Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

‘He didn’t have the knowledge,’ Steven said aloud.

‘Correct, what knowledge? We can paint the damned thing yellow. Well, Steven, it’s time: get painting.’ Mrs Winter zipped her parka up tight, as if the chill along the beach might kill her long before the legions of homicidal warriors got to her.

‘It was magic, compassion and maths,’ Steven said. ‘Maths – all right, I get it – but what maths? This isn’t a maths problem…’

‘Oh yes it is,’ she said.

‘But I don’t see-’ Steven stopped his backwards withdrawal. What’s here? What am I missing? There are soldiers, thousands and thousands of soldiers. They’re in ranks, but they aren’t straight. It’s a mess. No straight lines. They came though a hole. What hole? The Fold. How deep is it? Do I fill it? The tears, those rips, that’s where the hole came from. They’re irregular, nothing predictable or even. An irregular hole, constantly changing shape. It’s a half-mile long and three hundred feet across. And how deep? How deep is the Fold? How far is it to Eldarn? It approaches infinity. A half-mile by three hundred feet – but fluctuating – by a number approaching infinity. Fuck this. Fuck this!

Garec and Jennifer were shouting something. Hannah, still wrapped in three coats, was running towards him. Milla and Alen were gone. Gilmour was dead, torn to pieces. And Mrs Winter, the old woman he had nearly trampled as he hurried home for Lessek’s key, was here on Jones Beach, prompting him as calmly and reassuringly as a tutor.

A half-mile by three hundred feet, by a number approaching infinity. But it’s all in motion; it’s a frigging amoeba, impossible to measure, impossible to capture. It isn’t a circle; it’s a hole, a messy hole. But what? What do I do with it? I can’t kill all these people, these – these whatever they are. It was maths, magic and compassion. I can’t kill… Nerak deserved compassion. It was the hickory staff. Nerak needed a chance; he’d been taken against his will. Compassion was the answer. This is the Fold. This is evil. This is different. Maths, magic and knowledge. Not compassion.

‘Not compassion,’ he said to Mrs Winter.

‘Not this time, no.’

‘I was wrong,’ Steven said, ‘it isn’t about compassion. That was for Nerak; the staff’s magic, that’s how I defeated Nerak.’

‘But this is about knowledge.’ Mrs Winter took his hand. ‘What have you learned? What knowledge have you gained?’

‘Magic is about knowledge.’

‘And of compassion?’

‘It is more powerful; I am most powerful when I-’

‘But not now,’ she interrupted.

‘We bury these fuckers alive. It’s evil; they get nothing from me, from us.’

‘Maths, magic and knowledge, Steven.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Get painting.’

Mark Jenkins’ invasion forces were five ranks deep and nearly half a mile across. Steven estimated their numbers at more than fifty thousand – positively overwhelming, far too many to battle head-on. The jagged tear in the Fold, the origin, the destination and the Larion spell table, had expanded like bacteria mutating in a petri dish. The breakwater south of Jones Beach State Park had all but disappeared, opening into a foul-smelling void that bridged the gap between Steven Taylor and the military encampment outside Welstar Palace. It’s why he ordered them all back to Malakasia, Steven thought. He needed as many as he could bring to bear against us. This is the occupation force, cruelly deformed, that held Eldarn hostage for generations. A half-mile by three hundred feet, by a number approaching infinity and growing.

‘Let me up,’ Hannah cried, pushing Garec and her mother back.

‘Can you run?’ Jennifer asked frantically. ‘Honey, we need to run!’

‘What’s that?’ Hannah pointed into the breakwater, behind the last row of soldiers wading to shore.

Garec squinted, then stood up suddenly. ‘Whoring rutters, it’s Milla!’

‘What’s she doing?’ Jennifer asked. ‘Is that someone with her? Alen?’

‘We have to go!’ Hannah shrugged out of the layers. ‘We have to reach her.’

‘Through them?’ Jennifer wrestled her towards the boardwalk. ‘We have to save ourselves – there’re twenty thousand of those things between us and them.’

Hannah wasn’t listening. ‘Steven,’ she muttered, trying to break free, ‘not yet, Steven! Don’t do it yet! Milla’s out there!’ Twisting away, she ran to Steven and the old woman with him.

Garec cursed. ‘I’ll go after them.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ Jennifer shook. Creatures from her worst nightmares – no, even more horrific than that; she could never have dreamed such monstrosities – had emerged from the North Atlantic and were trudging up the beach.

‘Maybe I can go around them,’ Garec murmured to himself.

‘They stretch for half a mile on either side, you raging idiot – you’ll get yourself killed.’

Garec grimaced, lowered his shoulders and, unarmed, charged the forward ranks. He managed to bully his way through the first line of dazed killers. The second, however, did not part for him; Garec screamed when they dragged him to the sand.

‘Steven,’ Hannah cried, ‘you have to wait. Milla’s out there. She’s alive.’

‘What?’ Steven hoped he’d misunderstood. ‘What are you talking about? They’re fifty feet away – we can’t wait.’

‘Look.’ She pointed into the breakwater. Someone else was there; Steven guessed it was Alen, but the Larion sorcerer wasn’t swimming well: he’d been injured somehow.

‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘she’s outside the ranks, outside the Fold. I don’t think she’ll be hurt.’

Mrs Winter nodded. ‘That’s right. Well done.’

Steven went on, ‘We’ll get her in just a moment.’

‘What if she can’t wait a moment?’ Hannah pleaded.

‘Then, like us, she’ll be dead.’ He closed his eyes. Someone nearby was screaming, an unnerving shriek for help. It was a man’s voice, but Steven didn’t bother to look up. He couldn’t afford the distraction now. Milla was paddling towards shore, so he had to finish this quickly or the little girl might swim directly into the Fold. The being of spray and sea foam that Steven had seen orchestrating the invasion was still there, suspended above the very place where the black man, the one oblivious to the cold, had disappeared.

A half-mile by three hundred feet, by a number approaching infinity. Those are the dimensions, but the frigging thing isn’t regular. It’s all over the place and moving, for fuck’s sake. Magic is knowledge and there is no compassion, not today. Today is maths and magic. Christ, it’s cold out here. Knowledge and magic equal power, powers of magic, powers of math, powers of dimensions. Holy shit. Holy shit, that’s it. Give it limits, what, zero and infinity. No, not infinity. Zero and half a mile, zero and three hundred feet. Yes, length and width, as a function. F of X between zero and half a mile, zero and three hundred feet. F of X minus G of X; all of it times the derivative as depth approaches infinity and fuck you very much.

The numbers lined up in his head, his own ranks of disciplined soldiers. The magic responded like a wellspring, surging from the depths of his consciousness, not a wild blast or a frantic spell to save his life, but a concerted, organised attack, perfectly formed for the threat at hand.

He remembered everything:

Gilmour on horseback in the Ronan meadow: The Fold is the space between everything that is known and unknown. It is the absence of perception and therefore the absence of reality. Nothing exists there except evil, because the original architects of our universe could not avoid creating it.

With Gilmour on Seer’s Peak: I was angry with myself, because anyone incapable of mercy is the most evil enemy we can face. That night, I became that person.