If it had felt as if I was walking up an icy waterfall before, now it felt like that waterfall had redoubled in volume and ferocity. I staggered backwards and fell as my heel caught a gravestone. I hit the ground hard; it felt like the pressure was going to hammer me into the frozen ground like an oversized nail. The standing stones I had blundered past acted to contain and channel the power that bled from the broken nexus, and I had blundered into the midst of that rampant energy like a blind fool. The sound was almost worse than the pressure, a pulsing drone that resonated deep within me, making it feel like each of my bones was shivering independently of any others and my teeth were loosening in their sockets. There was no end to it, no break in which I could marshal my strength and find a way through, just the unbroken cacophony of a hundred spells woven into one and the psychic earthquake of two worlds colliding.
I tried to pull myself up, but the droning was in my mind, the unending rhythm of it pushing my thoughts from my mind. I couldn’t even remember how to lift my arm, let alone fight back. Something glittered at the edge of my vision, a piercing blue mote like midwinter ice struck by the sun. It grew closer and I fought to raise my arms to fend it off, but I felt them being knocked away and could do nothing as the glittering shape fell onto my head.
A wonderful heat spread through me as it struck, a wave that began at my forehead and pulsed through my flesh, throwing off the crushing grip of the magic, if only temporarily. I didn’t question the sudden reprieve and hastily woke the defences I had been preparing, shaping them to meet the new danger as best I could. The weight of the magics fell upon me again as the heat passed, pressing at the wards I had set. Arcs of pain shot through my head as I fed more power into them. I felt them buckle inwards, but by the grace of the stars, the structure was sound and they held.
I sat up to find Tatyana and Lucien slumped beside me, delicate feathers of frost already covering their bodies. Her arms were outstretched, and on the ground next to me lay the medallion I had given her, the stone at the centre still glowing as if lit from within. I snatched it up and felt the pressure in my head ease again. It was a powerful tool, a hidden weapon against whatever terrible magics Navar could, and most certainly would, unleash upon me. I pushed their bodies off me and weighed the artefact in my hands for a moment as I gazed down at them. They were surely as good as dead, and even if they somehow survived this, Navar and his cabal would make short work of them.
I had intended to say goodbye to them, but instead I found myself pushing the medallion under Tatyana’s armour and laying Lucien across her.
‘I’m a fool,’ I grunted to no one, and pulled myself to my feet. The dead had finally overcome Norak, or perhaps he had simply spent the last of his essence, and the remnants of the horde were now shuffling towards me. They no longer had the numbers to overwhelm me though, and I set upon them with my claws, shredding the dry, icy flesh like kindling or twisting their heads from their necks. The exercise warmed my blood and helped shake off the worst of the chill. Tatyana and Lucien were just about on their feet by the time I felled the last, albeit that both looked like drunks who had woken in a snowdrift.
‘Thank you,’ I said, but she barely nodded. The medallion had restored them, but they were only human, their bodies unused to absorbing the magic it radiated. I cursed under my breath as I siphoned off yet another measure of my sorcery and, with my hands on their heads, pulsed it into their bodies, driving out the lingering lethargy and will-sapping residue of the magic that was eating at them. They recoiled as if struck, but I held them fast until I was satisfied they were lucid once more.
‘Thank you,’ I repeated, and this time Tatyana flashed the briefest of smiles.
‘And thank you,’ she said in a hoarse voice.
‘He killed them all,’ said Lucien, peering at the mound of broken bodies that marked where Norak had fallen. The dozen or so on top were my handiwork, but I decided not to labour the point.
‘It was a good death. Impressive even, given that he was dying anyway.’
Lucien looked up at me, then clapped me on my arm. ‘Aren’t we all?’
I tilted my head as I considered this. ‘I’m starting to like you.’
‘Who could resist?’ he said, picking his sword up from the ground and scraping the ice from the handle. ‘I would have such a glorious death too.’
‘Be careful of your wishes, my prince.’ I gestured to the outline of the cathedral that loomed over us.
‘When this is over,’ said Tatyana, moving up next to us, ‘I’m going to get drunk for a week.’
‘Me too,’ said Lucien. ‘And I’m going to lay in a bath for a day. And I want to sing.’
‘That sounds fine,’ I said. How long had it been since I had sung anything? I shook the maudlin thought away.
Nothing further was said as we made our way towards where I expected the doors would be, the lines of the cathedral growing more distinct as we moved closer. The pressure of the magic changed as we climbed the frozen stairs, pulling where it had once pushed and crushed, hungry for the life within us. I fed yet more power into my wards and bade Tatyana and Lucien move behind me as I pulled the cracked doors open.
A wave of light and sound burst out like water from a broken dam but it quickly abated, and I cautiously stepped into what remained of the cathedral, probing for hidden wards and traps. The cathedral was little more than a roofless shell, the walls seemingly only held in place by the heaps of spoil piled against them and the arcs of magical energy that linked the enormous spirals of runes carved in each wall. The floor had been gouged away as if dug by some gigantic beast, leaving a steep sided pit, the centre of which was marked with three triangular standing stones. As I watched, these pillars seemed to swell with silver light, the runes carved upon them glowing as bright as a sun before the light pulsed upwards, feeding the pillar that had drawn us here.
I moved forward cautiously, still wary of hidden wards or ambushes, but found none. Was he that arrogant that he thought me no threat? I dismissed the thought and concentrated on keeping my wards intact. A slip this close to the heart of Navar’s power was likely to be fatal.
I paused at the edge of the pit and stared down at the patch of absolute darkness that sat in the centre of the standing stones. The churned ground was marked with the tracks from many pairs of feet. It seemed that however unwelcoming the pit appeared, it had no shortage of visitors.
‘We’re going down into the black pit of death, aren’t we?’ said Tatyana as she moved up next to me.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh good.’
Lucien looked down into the pit and quickly stepped back. ‘Maybe we should wait here. Rearguard and all that.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘My sorcery has all but faded from you already, and the medallion will not be sufficient to shield you from that.’ I gestured to the column of light coalescing above the ruined roof and the stray souls that fluttered around it like grotesque moths. ‘It will pull your essence from you, leaving your hollow body to be ridden like a puppet by whatever wraith sees it first.’
‘Oh.’ He stared up at the twisting column and somehow managed to grow even paler. For a moment it seemed that he was about to faint or bolt, but Tatyana pulled him closer and whispered something into his ear. Whatever she said seemed to work, because he straightened his back and lifted his sword-point from the dirt with what I thought was an overly dramatic sigh. ‘Let’s just get it over with.’
With that inspiring speech complete, I set off down the slope. Strangely, the intensity of the droning magic lessened the closer I came to the standing stones, a fact that I welcomed rather than questioned. The stones were huge, at least twice my height, and each was tightly bound with three thick bands of golden wire. The glow from the runes incised along their length was too bright for me to see past, and almost bright enough to cause permanent damage if I looked too closely. Tatyana and Lucien came sliding down the slope behind me, their arms held in front of their faces to shield them from the glare.
‘It’s three steps ahead of you,’ I said, then stepped into the void.