Last to Rise(90)

I felt pretty bad lying to him, to all of them, especially Erlat and Guinto and Dendal, who walked with them, humming his happy song. Pretty bad because I wasn’t sure in the slightest.



But the very simple plan I’d put forward might even work. If it did, then I wouldn’t have to worry about the other one, the one that the black kept on nagging me about, the ultimate one that was feeling more and more the right – and wrong – thing to do. Pasha had shown me the way. It was up to me if I followed. The very simple plan – get in, get Jake and Perak out, blow the shit out of the Storad up there, try not to die – might even work. At least we wouldn’t be fighting on two fronts then. If it did work…



The low cloud helped – it surrounded the Spine here, leaving me feeling like I was encased in a damp pillow, but it also meant that visibility was limited. At least for those using their eyes.



I took hold of Dendal gently and steered him and Allit into a not-very-private-at-all nook by a pillar which announced these were the gates to Cardinal So-and-so’s estates and trespassers would be thrown into the Slump with extreme prejudice, may the Goddess bless them.



Who needs eyes when you’ve got a couple of mages handy?



Between the two of them we got a pretty clear picture of what was going on, who was where, doing what. Allit could see, and it was probably real and now. Dendal could communicate, a perfect conduit for information when he was lucid. The pretty clear picture they gave me was it was all going tits up. Top of the World was almost empty and so was Clouds, near as they could tell. What was left of the guards were failing miserably against a vicious assault on the Spine just under Top of the World, and Perak and Jake were there with them. Typical Perak: never was with it enough to know when to get out of the rain.



Dendal looked at me sadly, almost wistful. “So what are you going to do, Rojan?”



After I’d got over the shock of him getting my name right twice in a row, and wondering why everyone kept asking me that, I said, “I’m not sure.”



“Yes you are.” His voice was unusually firm, which meant I was about to get a lecture on the Goddess and my duty to serve her.



I did my best to forestall him. “No, I’m not. There’re two options. One: head on up, find Perak, beat the living crap out of any Storad we find, get down to the gates before those machines arrive, and hope for the best. We’ve got plenty of people now, all willing to fight. Two: two won’t be necessary. Even if it is tempting.”



His smile was awful, full of pity and sympathy. “You never did really understand, did you? You were saving yourself, your magic, for this, but not just this. It’s why the Goddess sent you to me.” Then he took Allit’s hand and walked off to stand with the rest of them, all the while telling everyone not to worry, Rojan’s going to sort it, he’s got a plan.



Everyone was looking at me, like I had any answers. Little Casuco smiled again at me, seeming confident in my ability to get them all out of this, to fix everything, rearrange it all away perhaps. I wished I was as sure.



They were all looking at me, and then they weren’t. A tremble at first, just a tremor under our feet. A rumble, far off, though not far enough. I looked out. Heights on one side; on the other, where I’d not dared to look because I was chicken, a fading drop that on a clear day would show the Slump, the lasting reminder of what happens when a mage pushes too far, when he goes fully crazy right before he dies. A tangle of girders, vast blocks of stone tumbled in odd patterns, huge splinters of wood rotting gently into mould. A dumping ground. A moving one.



It didn’t register at first – let’s face it, at first all I was thinking was, Crap, the Spine’s going to collapse and I’m going to fall to a long and messy death, long enough that I will have time to scream quite a detailed lot of last words. Once the bollock-clenching panic passed, I realised it wasn’t the Spine that was crumbling, moving, sliding.



A block of stone the size of a house teetered, thought about it, and then said “Screw it” and tumbled end over end, rolling down the battered slope of the Slump, pushing friends in front of it until there was what looked like a whole moving mountain. Smaller stones merely the size of men bounced around that first block like puppies taken for a walk, and girders twisted with a tortured screech, all the while reminding me that down was a long way away.



When, after what seemed like about six months, everything stopped moving, the Slump had shifted downwards. Stones that had stayed where they were for years, since that ill-fated mage had gone boom, now looked like a breath would have them shifting and rolling again. I found that I was holding on to the nearby pillar with my bad hand, pain throbbing up and out, leaching into my head, itching at me, wanting to be used. Do it, do it, take the whole place down. Come on, Rojan, don’t be shy.