The Minister of Prosperity could not go on for much longer, being at the end of his resources of strength and endurance. For all his expertise and experience he was an old man and this day was the most taxing he had ever lived through. His legs burned, his knees and hips sent stabling pain into the core of him with every step, and each breath was now a ragged exertion. More, he feared he would be responsible for the death of the woman whose dutiful care of him had brought them so far.
She was patiently waiting for him to recover his strength even now. They were still streets away from their destination and the streets were filled with dangers. The Minister had witnessed people being torn apart before his eyes today. He had heard the dying screams and pleading of citizens of all types, of soldiers, of everyone. But Parial’s spirit had not broken, her courage had not failed her. She’d found a brief haven in the atrium of a civic gallery and had bundled the Minister inside, avoiding the notice of the stalking creatures in the open streets. And while he sat on one of the comfortable benches set there for the convenience of the visitors to the gallery, Parial crouched by the doorway, keeping watch on the outside world in case of approaching danger. She really was remarkable, he thought. He’d always appreciated her calm manner and her reasoned advice on matters relating to her duties, but had never really considered her beyond that. Today though she had proven her worth in a hundred surprising ways.
Parial looked over her shoulder at the Minister as he regarded her, and he saw that her face was pale, her expression troubled for a second until she composed herself.
“Will you be ready to travel on soon, Minister? I think the way will become harder not easier if we delay.”
He nodded in response to this and tried to hide the agony in his limbs as he stood with as much dignity as he could manage. “I am ready even now,” he said with the ease in deception that a lifetime of diplomatic service had given him. Parial, not fooled, came to join him and offered her arm for him to lean on. Expedience overruled dignity and he took the offer gratefully.
“The direct route is not possible,” Parial said, “there are too many of those creatures in the street. If we’re to reach the Sanctuary we will have to take a wider route and hope we can find a way that is safer.”
The Minister lowered his eyes and let out a deep breath that grumbled and muttered in his lungs. “You would be more likely to reach it safely without me, Parial,” he said, “perhaps you should continue alone.”
She gave him an incredulous glance. The thought, he realised, had not occurred to her for even a second and she was insulted. The Minister bowed his head in apology.
“Even if I would so such a thing,” Parial said, “what purpose would it serve? I don’t have the authority to approach the Draklyn Storm, and it would be a great effort and a dangerous journey just to admire the architecture of the Sanctuary. Besides, I’ve seen it.” The Minister could not hide his amused smile at her pretence of cynicism.
“If it came to it, Parial,” he said, “I would give you the authority. It is a simple enough matter,” Something dark and shadow-winged passed nearby overhead, darkening the ground outside the gallery entrance for a second as it went. “If I should fall, you should have that opportunity,” he went on urgently.
Parial shook her head and walked him to the doorway and looked both ways, and upward before stepping outside with him. He stumbled a little over something on the ground and knew enough not to look down at what it had once been. Around him, as Parial led him into narrower streets, the grandeur of Vanguard stood like mockery of the city’s fall, and the stone faces of former dignitaries looked down disapprovingly at how their legacy had come to disarray.
Karol hated himself at times. With what he had lived through hatred was inevitable to everyone but a saint or a lunatic. At first he’d aimed it outward, blaming everyone but himself for what he had come to, for the circumstances that had driven him to live the life of an outcast. But that had been an problem without a solution and the anger and hatred he felt had been a burden he carried with no chance of putting it down, as the people he blamed were too far away, too powerful to act against and – though it had taken him too long to accept it – in the right. Unable to put down the burden though he’d accepted that it should be aimed at himself and his own bloody idiocy and arrogance. The things he’d done could not be undone, and if these were the consequences then he’d take them but that didn’t mean he had to like it, or the person responsible – himself. He hated himself for his past, for the choices he’d made since then, and in particular right now he hated himself for giving enough of a damn about a child he had no connection to in the world to put himself at risk. Alone he could have left this city and taken his chances wherever the road took him. With the boy in tow the leaving was less likely and a damn sight more complicated, and the chances on the road would be exponentially more dangerous. He should have ignored the little pale face beneath the drainage gate. He should have walked on. Should, should, should. The tramping footsteps of folly that idiots mistook for destiny.
“Keep up,” Karol said to the boy. He had decided their best chances were to move under cover as often as possible and they were currently making their way along a curving corridor inside some civic building. The outer wall was ruined in parts, blasted in from outside here and there letting in the wind, the foul air and the red light, so they had to clamber over and around rubble, but it was safer than being in the open streets. The boy hadn’t spoken and Karol suspected he was suffering from the trauma of what had happened. Well of course he was. And he should have left the boy behind. Should, should, should. But he hadn’t of course. The boy had nodded his response to Karol’s urging and the two picked their way through the once dignified hallways. Karol took a moment at each window, and each broken gap, to take his bearings. The tall white spire he was aiming toward was closer now, and he could see how it had been broken about two thirds of the way up, the upper part hanging like a broken forearm. They’d have to leave this building behind and cross open ground before finding another internal route, and Karol suspected this was as close as they could get before doing that. He turned to the boy who stopped and looked at him, waiting the next instruction.
Karol explained what they would have to do. Get out of the hole in the building to the street one storey below. Across the open ground between the two ornamental fences. Toward the white and red gateway. Into the wide, low building beyond. Mouse nodded, his expression still blank and accepting. Whether the child truly understood what was being said to him or not Karol couldn’t tell. He’d seen people withdraw entirely inside themselves before. Sometimes they came back, sometimes they didn’t. He asked himself again what the point was in risking himself for the sake of a child he didn’t know, that might spend the rest of his life a traumatised wreck anyway. He asked himself that question, but didn’t bother waiting for the answer. He knew what he was going to do anyway, which was the foolish, stupid, pointless right thing, and he didn’t want his cold inner voice to point out why that was a bad idea.
Karol went first through the hole in the wall, dropping down to the street, his ears straining to measure how far away the incessant keening note of the enemies was. He had almost landed on a corpse he noted, and kicked the body over onto its back. A woman, expensive formal dress, her face a bloodied puzzle of bone and tissue. At her belt hung a wood and metal rod about as long as Karol’s forearm. Recognising it, he yanked it free of the belt to which it was connected and stuffed it through his own belt.
“Alright boy,” he called up to the silent spectator. “Jump and I’ll catch you.” If Mouse hesitated, as would be natural when faced with such a jump, that would be a good sign. He didn’t. Mouse jumped as soon as Karol had given the instruction, and Karol grabbed the boy from the air as he fell and lowered him gently to the ground. “Good lad,” he said, worried. He set off at a slow jog toward the brightly painted gateway. After a minute he looked back. The boy had stopped and was looking at something on the ground that Karol had ignored. Another body, another casualty of the day’s chaos. “Leave it,” Karol called, “he’s dead. You can’t do anything for him.” The boy would have to learn to be practical. Not to let such things affect him if he wanted to survive. What was he doing? The boy was tugging at something and as Karol took an impatient step back to pull him away, Mouse staggered back having freed the thing he had pulled from underneath the body, and fell onto his backside. Karol stared at him in surprise as Mouse, his face still impassive, held up another of the metal and wood rods and nodded meaningfully at the one at Karol’s belt. Karol took the prize and helped the boy to his feet. “Good lad,” he said, “Well spotted.”
Parial and the Minister of Prosperity were closer to the Sanctuary now but the most dangerous part of the journey was yet to come she knew. The old man was exhausted and in pain and they had to break their journey every few minutes in a grim routine. Parial would find somewhere to hide and keep watch. The Minister would practically collapse and sit there trying to hide how frail he was. He would insist sincerely that she leave him behind and see to her own escape. She would refuse and they would start again. But she wondered if the journey itself would kill him as surely as the creatures that had infested Vanguard. They were in the shadows of an ornamental arch beneath one of the civic footbridges, on the path beside the Diadem canal. There were no pleasure barges on the canal today, no delicate little boats carrying civic officials, no strolling couples on the pathway commenting poetically on the crystal water or the scent of fragrant blooms nearby. Floating bodies drifted face down in the canal, haloed by their own mortality, and Parial smelled no floral perfumes. She looked out and along the length of the canal, saw the white stairway that would take them up to street-level once more, and there just a short distance beyond that the broken declaration of the Sanctuary, its spire once having indicated the Empire reaching to the heavens now a mocking prediction of another destiny. She looked back toward the Minister and he saw her glance and set his face in a stoic mask, starting to push himself up from his sitting position.
“Another minute or two,” Parial said, “If you please, Minister, we can wait another minute or two.”
“Delay is foolish,” the Minister replied, “You know that, as do I.” He gained his feet and stood trembling slightly, his eyes fixed ahead of him.
Everything is foolish, Parial thought. The Ministries’ wanton disregard of the warnings of danger had been foolish. This journey across the ravaged city was foolish. The purpose of their mission was foolish as in all probability some other Minister had sent a desperate report to the Imperial Court of the fall of Vanguard. But what other purpose did Parial have? Her Minister had decided, rightly, that a report must be made and so she would see that done. And if she abandoned that cause, what then? She’d die in the streets anyway for it was clear that there was no way out of Vanguard now. Better to die with a purpose than to die uselessly. And she would not leave her Minister. He was a stubborn, proud and foolish old man, but what of it? He was helpless now, his authority and his knowledge of laws, and procedures, and the intricacies of the Empire of no account now in this new world where the Empire did not matter in the slightest. He was helpless and, like Parial, determined not to be useless in this final day.
“A minute more, Minister, if you please,” Parial insisted with firm politeness. “Then we will make better-” A noise behind her made Parial whirl around in fright, something had jumped down onto the path running beside the canal from the street level just above it. Panic gave way to relief as she realised this was not one of the creatures but a man, one of the civic staff by his uniform but a low ranking one, perhaps a courier or a way-clearer. She couldn’t tell which for the coloured sash that would denote his duty had been torn away or discarded. The man had blood on his clothing and on his face, and he was clutching a broken-hafted spear. It looked to Parial as though the man was dazed, not sure what to do next. He was armed and alive though, and could help her to get the Minister to their destination.
“Citizen!” Parial called, keeping her voice low but hoping it would carry, “Citizen! Over here!” The man with the spear looked around and saw her. He hesitated and glanced over his shoulder as though unsure whether to approach or bolt and run. “Come here, over here,” she repeated. The man shook his head. She did not hear his reply but his mouth formed the word “alone” and he began to back away from them, then turned his back to them and broke into a slow lurching run. Parial could have cried out with frustration and started after him stepping out from beneath the arch of the bridge but a word from the Minister stopped her.
“No. Let him go. He has chosen wisely perhaps. One may travel swifter than three, or two.”
“He is in the employ of the city,” Parial stated, “It is his duty to aid us.” The Minister smiled a weak smile at this and shook his head.
“Duty is not so binding a thing on all, Parial. And he may be seeking a wife, or family member, or simply to save his own life. These are not inconsiderable things.” Then the Minister gave an exclamation of horror and raised a hand to cover his mouth. More figures had dropped from the street level to the canal path ahead of the fleeing man, but these were not men but the strange misshapen things that had laid waste to Vanguard. Parial saw them as a rush of limbs and glistening darkness beyond the man who had turned back toward the bridge and was now running for his life away from the horrors. Back toward Parial and the Minister. And the things were chasing him, right toward them! Parial seized the Minister by the arm and ran from them, dragging the old man stumbling alongside her. Neither looked back as the sounds of hacking and slicing momentarily joined the screeching of the approaching destruction.
Mouse heard the sudden rising screeching of the monsters nearby and looked to the man for his reaction. The man dropped into a low crouch and placed a hand on Mouse’s shoulder to push him down but Mouse had already copied the action. They were in the open, dangerously exposed, just inside the great white and red gateway. The grandeur of the Sanctuary was directly ahead of them now, though the plaza between them and it was cluttered with the dead. Mouse had already managed to recover another of the rods from the bodies, and had handed it reverently to Karol. Karol handed it, and all the others, back to Mouse who had been carrying them in both arms since then. To the right of the plaza was a footbridge and a railing, and half-stumbling, half-rushing up a stairway adjacent to the footbridge Mouse saw two people fleeing for their lives. There was an old man, older than Mouse’s grandfather. There was a woman, younger than Mum. They would probably die. The man said a bad word, and then another bad word aimed at himself, and then pushed Mouse right down to the ground and sprinted away from him toward the two new people. Mouse stayed where he had been put and watched. The monsters came too, up the stairs, and over the railing, flowing up and over like water going the wrong way and the man got in between them and the new people. He had his sword out and Mouse watched closely. He’d played with a toy sword before, arms-length waving and clattering and prodding, but he’d never seen a real one or someone using one. It was faster than Mouse had expected and there was no waving or clattering, he could barely keep his eyes on where the steel blade was. The man was moving too quickly and stepping and turning as the monsters tried to encircle him. The old man had fallen down and the woman was trying to pull him away from the monsters, bent over him, walking backwards, step and drag, step and drag. Meanwhile the man had been knocked down by the monsters and Mouse wondered if that meant they would all die now. He decided it probably did, but then the man wasn’t where he had fallen but was somehow back on his feet again and moving and the blade was moving.
The woman dragged the old man nearer to Mouse. There was blood on him, on his clothes and on his face, and spreading out under his arm. The woman was pretty, her face was scared and sad and she was on her knees now bending over the old man who was trying to hold onto the front of her clothes as if he would die if he let go. Mouse couldn’t hear what they were saying and he looked back at the man who was fighting. He’d finished fighting now and was walking quickly back toward Mouse. He was limping but not badly.
“Are you hurt?” the man asked. Mouse shook his head and looked at the old man. The man with the sword put it away and went over to the woman. The old man was lying still now, hands fallen to the ground.
“He’s dead,” the man said. Mouse was surprised to see the woman become angry at this. It was obvious. Why be angry?
Parial felt as dizzy as if she was standing on a precipice and looking down, as though she might fall at any moment but fall into what, she did not know. The Minister had died, had died and his duty was unfulfilled and her duty had been failed. She would die uselessly here in Vanguard.
“I know he’s dead!” she heard herself snap at the man who had tried to save them. She couldn’t identify where he was from, his skin though weather-beaten was paler than hers or any Imperial citizen’s, and his eyes were blue which was a rarity she had heard of but never seen before. From his clothing and manner he was an outlander of low birth. But he had tried to save them and she regretted her outburst. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said in a softer tone. The man held out a hand to help her up, but she did not take it and instead removed the akrys rod from the Minister’s belt.
“We’ll need that,” the man said to her, gesturing at the rod. “We’re getting out of Vanguard and we’ll need that.”
Parial stood, holding the ackrys rod in both hands, feeling the weight of it. “I can’t let you take this,” she said, “it is only permissible to Imperial citizens of ranks- Wait. How do you expect to get out of Vanguard. The city is falling around us.”
The man pointed at the Sanctuary. “Through there,” he said. Parial’s eyes followed his pointing finger and the enormity of what he had said struck her like a blow.
“You’re mad,” she whispered.
“Come with me,” the man said and held his hand out for the rod, “I’m taking that anyway, so you can come with me or not as you choose. So you may as well.”
“You’re mad,” the repetition was inelegant, Parial thought as she heard herself say it, but it was a true reaction. Still she handed the akrys rod to the man and realised she had no idea who he was. “Forgive me,” she said, “I am Parial, former aide to the Minister of Prosperity.”
“Karol Perdov,” said the man taking the rod and beckoning at something behind her. To Parial’s surprise a commoner boy of about ten years trotted forward, holding a number of akrys rods in his arms, burdened by the awkwardness of them. The man, Karol, slotted the Minister’s rod into the bundle carried by the boy. “This is Mouse. Do you know a way into that place?”
Parial bowed her head in assent. “To the outer cloisters the way is open. The gateway to the inner Sanctuary is sealed against all intrusion and will open only to an authorised word of clear passage.”
Karol scowled and then sighed in resignation. “We’ll find a way,” he muttered.
“We do not have to find a way,” said Parial looking up again with a sad triumph in her dark eyes, “The Minister gave me the word with his dying breath. So perhaps you will come with me.”
The creatures had struck the Sanctuary building and moved on it seemed. Karol led the way with Parial and Mouse following through the arched gateways into a cloistered square where the main building rose up to its broken spire. The creatures had done their grisly work and departed. The cloisters and the square bore the remnants of many lives lost too soon and in dreadful butchery. None of the bodies were soldiers, none of them were armed. This was a place of contemplation and peace when things were normal, and perhaps these high-ranking citizens had been caught here during the onslaught or perhaps they’d run here seeking a hiding place of which they had peaceful memories. It had become their tomb. There was no more carnage to inflict here, and there was nothing the Imperial Guard could defend, so the tide had rolled over it and moved on, but Karol was too steeped in battle to ever assume a place was safe even for moment, just because he could see no movement, could hear no dreadful screeching. The woman, Parial, was holding together well he decided. The Imperial culture was one of self-restraint and appropriate manners. He doubted she’d been coached in the proper etiquette for dealing with the utter ruin of ones world, but perhaps this quiet determination was the default ideal state. Mouse was as silent as ever, as unbothered by anything as ever, serving as a bearer for the precious rods. If Karol was right he’d need them all and probably more beside them. If he was wrong well he’d have to figure out another way to save them all. Easier to leave them he reminded himself again, and once again he ignored himself.
The three made their way anti-clockwise around the cloisters circling the central building, Mouse at Karol’s heels, Parial bringing up the rear, none of them inclined to speak, all of them almost painfully alert. Karol brought them to a sudden halt, crouching down, putting a hand out and back to stop Mouse in his tracks. Mouse looked up at him and then away to see what Karol had seen that had made him stop. Something large and horrific clung to the front face of the central Sanctuary with long flexible limbs pressed tightly against the stone. The central spine of its body was a ridged carapace of gleaming black, the limbs seemed jointless and fleshy, long tendrils splitting into many thinner examples near their ends. It looked as though they were sticking to the stone. Between those limbs were membranous tissues that might resemble the wings of bats were they found on anything so wholesome as a bat. The whole thing pulsed like the gullet of a beast drinking from a waterhole in a desert. It was silent in its awfulness, like a spilled blot of ink coagulated against the whiteness of the sanctuary.
“That’s the entrance?” Karol whispered to Parial, after beckoning her forward to join him. She nodded in response and Karol sighed very quietly. “Alright. Alright, well we have no choice. How quickly will the way open when you speak your password?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it opened before. Only Ministers and those of higher station have access to the Sanctuary. Perhaps this thing will depart if we wait a little.”
Karol shook his head. “It’s feeding. It’s feeding on what’s inside and it won’t ever be full, and the supply won’t ever run out.” Mouse, trusting Karol, nodded his head formally in agreement though if he understood what the man meant he gave no other sign. Parial was less inclined to accept such a statement without questioning however. It was in her nature to explore and understand, and it had always been her role and duty to then summarise and explain.
“What is the creature feeding upon? There is nothing inside the Sanctuary but the Draklyn Storm and that is not food for any creature, but rather a site of great reverence.”
“That thing isn’t being reverent,” Karol said, “and it’s hungry for what makes this place important. This – what did you call it – storm? What do you think it is?” He kept his eyes on the creature while he asked this, not seeing any reaction from the thing to their quiet presence at the cloister edge.
Parial should not have been surprised this outlander did not understand. The Draklyn Storm was an obscure concept and difficult to understand even for scholars and highly regarded sages. The Empire’s reach was dependent upon the knowledge of their learned men and women on this topic, but even someone like Parial knew only the basic concepts. It would be hard if not impossible to explain it in depth to someone like Karol. But she would try. “There are sacred sites throughout the world, places of natural power that some believe predate the rise of mankind, placed in position by the dragons who shaped and governed nature,” He would have to accept that as a premise, since Parial did not have time to discuss the various disagreements and counter-theories on the matter. “Our sages have found a way to attune to these sacred places, permitting instant communication to any other similar site. This wisdom and art has enabled the Empire to grow and to govern fairly across the world.”
Karol grunted his assent to the concept and Parial felt proud she had put the matter to him simply enough for an unlearned outsider to follow.
“Draklyn Storm,” he said, “Why storm? Are these places dangerous?”
Parial hesitated and then said “Yes, they can be. It is why access to them is restricted to those with the wisdom and authority to approach them in safety. Well… with less risk. Proximity to the Draklyn Storm can damage the reason of the unprepared.”
“I bet it can,” said Karol, “and that sounds like us. So why were you and the old man trying to get here. To send a message? Just that?”
Parial bowed her head in both acknowledgment of the truth, and to hide the sudden anger she felt. Old man. That old man had been her Minister and for all his faults he had been dutiful to the Empire even to the point of his own death, and had pushed himself beyond his own physical limits to accomplish this last deed. Old man!
“We’ll send a message then,” Karol said, “But first we need to get in there.”
“How can we do that?” Parial’s irritation sounded in her voice, “You said the creature is not going to leave and there is no way into the Sanctuary building except the portal it clings to.”
“It will follow me,” said Karol, “and when it does, you take Mouse and get that door open. Make sure you take all those… wands… with you?”
She was shocked at every aspect of that instruction, but fell back on fine details as a reflex. “They are not wands, they are ackrys rods. Symbols of Imperial authority.”
Karol stood up and moved a step away from the others. “Well make sure you take all that authority with you.” Parial stared at him in disbelief but did not speak to contradict his suicidal intentions. She simply turned to the boy, his arms still full of akrys rods.
“Young boy,” she said, “you must follow me when I move. Do you understand what I am saying?” His eyes were fixed on Karol as the man moved away and out into the open square within the cloister walk, but he nodded his response to Parial’s question. She hoped he’d understood because she would not have time to look after him if things went badly.
Karol circled away from others until he was directly behind the creature and he took a second or two to take stock of the situation. The air above the Sanctuary building was still a deep unnatural red, and though he could not see any of the winged beasts he’d seen earlier he did not doubt they were out there. The whole city smelled of smoke and, especially to the east, the sky was dark with it. The constant incessant screeching of the horde that swept over the city was still there but distant and in directions. What would they do, Karol thought, when they had slain everyone? All he had seen of the creatures so far suggested that was their goal, the annihilation of every living person in Vanguard. They had never seemed inclined to threaten, to bargain, to command. They did not call for surrender. They simply swarmed and swept and slew. But what is their goal? No way of telling as yet, he decided, and it wasn’t immediately relevant. Their method was destruction and Karol was damned if he’d be destroyed regardless of the reason. And to that end he bent and picked up a handful of smooth round pebbles from the border around the cloisters. He could kill a man with one of these, hurled correctly, but these things weren’t men and had died harder than any man he’d faced, so he couldn’t hope to be anything more than a distraction at first. Tossing one of the pebbles in his hand to gauge the weight and balance of it, he snapped his arm forward and sent the missile straight like a bullet into the centre of the creature’s carapace. It hit and sank in a little way before dropping out and falling to the ground. Before the pebble struck the ground though the creature moved and not how Karol had expected. It did not turn its body, or recoil away from the impact, it simply detached some of those foul rubbery arms from the stonework it clung to and bent them toward Karol with inhuman speed, as though it could see or sense him even though he was, as he understood it, behind the thing. Dropping the other pebbles and drawing his sword, Karol swung desperately through the air at the nearest tentacles as they grasped at him. He sliced cleanly through one but the other looped around his left forearm and tightened. The grip burned and Karol felt his blood flowing, seeing it pool around the grasping flesh. He gritted his teeth against the pain, fearing that too much noise would draw other of the enemies, and a second cut of the sword severed the grasping limb. The stumps of those tendrils leaked ichor onto the flagstones and pebbled border but others were coming for Karol now and he dashed back through the archway behind him into the shade of the cloisters. Follow me you bastard he thought, follow me or all this is useless. The creature had now unfasted all its arms from the Sanctuary building and it flopped ungainly to the ground, the membranous wings between the tentacles billowing a little and giving the creature the semblance of a foul cloak, writing along the ground on hideous limbs. With alarming and unpleasant speed it came, pursuing Karol into the shadows, sending its seeking tentacles before it to grab and tear if it could. Finding himself on the defensive, Karol made sure to retreat around the cloisters away from the others, slashing and cutting to keep the thing’s limbs at bay as it billowed and swooped and slithered along the cloisters, filling all the view ahead of him. Karol had impressions of the central carapace on the inner side now, between the segments of the carapace were smooth and liquid bodies, perhaps eyes, perhaps the creature’s inner flesh. He could see no other features, no mouth, no external eyes, nothing. His left arm was dripping blood now and he felt the severed tendril that had wounded him uncoil and drop from him to the ground, leaving behind a matrix of puncture wounds where it had held him. A sudden swipe from the creature’s leading tentacle caught his lower leg and Karol stumbled sideways, chopping downward then stabbing forward to keep away the billowing thing that sought to engulf him.
When the creature had detached from the Sanctuary and fallen to the ground, Parial gestured for Mouse to follow and, keeping her head low out of instinct she sprinted forward from their concealment toward the portal of the Sanctuary building. It was an ornate masterpiece of course as befitted such a place, bearing the Imperial seal and around that the opening stanza of a well loved poem about the Imperial court and its loving authority. She could hear the boy following, his little feet slapping against the stone.
I do not have the authority to do this Parial thought, I hope I will be forgiven. But the Minister said that I must try. She pressed her hands to the stone (it was damp where the creature had clung, like night sweat on a sheet or the warm breath of an unwanted suitor) and she leaned close to speak the word that the Minister had taught her with his dying breath. It was a long and clumsy sounding word, resembling no word from any language Parial knew, and the speaking of it made her head hurt and pain shot through her teeth that made her wince. As she completed the speaking of it though she knew that she had accomplished the deed, that the stone had heard her and was responding. She stepped back, staring at the portal, willing it to move, to raise or lower, to split down some invisible seam and open. Nothing happened. She looked back and around to see where Karol was and saw him in the cloisters, dodging back and around the supports of the archways as that abominable shape flowed and rushed toward him. Many of its tentacles were stumps now but Parial could see new ones bulging and budding from the stumps of the old. The outlander Karol was hardy and swift but she could see he was wounded and did not see how even he could prevail. Something clattered near her and Parial clutched impotently at Mouse as the boy dropped his bundle of akrys rods and dashed toward Karol and the beast. The rods were rolling from the point of impact, clattering against each other and the stone. Parial did not hesitate but flung herself after the boy, stumbling, overbalancing with her reach but grabbing him by the back of his rough tunic and both of them hit the ground. Mouse struggled in her grip but he was just a boy and not a big one and Parial rose clumsily to her feet and picked Mouse up as she rose.
“Go!” Karol called, his voice hitting Parial like an impact. He was almost buried in the thing now, the membranous folds of flesh like a curtain concealing him from her view at times. She looked back and saw that the portal of the Sanctuary building was open now, simply no longer there, She ran toward it not daring to stop and put the boy down, but kicking at the akrys rods as she ran past them, sending a couple of them ahead of her through the open doorway. She fell headlong through it onto a hard stone floor and tightened her grasp on the struggling boy.
“He’s coming,” she said to him, her voice urgent, “he will follow right away.” If he can. But the boy wriggled one arm free of her grasp and pointed behind them. The open doorway of the portal was beginning to take form again, a darkening and thickening of the air as though stone was being born from nothing but misfortune. “No… no…” Parial gasped and let go of the boy to stand and raise her hands, palms out toward the materialisation of the portal. She had whispered the word before and it had been agony. Now she cried it aloud and it was all she could do not to scream as her bones were wracked by lightning and inner fire, building with each syllable, but she could feel that she was halting the closure of the door. Then she was struck hard as something hit her and knocked her backward, heavy and fast, and Karol was there atop her as they both crashed to the floor. He rolled to his feet and snapped at Mouse.
“Stay away from the door,” Outside the creature was approaching like a stormfront, wounded and bleeding ichor from a dozen wounds but still coming, its outline thankfully blurred by the slow reappearance of the stone barrier. And then it was hidden as the door to the Sanctuary building appeared once more and the air snapped around its sudden solidity. Karol relaxed visbly, his shoulders drooping. He had two akrys rods in his left hand and he let them fall, then thrust his sword into the scabbard that he’d hung from his belt. “Well. That’s done.” Mouse rested his hands on the inside of the stone door and frowned a question at it, but no answers came.
Otherworlds 