\hypertarget{chapter-43-masegos-plan}{%
\chapter{Masego's Plan}\label{chapter-43-masegos-plan}}



\epigraph{``Kings and shepherds fit in the same cook pot.''}{Orc saying}



It was a difficult to describe. The power was still mine; it just wasn't
shaped by my own hands. I could still feel it, span the ebb and flow and
cuts, but the will behind was Akua Sahelian's. For the first thirty
heartbeats it was horribly distracting, to fight while I had
this\ldots{} second line of thought going on in the back of my head, but
soon enough I learned to ignore it. The need for control had always been
the lid on the powers I'd stolen from Winter, hadn't it? It was a lesser
surrender, the act of allowing Diabolist some manner of rule over it,
but it was still a step towards that place I yet shied away from.
Neshamah had called it apotheosis, and mused it to be the result of
happenstance. I was not so certain, but I knew than if I reached the
world I looked back to would be a very different place.

\emph{Winter sunk into the sea of bones like a great tree's roots,
tainting and binding and made into pattern impossibly perfect by
another's will.}

My mind had brushed against the flow, and though it kept existing bereft
of my attention my gaze no longer gave it clear definition. \emph{Like
watching without eyes}, I thought. It was not the kind of thought a
human would understand. That I did, instinctively so, was certain to
have a price down the line. I exhaled, sword in hand, and watched the
Skein's muscles pull and shift. He was a dead thing, in the end, and
Winter knew much of death. The Revenant was not of my own raising, but
there was an\ldots{} affinity there, now that I knew to look for it. Not
a door into usurpation -- in those eldritch struggles knowledge was
always paramount, and compared to the likes of the Dead King I was a
babe in the woods -- but the ratling was not untouchable. Like me, he
was a construct.

Those could always be broken, with the rights tools.

The muscle weaves beneath shoulder contracted, bent and though the
Revenant angled his body to hide the tail I felt it shift. In, out. My
breath came steady, an illusion imposed on myself for reassurance.
Pretty ritual that it was, it served its purpose. The Skein struck with
inhuman swiftness, clawed hand shattering the remains like toys as it
passed where I had been but moments earlier. No longer. What difference
was there, between the ice I shaped and the stuff of my own body?
Beneath the surface, absolutely nothing. The twin spider-like limbs that
ripped out of the back of my plate and shifted to see me land on the
Skein's extended arm made that bitter admission impossible to deny.
Muscles shifted beneath me, the sweep of the tail abandoned as the Skein
prioritized shaking me off. Lower leg inclined, and it followed that --
there it went, the dip, but his very nature made me an oracle's bastard
child.

Steel would do nothing against the ratling's eldritch hide and fur, but
steel was just one of many tools at my fingertips. I tugged out a string
of my domain, shaped it into a hook and carved into the Revenant's flesh
even as he made to throw me off. It did all the work itself: the
momentum had me swinging around his side, the hook of darkness slicing
into his skin as I descended. The Skein let did not let out a sound. Did
he even feel pain? No matter. I'd take him apart piece by piece, if that
was what it took. I hung from the hook under his belly and hoisted
myself up, spider legs born anew to hold me as I began climbing back up
the side.

\emph{Power reflected into itself, a hall of mirrors containing a
conflagration until it came out roaring like the great beasts of the
First Dawn. Claws and fangs and wings and most of all eyes that were
entirely Akua Sahelian's.}

There disconnect between seeing the working unfold through Diabolist and
my own body's senses hearing the thousands of bones come together with
strings of shade and ice, rising a behemoth of a drake that collided
against the Skein with a thunderous crash. Too many ears. Too many eyes.
The spider limbs cracked and broke until I grit my teeth and forced them
to shape anew.

``The whole world is the altar of the profane, both seeing and
unseeing.''

Hierophant's words rang loud and clear, though the undertone was made
uncomfortably inhuman by the protective globe of ivory-like power
protecting him. The Skein ripped through the neck of Diabolist's drake,
devouring the power within, but I could feel her laugh and let loose the
endless depths of Winter into his maw. I swung myself around with the
limbs, landing on his lower back, and wrenched out the hook. A failure
in imagination, this particular tool. Limited by my own thinking. I
stole away more of my domain, gave it more useful shape. The arc of the
bow was smooth, the string indistinguishable from it. The hook changed,
shaped by a thought, and I anchored it somewhere hands could not reach.
The Skein moved before I could loose. Abandoning the drake, he turned
and massive fangs shone in half-light. There'd been the hint of a hint
in the way his muscles moved. The ice limbs dug under the punctured hide
and folded into themselves then outwards, impossibly lengthened, until I
hung high in the air and away from his snapping jaws. With a hard grin,
I loosed my arrow.

``Under this theology of disbelief, the scales bear the weight of
nothingness and the the sum of all that is, finding them equal and
equivalent.''

Like a spool unwinding, my domain followed in the arrow's wake. The
Skein ducked, impossibly knowing of the trajectory, but a flicker of
will was all it took the have the projectile tearing downwards and
straight into the crook of his neck. \emph{I have you now, Horned Lord.}
I reached and grabbed the other end of the thread, night-stuff coiling
around my fingers, and dismissed the limbs. He would have moved before I
dropped onto his back, but the fur glistened with cold and Diabolist
emerged from it in glimmering ice.

``You drank too deep,'' Akua Sahelian chided, smiling in that same
fearless way she had when she'd pitted her madness alone against the
full might of the East.

Ice formed in restraining shackles around the Skein's limbs, and though
he broke through them that moment was all it took for me to land. I
shifted, spread my legs and pulled even as the arrowhead became an ugly
root of darkness within its flesh. He fought me for a moment, but then
the Revenant bent and I crouched to forced the other end of the thread
into the flesh of his lower back. It spread without hesitation, forcing
the whole creature's body into a warped arc as he failed to break the
strength of my domain manifest.

``My hand is the sword of truth, denying the rot of entropy: `lo and
behold, the shade of Ruin falls upon you.''

A shiver went through me as sorcery filled the entire cavern. I had felt
the likes of this before, once. For a quick, fleeting moment. When Black
had spoken a single word and wrecked Liesse like a castle of glass, a
madman's will shattering all that displeased his sight. Hierophant had
stolen an aspect, or at least an aspect's cast, and now wielded it like
a hammer against the Revenant that sought to break us. The Skein
screamed, this time. Limbs and flesh smashed, breaking apart from the
inside and through the yell the ratling hissed a word.

``\textbf{Spool}.''

I frowned, what/

I stood on the bones again, Akua helping me up, but her hand left mine
quickly and she turned a burning glare on the Skein. The remnants of her
drake were still lying half-broken, reeking of Winter, Masego was back
under his Ivory Globe and my domain was whole. So was the Revenant, not
a mark on him. All our successes erased in a heartbeat.

``Again,'' the Skein leered. ``Teach me all your tricks, crawling
things.''

We hadn't even managed to kill it last time. And he'd still unmade it
all, easy a waving a hand. Gods, how many times could he call on that
aspect? Three, ten? As many times as he wanted?

``Interesting,'' Hierophant said. ``You did not break the march of time
so much as sever causality. Prune away events from a sequence that still
theoretically exists.''

``It doesn't matter,'' I said. ``Let's find out how many lives a rat can
have.''

``Our minds were left untouched,'' Diabolist noted. ``As was his. In
broader Creation such a working would have shattered him upon the wheel,
from all the cascade of innumerable events affected. The aspect was
bastardized, made contingent to this place.''

``It is a good cage,'' the Skein said. ``You will not leave it.''

``So we're playing shatranj,'' I said. ``Across possibilities he can
`spool' back at any time.''

``Alas,'' Masego said, tone amused, and the Ivory Globe winked out. ``A
mistake was made.''

``You fail,'' the Skein told him. ``Here? You always fail, again and
again.''

``You are not the only one who can learn,'' Hierophant said, and his
glass eyes burned bright beneath the cloth. ``And all you have earned
from this is further \textbf{Ruin}.''

I'd seen a lot of aspects over the last few years. Become familiar
enough with the gifts of Named that I could be considered a discerning
judge. William's Rise had been like a wellspring of harsh light from
within, hollowing out his insides but removing every wound inflicted.
Black's Destroy was like a bolt fired at Creation, a wilful removal of
what my teacher wanted gone. Akua's Bind had been little more than an
acknowledgement of her nature, the thirst for control deepened and
formalized by the touch of the Gods. This was different. Masego had come
into his Name standing defiant in the face of a sun that was not a sun,
a godly thing that defied the laws of Creation and human comprehension,
and it had shaped what he'd become. \emph{Usher of Mysteries, Vivisector
of Miracles}. Witness had been the outgrowth of the former, perhaps, but
now I was seeing the latter and it was a terrible thing to behold.

Aspects were act, not simply a word, because they were an exercise of
will. A piece of you made into a blade and turned against Creation.
This, then, was intimate part of Masego. Of the man he was turning into,
and there was cause for worry in it. To ruin something was no small
thing: it was to destroy and devastate it irreparably. The Skein had
spoken five letters and wiped away all we had wrought.

Masego replied with four and the world \emph{shattered}.

The cavern came apart at the seams. Entire chunks of it split from the
rest, drifting into black nothingness as unmoored ships, and like spider
webs the destruction spread across all the Revenant's realm. Akua and I
stood together as the bones beneath us began to spill into nothing,
incomprehensibly coming back around to fall from the ceiling in another
shard. My will extended into the ice I'd used to keep the gates open,
and found they were still there. We were not ruined along the rest of
this, then, not necessarily. The Skein moved, and in a myriad other
shards did the same. Hierophant stood alone on his pile of bones,
wreathed in ribbons of sorcery so thick it was visible to the eye, his
smile almost innocently joyful. Wait had, the -- my eyes flicked back
and with muted horror I watched the platform on which the wheels stood
slowly begin to topple into a streak of dark. I would not make it in
time. It was not physically possible to\ldots{} I inhaled and ice
bloomed.

``Diabolist,'' I ordered.

The moment the glimmering silhouette finished taking shape, Akua was
within it, having swum there through Winter. She reached down and
snatched the edge of the highest wheel. The ice that made her up began
to crack under the massive weight and from the corner of my eye I saw
the Skein move towards her in a dozen different shards. He couldn't kill
her through the shell, so it must be the artefact he was aiming for. I
could not allow that, if any part of this was to be salvaged.
Diabolist's will was ruling the ice construct, but what was that to me?
I seized the reins and let Winter loose: it grew and swelled, a hunched
apelike thing that tossed the wheels towards me like they were
feather-light. A heartbeat later the Revenant tore through my creation,
but I'd already ceased paying attention. A third of the way to me the
artefact moved from a shard facing me to one in the far back and I leapt
through the void. Flicker. Wrong shard. I was by Masego's side.

``Hierophant,'' I barked. ``Contain the rat.''

The dark-skinned man laughed almost drunkenly and brushed back his
sleeves. Hands extended, he snapped his wrists together. Two shards
collided in a spray of bones that obeyed no sense in where it went and
fell, but two Revenant reflections went opposite ways and the undead
screamed. It would do. Flicker. I crossed into another shard, almost
tripping on a massive half-buried skull, and watched the wheels continue
to arc down in the opposite direction. Which meant nothing, but -- I
made three shells of ice, eyeballing it, yet the artefact still collided
entered a fourth. The Skein snatched them before they could bounce, and
with a fanged grin leant over the edge of the shard to \emph{throw} them
down into the void. I learned from my mistake, this time. I formed the
silhouette directly on the surface of the artefact and broadened it with
rough strokes. Akua did not not need a reminder to seize it. Or
instructions in how to operate the massive wings I had shaped.

That lasted until the Skein opened his maw and wisps of Winter were
sucked out of the construct, leaving it no more than ice with a shade
within. He could take it out as fast as I could pour it, I was pretty
sure, so instead of wasting power I went for an alternative. I leapt
into the void, gallantly suppressing the scream boiling out of my
throat.

\emph{Fragments spread across places and times yet linked, always
linked, for Winter was a single entity and the void's touch could be
bridged. A thousands hands moved.}

Akua had gone for numbers, I thought, and even as I fell into the dark I
saw limbs, skeletons and even skulls move under Winter's writ, biting
and grasping at the Skein. I found the wheels at last. Hurtling down
into the nothing that would lead somewhere else. \emph{My body is an
illusion}, I told myself. I closed my eyes, let distractions fall away.

``My body is an illusion,'' I insisted.

Just glamour, and anything I had seen I could glamour. Wings or
iridescent blue ripped out of my back, long and ephemeral. It was like
moving a limb, if that limb had been wounded for months and I was only
getting used to it moving again. Angling my fall was easy enough. I
collided with the wheels, setting my feet on the middle rung, and tried
to convince myself that weight was an illusion as well.

``Sulia never cared about weight,'' I said. ``\emph{It does not apply to
me}.''

The wings didn't change. But instead of slowing, my descent stopped. And
then slowly, painfully, we started rising.

``\textbf{Spool},'' the Skein said.

I screamed in frustration and/

I was back on the shard where I'd begun, damn him.

``Did you think it would always work?'' Hierophant laughed. ``There is
nothing I have seen you can take from me. \textbf{Witness}.''

What was he/

I tightened my grip on the wheels, swinging them over the edge of the
closest shard with a grunt. The Skein in most shards strangely looked
like he'd taken to wearing armour, covered in a sea of remains that
fruitlessly bit and clawed at his hide. Diabolist was trying to slow and
blind him, with only mixed success. I glanced to the side, dragging the
artefact further over the ledge, and froze when I saw myself standing
near the gate, utterly furious. And again, in another shard, getting
crushed by the Skein's clawed hands as he seized the wheels. Was I even
the real one? No, the existential crisis could wait until later. I
needed to get this to Masego so we could get out of here and find
Malicia. I raised the wheels over my head and legged it. I couldn't even
tell where this shard was related to the others, much less when: bones
and void weren't exactly trail markers. I leapt across the nearest shard
-- flicker -- and cursed as soon as I landed. The Skein was in this one,
fighting\ldots{} me. And our earlier work and been done anew, with the
ratling bound by a string of my domain, forced into that painful
stretched. The other Catherine glanced at me, then shrugged and began
forming a massive spike of darkness above the Skein's head.

My own domain ebbed in answer.

Was she\ldots{} \emph{Eye on the prize, Catherine.} I made my way around
the Revenant's desperate death throes and leapt. Flicker. This one was
empty, save for aimlessly angry bones animated by Diabolist. My fists
tightened around the artefact. I could keep this up for hours and still
be lost.

``Hierophant,'' I called out. ``Chart me a path.''

A dot of blue light formed ahead of me then peeled off. Good enough. I
followed as swiftly as I could, until it crossed into another shard.
Flicker. Empty as well, except the Skein suddenly turned around in
another shards and passed into this one. The Revenant loomed as tall as
ever, though the smaller shard was forcing him to be careful where he
stepped.

``I see you,'' the ratling hissed.

The dot of blue light wheeled to the left and crossed into another
shard. Less than helpful, that, since unlike it I had to worry about the
giant rat. See me, huh. Akua had seemed able to work through Winter in
multiple shards, so theoretically\ldots{} I sunk into my own mind,
forcing myself to consider angles, then bent Winter to my will. Across a
dozen shards mirrors formed, reflecting the light from the pit into the
Skein's eyes -- which he was already covering, aware that with so many
mirrors I'd covered near every angle he could look away to. Fucking
oracles. It bought me a heartbeat where I ran for it, wheels over my
head, but he swung blindly and with his size there was almost no need to
aim. I managed a leap on a platform before I was swept away, but then
the tail struck and even even tossing half a tower's worth of ice in the
way only slowed it down. A repeat would be the end of this unfortunate
magical adventure.

\emph{Following light like a current, through as many mirrors as there
could be, and weaving power into the reflections. A dozen arrows
loosed.}

Akua used my work to craft her own, abandoning the undead to taint the
light coming from the mirrors with concentrated cold. The Skein slowed,
until he shook it off, but it was just long enough for me to manage the
leap. The tail swung behind me, hitting only air. Flicker. Masego stood
ahead of me, tracing runes that resonated like a gong and drove back the
Skein when he attempted to cross behind me.

``Take it,'' I said, and tossed the wheels toward him.

It skidded across bones, and would have toppled him outright if he
didn't hastily trace another rune to slow it down to a halt.

``Our entry gate,'' I said. ``Make it lead to Malicia.''

He wasted no time on backtalk, ripping away a string and tying it to the
central axis as I cast a look around. The rat was trying to sneak
through the back, but there would be none of that on my watch. I took
the whole of my domain, ripping it away from three other Catherines
trying to use it, and shaped it into a bolt that shot right at the
Revenant as he leapt. It caught him in the chest, tearing through bone
and flesh. Both it and the bolt fell into the void, and only then did I
allow the others to play with my --our -- domain again. A quick look
told me Masego had tied the thread to a place on the lowest wheel, which
was our signal to get the Hells out of here.

``Akua, back to me,'' I said, and yanked her.

I staggered at the impact, which was so much heavier than usual, but
then she was at my shoulder again if looking none too pleased at the
manhandling. She looked up, and her face fell.

``Catherine,'' she said, and her hand rose.

She shaped Winter, but it was too little and too late. The Skein fell
down from above, shattering the wheels with a massive paw.

``You lose,'' the Revenant crowed.

The ground broke beneath our feet, and after that there was only the
fall.
