Stained Glass Monsters (16 page)

"Ah." Rennyn glanced at the Kellian
again, waiting so impassively. "Of course they do."

That produced a nice reaction, a ripple
of shock which ran through the room. Rennyn watched the two
Councillors thoughtfully, seeing the way the one of woman's hands
tightened on the sheet of paper she held, how her eyes brightened.
The man was less unrestrained, but he, too, definitely wanted to
hear bad things said of the Kellian.

"It's the speed, primarily," she
continued, blithely. "Skill with weapons, strength, and the
interesting effects with light are one thing, but the ability to
react quicker than anyone else, that truly takes them to a
different level. But then–"

She reached out her hand, touching her
fingers to the shield. Tiny shimmers of light gathered, then
intensified as she poured raw power into it. The air heated, taking
on a distinct odour of stressed metal, and she watched the shield
retreat in a perfect circle from around her hand. She held it just
long enough for the shield to really strain, then allowed it to
snap back, whole once again. She could swear the entire room let
out its breath at the same time, the explosion at Darasum House no
doubt at the forefront of everyone's minds.

"It's a relative thing, isn't it?" she
said, looking over the table of now very attentive Councillors.
"Once you start talking about potential threats. Any weapon you use
to defend yourself can be turned upon you. But I have no interest
in anything but defeating Solace, and I've seen no sign that the
Kellian want to do more than protect and serve this kingdom. Since
it seems you do want moral judgments, you'd best ask someone who
knows them better. The most I can say is that they seem more
inclined to swallow insults than I am."

The smile she offered the woman was
thoroughly unpleasant, and it was probably a good thing that the
moment was cut by a dull rumble. Rennyn could feel a vibration even
through the thick stone beneath her feet.

"An attack?" said one of the men in the
audience, and there was a small flurry of activity around the
doors. Most of the Kellian were on their feet before the vibration
had died away, but were waiting before reacting further. Rennyn's
senses were currently overwhelmed by the shield, but she closed her
eyes to try and feel for worked magic beyond the usual background
enchantments of the palace. Nothing major sprang to her
attention.

Captain Illuma, who had remained seated,
casting, stood abruptly. "My Lady, there are Eferum-Get loose in
the palace. At least five." She didn't pause for a response,
leading the Sentene out through the iron-bound door at the rear of
the shielded area.

"Is this one of the Grand Summoning's
incursions?" the Queen asked, unshaken but frowning. "I understood
their time and location to be already known."

"It must be a natural breach," Lady
Weston said. "They will increase in frequency as the Summoning
progresses. But it is an unusually large number of Eferum-Get for a
natural–" She looked sharply at Rennyn. "Could the man Helecho have
the ability to open breaches?"

"If he had, I expect Tyrland would
already be overrun," Rennyn said. "But recall, I said it was
possible Solace has Eferum-Get guards. Any breach or gate within
the palace could well be opening among an army's ranks."

"How convenient for the Kellian," said
the man on the left of the examiner's table, flushing. "Before
their activities can be properly investigated, they are handed a
dramatic opportunity to prove themselves. Are we supposed to
believe this is a coincidence?"

"Do you propose I should recall them,
and allow the palace guard to deal with this?" Lady Weston asked,
and turned away. "You had best move to a safer location, Your
Majesty."

The Queen stood unhurriedly. "Continue
your questions at a later time, Baron Ridehalt. I fail to see how
this will change the answers you will receive." She nodded at
Rennyn. "Thank you for your candour, Lady Montjuste-Surclere."

Wondering if that was meant to be
ironic, Rennyn turned expectantly to the official controlling the
shield, and stepped down as soon as he dropped it. She crossed to
Lady Weston, who had paused to cast a divination.

"Don't deal with it as an ordinary
breach," she advised tersely. "If there is real organisation among
the Eferum-Get, then this lot very likely have targets. To which
point, I'm going to stand over my brother."

She looked for the nearest shadow and
twisted it around herself, taking herself back to Seb's room. It
wasn't a safe method of travel when moving out of line of sight,
but she was worried, and more so when she arrived to find Seb gone.
Given the bonds cast between them, it was easy enough to divine his
direction, and she strode swiftly through the Sentene's barracks,
crossing to the Arkathan.

Ignoring a bothersome woman who wanted
to know her business, Rennyn quickly found her way to the second
floor, and a small room with a matched pair of Sentene and royal
guardsmen standing outside it. She hadn't encountered this
particular pair of Sentene before, but since they appeared to be
bodyguarding, not responding to the breach, she paused a moment to
let them know what was going on.

"Do you have any information about the
type?" asked the Sentene mage, a barrel-chested man so wide his
uniform turned him into a Phoenix-embossed wall.

"None. I'm going to put a shield up
around this room. Stay in or out as suits you."

Rennyn opened the door to find a
classroom where her brother appeared to be playing teacher to a
half-dozen youths around his age. He broke off when he saw her.
"What's happening?"

"Small outbreak of Eferum-Get," Rennyn
said, studying the diagram her brother had been busy creating. "Why
are you inflicting your theories about Eferum distortion on
defenceless minds?"

"Eh, well, Kendall wanted an explanation
of why the Eferum runs at a different pace. Sukata found us an
empty room. Everyone else just poked their noses in."

Rennyn considered the diagram again,
then smiled at the girl from Falk. "Seb's the last person I'd ask
to explain the Eferum. He thinks he understands it."

"Does he?" the girl asked, with extreme
doubt. Seb's explanation had obviously reached the convoluted
stage.

"More than most. I'm going to shield
this room, so if anyone wants to go elsewhere, do it soon." Leaving
the door open, she moved to the nearest corner and began to chalk a
line of sigils down the wall.

"You think one might stray all the way
out to the Houses?" asked one blond youth, presumably Crown Prince
Justin since the decorative guardsmen had hurried to stand on
either side of him.

"Depends on what they're hunting."
Rennyn made a correction to one of the sigils and moved to a
different corner.

"Is your sister in the building,
Highness?" Seb asked abruptly.

"She shouldn't be," Prince Justin said.
"I told her to go back to the palace." He turned to one of his
bodyguards. "Ridgeway, go check the dining hall. Bring her back
here if you see her."

The guardsman went off at a run, and
nervous conversation broke out, which Rennyn ignored, concentrating
on chalking the long series of sigils in each corner and at the
halfway points of the walls. If the shield was necessary at all,
there was likely little time left to finish it.

The Sentene, being charged with the
protection of more than just Rennyn's brother, herded the occupants
of neighbouring rooms in to fill most of the seats. This produced
an annoying babble, rising when the guardsman returned with a small
blonde girl and her own set of attendants. Rennyn climbed on one of
the desks and scribbled on the ceiling.

"But it's daytime!" the girl protested,
though she was plainly enjoying the drama. "The walkway between the
Houses and the main bit of the palace is all open and sunny. Night
Roamers couldn't come here."

"Only the weakest and the strongest
Night Roamers are killed by sunlight, Highness," said the wall-like
Sentene, coming into the room. "All dislike it and many are hurt by
it, but there's more than a few which can venture out into it."

As Rennyn climbed off the desk, she
glimpsed another Sentene pair out in the hallway. Reinforcements.
She knelt and rapidly began chalking the last set of sigils in the
centre of the floor. They wouldn't have sent reinforcements if the
incursion had been defeated already.

"Five Escaton-types have been located in
the palace," the Sentene mage continued, dropping his voice a
little, though the room had immediately fallen to a fascinated
hush. "It won't be long before they're dealt with, but Captain
Illuma's divinations show curious results, and there's been reports
and signs of something large moving which we can't isolate. Almost
as if it's shielded."

Food for thought. One thing Eferum-Get
didn't usually do was cast shields on themselves.

"Could it be him?" Seb asked, leaping to
the same conclusion.

Rennyn finished the last of the sigils
first, and stood up. "I doubt it. His personal shielding was
perfect. But I wouldn't put it past him to cast shields on
Eferum-Get."

"And send them after me?"

"He may not even know you exist, Seb.
But as wicked uncles go, I think this one would take great delight
in getting something to eat you in front of me."

"Should we move, Your Highness?" one of
the guardsmen asked Prince Justin. "There is a well fortified room
in the Houses' central tower."

The prince glanced at the Sentene in the
doorway, then shook his head. "We would need to take some of this
room's defenders with us. And–" He offered Rennyn a little bow.
"I've heard enough about Lady Montjuste-Surclere's strength to
suspect this might be the safest place on Aliace Hill."

Rennyn just started casting. Safety
would only come when the shield was complete.

Kendall was entirely envious of
Sebastian's sister's ability to ignore people. She acted like she
couldn't even see the twenty Arkathan students sitting at and on
the desks around her, let alone hear their whispered comments.
Turning away from Prince Justin, she gave the sigils on the floor a
sharp look and began pumping power into them.

It really was becoming clearer. Not just
people casting, but already existing enchantments. Kendall could
even tell when she'd crossed an active circle. None of it made much
sense yet, but it was a far more positive sign than the long days
of failing to do more than make pebbles jump unpredictably.

The sigils began to glow as Rennyn
Montjuste-Surclere spoke softly beneath her breath, bluish light
working from the top to bottom of each row at the same time.
Kendall couldn't see the shield which was being created, but felt
like she was being boxed in. There was a moment when the final
sigil flared and, even though the door was still open, Kendall knew
she wouldn't be able to walk through it. It was like the room
itself was telling her so.

"Sealed for air as well?" asked the
gigantic Sentene mage, his rumbling voice more curious than
concerned. Unlike the royal guardsmen, the Sentene just looked
alert and interested.

"You think this will take so long we'd
have to worry?" asked Rennyn, then shrugged and followed her
brother as he moved back to where Kendall and Sukata were sitting
by the windows closest to the chalk-board.

Kendall seized the opportunity. "Can I
ask something?"

"Why not? It's my day for answering
questions."

"Your brother was trying to explain how
everything goes slower in the Eferum. That an hour there is like
two days or more in the real world. But if that's so, then wouldn't
the Black Queen have only been in the Eferum for a year or
two?"

"Not far from that. The distortion is
variable, and we don't know anything of what it's like when you
move away from this world. But I doubt more than two or three years
would have passed for her."

"Then, if it's – if what everyone's been
saying about her having a second son, one born in the Hells, is
true – why isn't he still a baby?"

"Mmph. Have you heard any of the
theories on the origins of the Eferum-Get?"

"Not really." They were monsters. They
lived in the Hells. They ate people. What more was there to
say?

"A common idea is that the Eferum-Get
are the nightmares of this world, conjured into existence by our
fears. I can't be sure exactly how my Wicked Uncle came to be, but
I'd be surprised if Solace went through any form of pregnancy.
Maybe he sprang fully-formed from her forehead."

Kendall checked the expressions of those
around her, not certain if she was misunderstanding an attempt at
humour. "You mean she just thought him up?"

"It's entirely possible, though it's
equally possible she went through some form of ritual or...activity
with a thing which could be called his father. Certainly the
dominant school of thought is that Eferum-Get 'come into being',
rather than do anything so mundane as breeding – that they only
become capable of doing so when they reach this world and begin to
adapt to its nature. In either case, it wouldn't make this Helecho
any less her son."

"The Eferum operates on an entirely
different set of rules from this world," Sebastian put in, because
he always would try and explain anything and everything, no matter
how much Kendall discouraged him. "There's no physical surfaces, no
air. You float in Efera, raw magic moving all around and through
you, without any need to eat or breathe. It's very easy to lose
your sense of self. A weak-willed person venturing into the Eferum
is more likely to forget to come back than be attacked. A
strong-willed person, someone able to hold back the tide of magic,
blazes with a sense of Self which can leak through the best
shielding. It's a place of the mind, of emotion, and most
importantly of will."