Stained Glass Monsters

Chapter Five

There was something more than strange about Captain Faille. Kendall hadn’t noticed anything except his weird voice during the fuss and turmoil of evacuating Falk, but this morning in Sark she’d seen that his hair was blond not grey; a pale, clear yellow like wine. Or so she’d thought, but inside the carriage it had looked grey again, transparent and faded. It was very fine, reminding Kendall a little of feathers: short, soft and following the shape of his skull. When they had the door closed and no handy magelight uncovered so that it was all gloom inside, it had been hard to see him at all. Unlike Danress with her bright hair, he faded most completely into his corner, till only the Montjuste Phoenix reminded Kendall anyone was there at all.

Kendall had been debating whether it was only imagination when one of the Ferumguard knocked on the outside of the carriage, and the driver drew them up. Both Sentene got out to see what was going on, and Captain Faille paused a moment just outside the door to say something to Lady Weston. Kendall could only stare, for his hair was most definitely blond now, sunshine gold, and his eyes were yellow disks, the pupil drowned. Lit from within, like there was a candle inside him.

That certainly wasn’t imagination, though Kendall rubbed at her own eyes as if that would change what she’d seen. She glanced surreptitiously at the Grand Magister, who had been busy making notes in a journal, but must surely have seen it as well.

"Lady Weston?"

"Yes, child?"

"Why does Captain Faille keep changing colours?"

The Grand Magister hesitated, though she didn’t seem surprised. "Faille has, quite a number of the Sentene have non-human ancestry. Have you heard of the Kellian?"

The word was vaguely familiar. "Wasn’t that the name of the Black Queen’s bodyguards?"

"Just so. They were a magical construct, a variation of a flesh golem. Their descendents are rather more human, but retain many of the properties of the Kellian. It makes them ideal for dealing with strays from the Eferum, for those creatures are difficult to find or combat without the ability to sense Efera in some form. Others among the Sentene are descended from higher Eferum-Get."

Kendall was incredulous. "Stalkers can have children? With people?"

"Not those particularly. Most Eferum-Get have little intelligence, and the Life Stealers don’t even have any substance. Stalkers are monstrous animals. But occasionally something different emerges into our world. These are not unlike humans. Travellers, they’re known as. They appear in our world for only a few days, and have a tendency to take an interest in, ah, willing females. Danress is a grandchild of one such as this."

"Really?" This was the last thing Kendall would have expected of the freckled and carrot-topped Danress.

Lady Weston laughed at her. "Truly. Indeed, some argue that all with mage talent could unearth Eferum-Get in their family tree, if only they looked back far enough. For Danress, it is merely fewer generations."

The carriage door opened again, and Lieutenant Danress climbed in, looking entirely human even in her impressive uniform. Captain Faille remained standing outside, his eyes small suns.

"A messenger sent to intercept us, M’Lady. There’s a sighting outside a town east of here. At least two Escaton-types."

"We’ll divert," Lady Weston said immediately.

Captain Faille nodded, and closed the door again. The carriage shook as he climbed up with the driver, and then they started off again.

"The first incursion brought on by the Summoning?" Lieutenant Danress asked.

"Very likely. Prepare yourself, Jolien. Escaton are not to be taken lightly."

The Lieutenant nodded, then drew a hinged book of slates out of her coat and opened it. She spent the rest of the journey drawing chalk symbols and making them glow. Lady Weston took another slate-book out of her bag and filled it with tiny, precise writing but not making it glow. Kendall sat taking up seat-space, wondering if Escatons were something other than Night Roamers, since Night Roamers just didn’t come out except at night, and trying to decide whether she could really herself be just a little bit not human. It would be interesting to be a person who messengers rode furiously to fetch. How good a mage would she have to be, to become a Sentene? And how silly would she look in that coat?

It had grown overcast by the time the carriage drew to a halt, and a fine misting rain was keeping everything in whatever town this was damp. A far bigger place than Falk, with a lot of dark stone crawled over with ivy. The carriage had drawn up in the centre of a cobbled, lichen-spattered square and when Kendall jumped down she could see the main part of the town to the right, and to the left a hedge-lined road. Straight ahead was a stone wall topped with a spiked fence, along which stood a row of musket-men with their guns trained on the fields. Guns, even magicked ones, were said to be not very effective against Night Roamers, but a whole row of them might be worth trying. A great heap of other people were confident enough to crowd to either side of them, peering through the fence.

"Thank you for coming," said a round, elderly woman, moving toward them among a group of town guard. "They were sighted several hours ago, and went to ground almost immediately. One we inadvertently flushed while putting up a cordon, but we did not pursue and have not seen it since, so we do not think it moved far."

"Fortunate that we reached here before nightfall," Lady Weston commented, inclining her head to the townswoman. "If you will tell us the layout of the area infested, we will decide our approach."

While the old lady proceeded to use a lot of words to say there were a few fields criss-crossed by hedges and the occasional line of trees, Kendall watched Captain Faille do his own bit of preparation. First he took off the coat, revealing a uniform fashioned of heavy black cloth reinforced with dark leather. Much more practical for fighting. Then he slid a long, thin sword from beneath one of the seats and strapped it to his back. His hair and eyes had gone grey again, and the fine rain spun about him and turned him into an insubstantial thing, a man of mist wearing night.

It was the first time Kendall had even seen the whole of the Captain’s face. He was more fine-boned than she’d expected, the jaw almost delicate, but his mouth was a thin, harsh stroke bracketed by bitter lines. There was something about his proportions, a stretching that went beyond long-limbed. He was very tall, and whip-cord muscular and…wrong to look at. Best of all, he had claws. Or, at least, nails which projected past the fingertip and finished in a point which looked sharp enough to cut. He, far more than Lieutenant Danress, really did look like he’d been fathered by something out of the Hells.

Not wanting to be caught staring, Kendall looked away, and felt her jaw sag. A woman had walked up the hedge-lined road, and had that moment reached the point where it opened up into the square. She was dressed for riding. Her hair was long and black and she wore a hat with ribbons trailing off the back. She saw Kendall staring at her and went still, then turned her head to one side as if considering a sudden retreat.

Captain Faille had caught Kendall’s change of expression. He pivoted on his heel, gazed at the only person standing in that direction, and said "M’Lady" in a warning tone, so that the Grand Magister and Lieutenant Danress turned. Kendall was very surprised when, after another moment’s hesitation, the black-haired woman began walking toward them.

"Child, is this–?" Lady Weston began, and Kendall nodded. "No coincidence at all, then." Lady Weston sounded dangerously pleased. After staving off the townswoman with a word, she went to meet the person who’d saved them all the trouble of hunting her down, Kendall and the Sentene in train.

"It seems the adage about no good deed going unpunished is a true one," the woman said when they were in earshot. The quizzical look she added sent a sudden rush of heat over Kendall’s face and throat. She hadn’t thought about it properly, but this woman had saved her life. She hadn’t gained anything out of that, had just done it for no reason that Kendall could see. In return, Kendall had put the Sentene on her trail.

That’s what you got for not minding your own business.

Still, she didn’t look too terribly upset, and was eyeing Lady Weston without any sign of dismay. "You have something to say to me?"

"I have a great many things to ask you, young woman," Lady Weston said, and Kendall blinked at the ice in her voice. "You will not deny foreknowledge of these events, I presume?"

"No."

"I wonder that you can admit it so calmly." Lady Weston did not at all resemble the relaxed gentlewoman Kendall had spent a day watching. Instead, holding herself very erect, each word clear and clipped, she was truly the Grand Magister, commander of Tyrland’s magical defences, and very angry indeed. She lifted a hand and one of her bracelets began to glow. As the air filled with a scent like overheated metal, Kendall saw there were sigils etched around the circle of silver. A hot wind swirled around the black-haired woman, who frowned and held on to her hat, looking none too pleased herself.

"Now," Lady Weston said grimly. "You will tell me who it is who has cast this Grand Summoning, where they cast it from, and how they reconstructed the spell."

The woman didn’t respond immediately, her dark eyes narrowed and her mouth turned down. Kendall could see the faint mist of raindrops turning to a haze of steam as they came close to her, and tried to guess at what exactly the spell did. Then the stranger let out a little tuh of breath.

"Solace Ariendal Montjuste-Surclere cast it," she said, her voice underlaid with irritation. "She cast it from the Summoning Hall, at the palace in Asentyr. As for reconstruction–"

She looked at the ground, and Kendall gasped, rocked back on her heels by a boiling gale which blasted out from the woman all the way across the square. Suddenly the horses were snorting and backing, the crowd was gawping inward instead of outward, and Captain Faille had somehow drawn his sword and had it at the woman’s throat.

The stranger shifted her eyes to him briefly, but remained facing Lady Weston. "You are over-hasty," she said. "And are asking questions to which you should already know the answers. This is no recreation. It is the first, the only Grand Summoning."

"But Queen Solace was killed," Kendall protested, when it seemed no-one else would speak. "The Prince killed her."

"Tiandel pushed her deep into the Eferum. That could have killed her, but it seems not, since she keeps coming back."

"Keeps–?" Lady Weston began, then stopped, and gestured for Captain Faille to move away his sword. "The White Lady phenomenon has each time been an expression of Queen Solace’s Grand Summoning?"

"At the earliest stage."

"The Summoning starts over?" Lieutenant Danress asked. "But, then, why has it not gone further until now? What’s different about this time?"

"It’s more what was different about last time," the woman replied, then glanced toward the fascinated audience along the fence. "You do know there’s a Kentatsuki roaming around over there?"

Both Sentene stiffened, their attention shifting firmly to the fields beyond the town.

"The breach here was larger than I was expecting, though only a few Eferum-Get passed through it," continued the woman steadily. "The next major one will be in Asentyr, the Temple District near the Devourer’s Shrine. Close to midnight, the third night from now." She turned, obviously intending to just walk away.

"Wait." Lady Weston was no longer angry, but there remained a great deal of command in her voice. "You haven’t told us what your involvement in this is. How do you know these things? What are you planning?"

"I plan to stop her, of course." The woman gave the faintest smile, as if she knew how unlikely that sounded, then added: "I’d appreciate you not interfering."

"Inter–" Lady Weston’s head came up, a combination of affront and amusement. "Where is your sense? If you speak the truth, then the best course is for us to join forces."

The woman shook her head, and started off. "All that would achieve would be to expose myself to attack," she said over her shoulder. "I can’t risk being too easy to find."

"M’Lady?" asked Captain Faille softly.

"Let her be." Lady Weston looked down at her hand, and Kendall saw there was a fresh burn mark around her wrist. The bracelet was gone. "Set one of the Ferumguard to follow her, though I doubt that will serve much purpose. She spoke the truth before she broke my injunction, so we have the information we needed, for what little good it does us. Nor can we neglect a Kentatsuki for a moment longer than strictly necessary. Go."

The Sentene strode off, and Lady Weston returned to the townswoman, rattling off a string of orders. Kendall, well aware that she’d ceased to be important as soon as she’d identified the black-haired woman, returned to the coach.

For some reason she didn’t want to watch, didn’t want to try and catch a glimpse of whatever was roaming around out there. All her life she’d been warned about Stalkers and Life Stealers, heard tales of Night Roamers rarer and more powerful, but she’d never seen any. She didn’t want to start.

Now what? Kendall had few illusions about how much she’d be involved after they’d reached Asentyr. Even if she was able to learn to be a mage, all that meant was that she’d be shuffled off to some school. Would Lady Weston pay for that? Or would Kendall be expected to work off some debt, once she had the means? That was the trap you fell into when you started letting people do things for you. They always expected something in return.

Not that she could go home. Falk was kindling, and none of the surrounding towns were a good idea. None of Tyrland was a good idea.

Threats to the kingdom, magic and monsters; it was all completely beyond the day-to-day worry about food and savings which had been Kendall’s world since Gran died. What would it be like to be that woman? To be so powerful, to know what was going on, to be in control. What kind of person could stare down the Grand Magister, ignore a sword at her throat, dare even to say they were going to stop Black Queen Solace?

It seemed to Kendall that if that was what a mage could be, she would certainly have to try it.