Quibble, 74. Night-door
Battle erupts at the Arc of Edict. Asuja and Algol play their double-crosses.
74. Night-door @Definition
“Lie still!”
“I’m getting a cramp.”
“Do you want this to work or not?”
“How can I fight with a cramped leg?”
“For kindness’ sake!”
Aladfar and I lay on cold stone beneath two gray protégé cloaks. From the arc’s porch, Vega had assured us, the cloaks couldn’t be seen at all, hid as we were by juts of rock. Aladfar had insisted we use gray cloaks, though, to blend with the rock face.
I peeked through a crack between the jutting stones. A confusion of footprints crisscrossed the porch, where we’d trampled snow to disguise our prior movements. Aladfar had directed it done on the glacier’s surface as well, though I couldn’t tell the difference from this far, even with my goggles off.
The wind shifted, blowing across the glacier towards us. We scrambled to pin the cloaks down and hold them against the gusts.
“I hope they hurry!” Aladfar muttered when the wind fell. “Our folk will freeze if they must endure hours of this!”
Whereas in the northern hemisphere it was Hottest, here in the southern it was Freeze. Winter was well afoot. Rasalased made much of it in our preparation for war, so we had winter gear, borrowed from the Dazed. As the monastery lay at nothing like the elevation of the Arc of Edict, though, our best gear was unequal to this cold.
Lying on stone, mostly immobile, my hands were turning to icicles. But our total array waited on the glacier’s surface, hidden by penitentes, shaded by icicles stretching for the sky. Since they travel widely by night-doors, Zeros are used to abrupt changes of season, but Adroit are not. The Adroit down there were surely suffering. Worse, no one there, either Adroit or Zero, could wear their mittens or gloves. If our enemy gave us a chance to spring our trap, they would have no time at the signal to cast a thing off. They could only blow on their hands and stuff them in cloak pockets.
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” I admitted.
No sooner had I said it than a red-cloaked figure emerged from the arc. He took down his hood, turned side to side, then crept towards the lip of the porch, crouching lower all the time. He peered over the edge, stood, motioned with an arm for someone to follow him out. A white cloak appeared – a vision. Now we would learn whether the penitentes indeed masked our force from a vision’s strong espying.
The vision stood beside the adept a while. Then an array of red cloaks came out of the arc, numbering eight with the adept already on the porch. So far, so good.
A second vision emerged and joined his fellow. They faced each other, stared in each other’s eyes. In their open right hands, ambers waxed to brightness, halos of light overlapping. A second array exited the arc, then a third. Twenty-six Zeros now stood in formation on the porch. I lowered my goggles into place, pulled the straps tight, tapped Aladfar’s hand. He tapped twice in response: Wait.
Minutes passed. Zeros stood like statues on the porch, as mute as in my dream of them. The two visions espied together in strength again. Then those two faced the arc, and a last Zero emerged. His black cloak stood out starkly against the snow. Like the visions, he kept his hood up. I saw no face.
Aladfar grasped my hand and squeezed once. I squeezed back. Then he bellowed our signal to the others – “Quibble!” – and popped us out of hiding.
There, not-there, there.
We had practiced the pop, but I still stumbled, suddenly vertical with naught to lean on as I had lain on the ground. The two visions were beside us. Aladfar released me and sprang his yinman aglow in their faces. I found my footing, crouched at his side. Innumerable pops echoed all around me.
The goggles worked. This low, the strip of one-sided mirror atop them shielded me altogether from glass-glow. I unsheathed my dagger. I expected the vision nearest to me to light a potent glass, but instead he brightened his amber and slipped out his own dagger. Then he stood stock-still, apparently tranced by Aladfar’s dream. I darted in, stabbed, jumped back. The vision staggered away to the lip of the porch and fell over it.
