James Barclay - Beyond the Mists of Katura

‘Your right! Incoming,’ called Stein, flying in harder, knowing he couldn’t get there in time.

The TaiGethen kicked out at her first target, forcing him to back away hard on wings that flickered and steadied. Belatedly she sensed the threat and began to turn. The mage surged in, his hands outstretched. A shape tight to the rock face flashed past Stein and dropped onto the mage. There was a flash of steel and the mage’s wings vanished.

The human dropped and the TaiGethen used his corpse to push himself back against the wall. He scrabbled for purchase, seeking a handhold, but there was none. Stein flew down hard and flattened him against the wall, arresting his descent as much as he could. The elf found a handhold and gripped it hard with his fingertips.

‘You hadn’t thought that last part through, had you?’ said Stein.

‘No,’ admitted Auum. ‘Though I don’t think the fall would have actually killed me. You can let go now, I’m safe.’

Stein boomed a laugh and shot back up into the sky, seeking his next target. It presented itself immediately. Six Xeteskians flying in a tight formation blew through a line of Julatsans, sending one down wingless and the others to spiral away while they fought to maintain their castings. They rushed the wall, colliding with Il-Aryn and TaiGethen alike, dislodging three or four.

Stein called any to him that could hear him and flew in hard behind them. The enemy pushed off from the wall and turned for another attack. Il-Aryn were screaming, one hung from the hand of a TaiGethen warrior herself hanging from a precarious fingerhold. They were more than eighty feet from the ground and the Il-Aryn was crying for aid fit to burst his lungs.

Stein stormed in, seeing another two Julatsan elves on the way. The Xeteskians barrelled in. Stein got between them and the helpless climbers. He kicked out and flailed his fists, trying to connect with anything and finding precious little there. His momentum took him past so he stood on the air, angled his wings acutely and turned back in.

The two elves arrowed in feet first, driving three of the enemy back. Stein got among the others, a fist connecting satisfyingly with a jaw. He took a blow to his side and twisted over, the sick feeling of his wings passing through another’s casting crossing his mind.

Then arms were about him, clogging his wings with a stream of mana. Stein felt his casting begin to fail. He kicked back, attempted to get his own counter-stream going and writhed in the grip of his enemy, trying to turn. From the left, towards the wall, he heard a mourning sound.

The mage’s grip relaxed and Stein pushed away and turned, his wings strengthening. The Xeteskian was pawing at a jaqrui jutting from the back of his head. He whimpered and then plunged to the ground. Stain looked to the wall. Auum was leaning out from a crack into which his hand was jammed.

Stein nodded and headed up. He could hear Auum shouting, his orders travelling up and down the wall.

‘Get them moving. We’re out of time.’

Stein turned yet again and saw he was right. The Xeteskian mages had all but finished their work on the ground. The enemy were peeling away from the fight in the air, heading out to prepare on the ground. He spun one more time, seeing the Il-Aryn begin to move, but it was horribly slow. Half of them were barely twenty feet from the ground and had no hope of getting high enough.

But he could save them, some of them anyway.

Takaar could sense it but he could not divine any way to access it, though he was convinced he was standing on the doorway. He had sensed these sorts of energies before, three thousand and more years ago on Hausolis when he had triggered the gateway to Calaius. It had been a mystery to him then and it remained frustratingly so now.

Down there, because it felt like ‘down’, was a small room in a wholly different dimension to Balaia. Enormous energy swirled and played within its tight boundaries, the merest tendrils of which leaked up through the doorway. Takaar had traced its outlines in the dust and could sense residual human magical force lingering there. They had come close, the Julatsans, far closer than the Xeteskians, who had been looking in entirely the wrong place.

‘If only I had known you.’ Takaar knelt on the opening and let his tears fall in the dust. ‘Such dreams we could have shared. We were only separated by a stretch of water yet had no knowledge of one another. The two greatest minds in magic ignorant of the greatest gift either of them could possess — each other.’

It’s good to see your opinion of yourself hasn’t suffered at all even though every one of your followers has deserted you.

‘It is a tragedy that has blighted the history of man and elf,’ said Takaar, stroking the hidden doorway and smearing his tears across the dust. ‘Together, we could have done such great things.’

Made something even more devastating than Dawnthief, you mean?

‘Like the rest of them, you don’t understand. A meeting of such minds could have solved so many problems, proved the existence of our gods, cured disease, brought comfort to every soul living here and on Calaius.’

Such modest ambitions.

‘Stop your mewling complaints!’ thundered Takaar. He stood and clutched at his head. His blood roared around his skull. ‘Get out of me! What use have I for you? Seeking to bring me down all the time, criticising even my dreams. You are hated, despised. Get out! I want nothing more to do with you.’

But I am you.

‘NO! Without you I could soar. Live free of pain and doubt. I could realise my dreams, surpass them and become the elf I was destined to be. An elf whose name is revered throughout history, whose statue stands in every temple and city. A god among elves, not merely walking with them, as one of them. And you are holding me back.’

Yet it is you, O god of elves, who cannot open a mere door.

Takaar dropped back to the ground and wept, his head in his hands and all his failures crushing his spirit. And this was surely the greatest of them all. Just a door , and he couldn’t open it. Like a child trying for a latch beyond reach he could only stare in frustration. But a child would grow taller and the task be rendered simple, whereas this would remain impenetrable without the man who had locked it.

‘There has to be a way.’

He dug at the ground with his fingers and he could see in his mind the shovels that had been used in this place, fruitlessly digging ever deeper. He laughed at their pathetic attempts and their lack of basic understanding. They could dig for miles but the door would not be revealed because it existed elsewhere. Nothing would open it.

‘And you died without revealing your secrets. Took them with you because the world was not worthy of them. I would have held them for you. And I have secrets of my own that I would have shared with you because only you would understand them.’

You’re so sure he died?

The tone was so gentle it made Takaar start. He frowned, having to think for a moment.

‘Surely there can be no doubt of that? He either perished down there or in the inferno that took this place. And with him went so much spirit .’

So what will you do?

‘What is there to do?’

Septern saved the world when he died. He took the secrets of Dawnthief with him, and they will never be recovered.

‘But look at what was lost! All that he could have given to the world went with him.’