Quibble, 75. Sacrifice & 76. Infinite
Victory in battle draws Vega and Aladfar into utter control's trap.
75. Sacrifice @Aladfar
No dream of images but one of meaningless minutiae. Pixels randomly changing color. A constant noise like someone endlessly saying shh!
Asuja’s control was a chaotic novelty, unknown to me. I pictured Epigraph and poured memory into my lit kindness: “But now, behold, Unity is no more, Within is no more – now those Ones are all vindicated. And now I come forth by day!” My dream brightened, but against a dream of nothingness it found no hold. Then Asuja’s dream abruptly fled. In its place shone piercing amber light, the brightest I had ever seen.
My glass-dream unfocused and I staggered, unsteady on my feet. Asuja grabbed Definition’s arm and they popped away. Espying, I could locate them nowhere.
No time to think about it. Espying had also shown me the lord Algol locking his dagger with Imay’s sword. Before I could pop, three red-cloaked adepts materialized before me. I had just time to refocus my dream before their lit controls blazoned in my face. I dispatched the first two with a double pop, forcing the second pop despite my amber’s reluctance. I didn’t grasp them, only touched. My first victim melded with the second in a grotesquerie of flesh and bone, and they fell together. I kindled the yinman afresh and swung it to the last adept, putting my hand on his shoulder, but his control was now lit fiercely and for one panicked moment I believed he would overmaster me. Then he stumbled and fell to one knee. His glass died entirely.
Behind him stood Imay. To my amazement, the dwarf spun agilely on his feet, almost in a pirouette. Whisp! His sword slashed at such speed that it took the adept’s head clean from his shoulders, and I was splashed with blood.
The Adroit had said Imay was a pathetic figure at work, but in this fight he was a terror. No wonder he’d wanted a Sen sword! Whisp! it went in the air before and behind him as he carved a path of carnage through his enemies.
Everywhere, a clamor of popping and cries. Adepts in red cloaks swarming out of the arc. Snow spattered with blood.
Vega popped in next to me, and I offered her my hand. She swapped her glasses between hands and slipped her left hand into my right. Then, our ambers touching and working together, we went forth into the fray, fighting as kindness fights best.
Asuja was disguised as a vision. No yinman. He might have lost it. Did you see where he took Definition?
Door in the floor. I didn’t espy which. Algol cloaked them.
We must rally and push through this! They’re outnumbering us here.
You get Imay, I’ll get Gloss, then forward!
In a flurry of intonations and pops, we advanced into the arc. Rasalased, joining our rear, had her adepts form a shield wall of light – scarlet, crimson, maroon – against which our foes were forced to switch their glasses, to fight with the few kindnesses they had. We began falling back through the night-door, bound for Egg 10. Three red cloaks popped in together with lit controls only a yard from the door, but surrounded as they were, their dreams soon failed, and again two died sundered while Imay dispatched the third with his keen steel. The enemy didn’t try again.
The last through the door, Imay, Rasalased, and I emerged into the field of Giza to find, once again, the Pyramid of Khafre deserted and a large array waiting for us atop the Pyramid of Khufu. As Rasalased ordered our rear defense, I took a count. We’d lost fifteen: eight Adroit, including one of the Sen swordsmen, and seven Zeros, five of them adepts of control. Our array numbered forty-one. There was no telling how many of our foes lay either before or behind us. Still, I couldn’t stop to think about it: waiting cost us more time than I’d guessed, and here, the moon was already setting in the west and the gray of dawn growing in the east. I strode forward through our ragtag array.
“We must speed up!” I barked at them. “I’m calculating the next pop. I’ll vision it to all of you. When we go, we all go together!”
“But the door!” cried Rasalased, still standing before it with a raised and lit glass.
“Damn the door! We’re out of time! And there’s still the second field!”
“He’s right,” Vega seconded me. “Forward fast, or it’ll be all for nothing!”
But to my surprise, as soon as we popped in among the array of utter control on the other pyramid, they began to retreat through their door as if already running away in a rout. A few red cloaks didn’t even bother to light their glasses, only popped at once to the door, laid their hands on the black stone, and disappeared. Espying, I saw no red cloaks atop the Pyramid of Khafre, behind us.
Why aren’t they chasing us? I thought.
You know why, the sad voice of Ankaa said.
I ignored my amber glass. Forward fast.
An arrow whizzed past my ear and through the neck of an adept kneeling by the night-door. The other red cloaks were racing through the door in disarray now, reckless of their defense, and we killed several before they managed to quit the field. Once we’d reached the door, I halted our forces to regroup. Now would come the real test.
