Seven Sorcerers(112)

Sungui chewed and swallowed as her fellow rebels were doing in the sky all about her.

The taste was bitter, as it always was. Fleeting emotions and memories, drowned beneath her will. Imbibed power gleaming from mouth and nostrils.

Eshad gave her a nod, turning to exchange bolts with another loyalist. Sungui helped him grab the man, yet before they salted him, he surrendered. He set off with Eshad to salt and devour another. Ianthe and Gammir were devouring Seraphim after Seraphim. Sungui knew these two were offering no last chance for their victims, but she had no time to protest.

The Lesser Seraphim had receded from the battle entirely, seeking refuge on the dreadnoughts. This civil war was not for them to fight. A single High One could destroy a dozen of them in the wink of an eye. They would sit out this conflict and swear allegiance to whichever faction won in the end.

And which faction will that be? Sungui wondered.

A fog of salt dust filled the hot and smoky air. Amid the chaos of battling, consuming Seraphim, Sungui glimpsed Zyung grabbing Iardu in his massive fist.

If the Shaper perishes, so do our dreams of conquest.

Ianthe has used us all, she realized. Zyung has destroyed her enemies one by one. Now he will devour Iardu. The Panther and Wolf will flee, leaving us to the Almighty’s wrath.

In that moment, she knew herself a fool.

“Iardu.” Zyung greets me at last. His quicksilver hand falls fast, snaring me like an errant fly. He will salt me too, but again his arrogance tells me what he will do first. He will gloat over my defeat. He brings me up close to his flaring eyes. He towers above the burning city, his head higher now than his floating dreadnoughts.

The High Seraphim have turned their attention to the city, casting towers into rubble with their gleaming bolts. They are as children entertaining themselves with the slow destruction of an unwanted toy. Yet something new begins among the floating Seraphim. Two of them send a third one to salt, devouring him as I watch over Zyung’s shoulder. The same thing happens again and again throughout their swarming ranks. There is strife among the High Lord’s servants.

Ianthe’s doing.

I sense her and Gammir darting among the legion of sorcerers, singing the songs of transmutation that send the Old Breed to salt; aiding the Rebel Seraphim in the rapid devouring of their stubborn fellows. Ianthe has turned the entire legion against itself. No longer do their deathlights fall upon the blazing towers of Uurz. They strike at each other instead.

A second battle rages now above the first–a revolt of sorcerers.

I knew this would come. It is early, but not surprising.

The winged lizards harass the walls and dive among the streets, snatching men into the air and dropping them into the flames. Further up, Ianthe’s rebels annihilate their own kind. Zyung should never have taken one as empty of loyalty as the Claw into his midst. In a moment he will discover this error, when he has sent me to join my companions in the salt-death.

“I warned you long ago not to resist my vision,” Zyung says. I am held fast in his behemoth fist. “There is no redemption for you, Starwing. You will see my wisdom at last, when I have consumed your essence.”

I meet his gaze, drawing his attention as deeply as I can.

“Perhaps,” I say. “And you will see mine.”

In the instant before Zyung’s voice can send me to salt, another voice rattles our bones. In that same moment he forgets the nuisance trapped in his fist, and watches the rapid flow of whiteness cascade up his legs. As a rushing wave it comes, a transformation of titanic flesh to marbled salt. A scream of rage dies in his throat as his colossal body goes rigid.

Even as I shatter his salted fist with an eruption of blue flame, he falls forward across the green plain. The thunder of his impact shakes the burning walls of Uurz and flattens an abandoned village.

I descend to find the true Lyrilan waiting for me, emeralds agleam on his dark robe.

We are the size of Men once more. He smiles.

“Call them quickly,” I say.

Half of the loyalists were salted and consumed in a matter of moments. The black smokes rising from Uurz mingled with wisps of salt from bodies broken and divided.

In the moment that Lyrilan’s voice rang across the darkening plain, the struggles of the High Seraphim ceased. The mountain of salt that was Zyung seemed impossible, but there it stood. A frozen moment that would change the shape of the world and those who built it.

How? Sungui could not say.

The earth rumbled as Zyung crashed to the ground.

A green flame flared into the twilight, a beacon that drew the attention of the High Ones and brought an end to their feud. There was nothing left to fight for. No Celestial One to claim their loyalty. The last of the loyalists conceded, joining the rebels in an instant, all of them gleaming like silver motes between leaping flames and floating ships. All of them hearing Lyrilan’s voiceless summons, the attraction of his light-burst, the glow that tinted the salt of the titan to shades of emerald.