

 “Do you know why I would not let you be killed by anyone else?” The anger in his voice betrayed his otherwise calm demeanor. “Do you know why I save the deaths of the prophecy-chasers?” She didn’t answer; her eyes were locked on the tip of his blade. The chill was starting in the arteries in her neck and, as though in sympathy, the wound in her flank again began to throb with the stabbing coldness.

“Because I want their deaths to seem horrible. Even if their executions kill them no more dead than if they were meted out by some lowly foot soldier’s hand, I want the sentence to seem so terrifying that it could not possibly be trusted to anyone else. It's not enough that the penalty is death, it has to be a death magnitudes worse than anything anyone could imagine. To kill them so dead that no ghost or specter could ever be raised, so dead that even the memory of the imitator is expunged from the very fibers of Edge.”

The sword-point remained motionless. Elizabeth was propped up in the same position she had been when she rolled: her legs forward on the ground, her torso leaning back and supported by her arms, her palms on the ground. Silas was focused on his speech...maybe she could work her hands around without him realizing. Maybe she could find something useful.

“I need a deterrent to any fool who might try to do what you have done,” he continued. “Not because I believe what the prophecy says, that I will die by that hand of yours, pale imitation that it is...no, there are many powers in Edge, but to even the oldest and the strongest of these, the future is at best an educated guess. I fear no prophecy.” He spat the last word out as if it were a bitter husk.

Silas’s face showed anger now, and the blade started to tremble. “It is because you are not fit to walk in the footsteps of my sister. I don't care how closely you may resemble her, even a version that existed years before the last time I saw her. I don't care how much you've trained to use that hand of yours, or how much you've studied the lore of our early days in Edge, or how much you may have learned about Central. You will never be Eliza. You are not worthy to try to replace her. Your very existence is an insult to her memory.

 “And maybe one day, after I have killed enough of you and the weavers and ironsmiths who let you aspire to this pathetic imitation, everyone will get the message, and it will finally stop, gods-damn it. Eliza is off-limits. Go play dress-up as Addy-Lion or Callista of Saracen or even,” his voice darkened even further, “as my dead wife. But what you have done is unforgivable.”

Silas raised his sword up and it blazed into brilliant flame. It did hunger for her, she realized, it exuded a sort of thrilled anticipation she could sense in the ebbs and flows of its inky blackness. The blade began to hum again, reaching a crescendo just as her handful of stones and silt caught Silas in the face.

He clutched at his eyes with his free hand; some of the smaller grains of sand must have flown true. He slashed blindly at the space where he had last seen her, bringing the sangredios down with a force that surely would have split open her skull.

But Elizabeth had already rolled to the side, and the sword found nothing but stone on which to release its master’s anger. She jumped up, grabbing for an arrow out of her quiver and holding in close to the head, brandishing it like a dagger. The rock-edge was to her back, with its fifteen-foot drop to the slope below. Silas blocked the only exit off the ledge.

He opened his eyes, and she could see how red the whites had become. He slashed at the air with his sword and stepped forward, swinging the blade in a two-handed strike aimed at her neck. Elizabeth twisted as best as she could and reached up reflexively to block the oncoming blow.

The force of it knocked her to the side, but the sword did not pierce her flesh. Her eyes darted from his confused face to the place where the blade had stopped: the metal fingers of her left hand held it tight.

Her hand usually felt as though she were wearing a thick glove, all sensations muffled. But now it sent a volley of information: the coldness of the blade, the sharpness of the edge, the squirming of the black glow, which was less a manifestation of light than it a sentient vapor. As Silas tugged and yanked at the hilt of the sangredios, Elizabeth raised her free hand and brought its weapon to her brother’s throat.

His hand snatched hers just as the arrow-point scratched his skin. His grip was tight on her hand, crushing, bending the knuckles. She tightened her own hold on his sword, and the two continued, locked in a standoff.

Silas brought his head forward, trying to land a blow on her forehead with the top of his skull, but she saw leaned out of the way. She kicked at his knee, but he twisted and answered with a kneecap into her thigh. Then he tried to force her backward, but she dug her boot heels in to the uneven ground, and pushed back, holding her position.

Weakened as he was, Silas still managed to pry her grip open, letting the arrow clatter to the rocks below. His free hand shot forward to her throat, squeezing and cutting off her air. Elizabeth hammered at his forearm with her fist, clawed at his fingers, trying to make him stop. Her vision swam, and the fingers of her left hand gave one final clutch.

And the sangredios shattered beneath the force of her grasp.

The sword did not die quietly. A wail soared up from the fragments in her hand, the scream of a child denied. The portion attached to the hilt and pommel melted into a writhing liquid that flowed down Silas’s skin and clung onto the flesh of his palm and fingers like a henna tattoo.

She rammed her metal fist into his forearm, freeing her throat from his grip, then shoved her shoulder against his chest. His breastplate was hard against her bones, but Silas stumbled, and she saw something new in his face: fear. Elizabeth pulled another arrow from her quiver and brandished it at him. Her left hand was open, its blades sharp and still dripping with the liquid remains of his great sword.

Silas stepped back, pulling a handful of light brown powder from a pouch at his waist. Elizabeth shielded her eyes, but he threw it straight up into the air. It reached its zenith and fell, pelting his hair and shoulders. Elizabeth held her breath as a myriad of small birds flocked her brother. She saw sparrows and jays and a purple cardinal and even chaffinches, the blue-gray birds that had smacked against the window of her house, so long ago. They engulfed him until she couldn’t see a single part of his flesh or clothing, until he appeared to be a man-shaped pile of avian feathers and beaks and talons and eyes.

The birds exploded off him, dispersing all at once. Elizabeth again raised her arms to protect her face, but the birds did not attack her. They flew high above the treetops in small groups arranged by species. She raised her hand to again threaten Silas, but he had gone. Only a puddle of black from his fearsome blade remained where he had stood.

Elizabeth maintained her defenses in case he had become invisible, or a ghost, or some other attacking form. But nothing happened. Finally, she shook her left hand, dislodging the pitch-black remnants of the sword. They flew to the ground, resolving into spherical blobs that lay motionless atop the stone. The forest returned to its eerie silence.

Climbing down the rock ledge, the weight of her situation fell heavily onto her. She had no home, no friends, no food, no supplies, and no plan. The only city she knew had been destroyed. She hadn’t found even the slightest rumor of a guide who could lead her back to Central. Her left hand was still disfigured into a weapon.

The only way home she knew of was the one offered by Priest: kill Silas, and he would agree to send her back. But even if she were to somehow succeed in killing her brother, even if she was somehow able to get back to Priest to claim her winnings, this option would be fraught with peril, with the risk of calling down the wrath of the gods of the in-between, as it had been visited upon Grim.

She thought of the Shade now, his deception in leading her to this alien world, and his violent death. She thought of Priest, and his eternal life and love and his immortal desire for revenge. She thought of Port and Kat, and Flint and the actors’ troupe; she thought of Aldergate, of the Griff Inn and the underground. She thought of the other cities razed by Silas’s magic, and the scores of people killed by his armies.

If going home proved impossible, what choice was left to her? Could she find a farm or a town somewhere, settle down into a mediocre life? Get married, raise some kids, forget all about Central and the world she once knew?

Graves’ face came to her, then. His sharp features, his light humor that could be replaced by gravity at a moment’s notice. He and the rest had died in trying to free their city, and this land, from a tyrant. They had taken her in, had trained her, had made her one of them. If she turned her back on that now, if she ran back home or faded into anonymity, even if it was saving her own skin, she would be betraying him, and the others, and everything they stood and died for.

The Edge’s lands were vast. But they wouldn’t be large enough to hide Silas from her.

Elizabeth took a deep breath, put one foot in front of the other, and started to pick her way down the mountain. Edge awaited.

Interlude/Endispiece

I write this in our town journal ta chronic the events that happened on this date, listed above, as they may yet prove important to folk of the town or of the Guard, dependin on how events unfold. I do heresby swear to their truth, upon my name and my position as auctioneer of the Market True of the town of Wretched Fields.

Middle of horses, Samuell burst through the house doors, his hair scraggly and pasted to his forehead with sweatin. His one good eye was wide and wild, the white shot through with red vines, the other hidden like always behind his eye-patch. Saralynn McVinney, whose gray mare wast on the block, yelled out t’see who had interrupted the biddin.

I lowered my hands an called to him, sayin Sam Planter, whats the meanin of this? In retterspect, I regret my tone was so stern. I do hate breakin off an auction in the middle, but Samuell has ne'er been naught but most steadfast of men, e'en if he don’t come to town as reglar as others, and he’s never had anythin but civil tongues for me an mine.

Sam staggered down the side-aisle of the auction house, the kiddies who had set there movin out of his way, an I see’d he was hurt-walkin, his left leg all binded up in a splint, with a cunnin little cloth-and-wood number affixin to the leg entire. What happened to ye, Sam?, I ast. People had started babblin with the disturbance, but now hushed to hear his tellin.

Sam yelled his story out: I was headin out of town this morn, tryin t’get to Selmy Town, me da’s got a broke leg an me ma sent word they need help gettin the crops tekkin care of, so’s I loaded up old Barnby an took the Broad Road t’Selmy. But I was stopped by four of Silas Black, an they reined Barnby an said as this was Silas road they’d need payment fore they’d let me by. An I says tha I’m payed up on m’taxes and the taxes pay the road’s keep, an they can check with Slim Marsten if they need proof. An I tol’em I's on me way t’Selmy to help me lame Da, an if they knew who their own fathers were, they should let me by.

At this, the congregants shook their heads as one, for we all knew, and Samuell knew, or should ha known, tha pissy words to one of Silas Black was a sure way t’get yer lip split, or worse. Better he’d’a paid the fictitious fee, the physicker’s bill fer settin his leg sure t’be more than the Black’s bribe.

Sam went on: One of em said tha they all knowed who their fathers were, an that my father should be sure of his son as well. An by the evil in his voice I knowed what was comin next, an those four proceeded to hold me down an break my leg, laughin and sayin that now me da would be sure of me, cause we’d both be lamed.

I felt for the man, but if I am to be true, he brung this on hisself. He musta been mighty concerned for his da if he was so careless t’be speakin outta turn with the Black like tha. But his story was not ended:

Then a voice came outta the woods, a woman’s voice, an then I see this dirty, cloaked girl, no more’n a girl, I swear, step onta the road. I was in so much pain I ferget what she says but it makes the Black drop me and start fer her, an I didna see wha happened but next thing three of them are lying dead on the ground, an th’last one is empty-handed an on his knees in fronta the girl and beggin like a kiddie fer her t’spare his life.

An then I sees what he’s so afeared of: her hand. Her left hand, I swear t’all, her hand was Eliza’s hand, and I look at her face and her face is Eliza’s face. I know I was in pain an all, but I swear, Eliza herself came outta those woods and killed those three guards. An even if I didna knowed it, tha’ss what she says to that last Black, that he needs t’go back t’his garson an tell em Eliza the Knife-Fingered has comed back t’Edge, an that anyone serving The Pretender would feel the bite of her hand, tha’ss just what she says.

An when he runned off, she came to me an’ I was turrible scared, I hent got no fear of ghosties but t’see one woulda scared anyone, but she says she’s there t’help, an she set my leg with this an helped me onta Barnby an I comed straight here.

Now when Samuell was finished with his tellin, the townsmen was all silent for a momen, then all sorts of questionin started, like how d’ya knowed t’wasn’t juss some girl dressed up, some profsy-chaser, an how come you was the only one tha seened her, an has you been drinkin yer da’s ochreberry wine. But I’s seen Samuell’s eye, an how seriousy scared the man was, an I remembered how he hent been scared even when the twisty-airs touched down right near his barn two summers past, an how level he’d been when the physicker tol him his youngest girls were na recoverin from the hopper’s pox. An I knowed Samuell was tellin the truth, an I wrote it down right here in the Wretched Fields town journal, cause history needs to know where an when it was tha Eliza, fer good or badness, returned ta Edge.

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Author's note:

     So, that's it for now, everyone. Clearly not the end of the story, but the end of the book. It's long, and a bit rambly, I know, but some of the rambly parts will come in handy later. Stick around.
     Thanks for sticking with it, though, I do very much appreciate your taking the time. If you're so inclined,  drop me a line to let me know what you thought (soupbather@gmail.com). Good, bad or meh, I still want to know people's opinions and criticisms. 
     If you liked this, you'll be happy to know there will probably be at least a second book. Tentatively titled Silas the Pretender, told both from the title character and Elizabeth's points of view, and filling in some of the backstory of the years before Elizabeth came to Edge, it's a couple of hundred pages in, but needs some serious rewrites before it's fit for anyone else's eyes. Also in the works are a detective story about an atheist in the afterlife, and a tale about a young boy who's actually a spaceship full of the last survivors of an alien civilization. Trust me, it'll make more sense when it's done.
     Anyway, thanks a bunch, you know where to find me, and keep checking this blog for updates.

Matt Brown
August 2014