webcrawl/APGTE/Book-3/tex/Ch-056.md.tex

\hypertarget{villainous-interlude-calamity-iii}{%
\section{Villainous Interlude: Calamity
III}\label{villainous-interlude-calamity-iii}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``The truth of monsters is that, in the end, they die. If they
didn't we would have to call them gods.''}

-- Eudokia the Oft-Abducted, Basilea of Nicae
\end{quote}

The Beast moved, but Sabah was within it. It was not control, for
control was an illusion, but it was enough. She could yet think, even
with blood and heat pumping in her veins. The Valiant Champion screamed
a war cry and swung her axe, but what did the Beast care for this? The
enemy steel dug into her flesh, blood and fur spraying, but with a roar
she bit down on the hero. The shield gave under her fangs, even with the
strength of a Name behind it, and she crunched into the plate before
throwing the Champion to the side. The Beast had wanted to swallow the
girl whole, but Sabah knew this would have been a mistake. Covered in
blood and spit, the heroine rose to her feet. She began to speak but the
Beast huffed out a laugh and struck again. The wound the axe had carved
was already healed, the intertwined madness and power within her growing
with every moment. The heroine raised the broken remnant of her shield
but a shoulder bump was enough to send her crashing into the walls of
the arena

Stone broke, bone broke and the scream whetted the Beast's appetite.

The Champion was better at fighting beasts than men, but Sabah was not
like anything the girl had ever thought before. Of all the Calamities,
only she had embraced the old truth: if you were strong enough, even
Fate broke under your teeth. Fountains of sand exploded behind her as
she charged and the heroine hastily leapt onto the stands. The cheering
sounded, oh, and the clapping as well. The Beast roared and it drowned
out all the worlds. Claws scrabbling against the stone rails, Sabah gave
when the enemy tried to use to high grounds to strike at her head. Tail
twisting behind her, the Beast paced the sands of the arena and waited
for the Champion to come down. The girl was catching her breath, though.
Wasn't moving. The Beast crouched, then leapt onto the stands. Benches
and flickering silhouettes shattered as she rolled onto the stone,
rising back to her feet. The sun came down harshly, blinding her, but
Sabah sniffed the air and felt the wounded enemy coming closer. Petty
arena tricks.

Clawed paw rising, the Beast struck down into the stands. The arena
shook. Again and again she did, until the entire wing collapsed beneath
her in a shower of stone and dust and sand. The glare of the sun was
gone, now, and she saw the Champion hopping from ruin to ruin. Shaking
herself clear of the dust, Sabah forced her will onto the Beast. Claws
closed around stones as she rose onto her back legs, tossing chunks of
rocks the size of houses at the heroine. She dodged the first, swatted
aside the second but was buried under the third. The Beast licked its
chops in satisfaction and leapt onto the stone, shattering it and the
stands beneath it. There was a tunnel underneath and the Champion
flopped down onto the ground.

``\textbf{Rally},'' the heroine gasped.

She shone like the sun and all the flickering silhouettes flocked to
her, filling her until her strength swelled. Her armour was smoking, her
axe shaking with barely held power. Sabah recognized the aspect from
earlier but the Beast cared little for the detail. Her paw whipped out
from the outside, tearing through the outer wall of the tunnel and
sending the Champion flying again. She landed on her feet at the very
top of the stands, where the domain ended, and charged back down. The
Beast sniffed the air. Blood, blood and ruin. The heroine's strength
waned and her little world with it. Sabah leapt down onto the sands and
let her tail sweep a trail behind her, turning to watch the enemy. The
Champion did not flinch, and followed her without hesitation. The Beast
wanted to be a thing of teeth and claw, but Sabah thought otherwise. Her
long legs swatted at the sands, sending up a cloud, and in that blinding
curtain she struck. The heroine stood fast, both hands on the handle of
her axe for her shield was long gone. The shining blade cut through the
Beast's leg, but Sabah did not pause. She rolled over the heroine, and
the wild joy of hearing bones creak and plate give filled her senses.

It was a wonder, that even after calling on an aspect the Champion was
strong enough to throw her off. The Beast hit the wall and howled as her
leg grew back, bone and flesh sprouting from the cut. The heroine's
breastplate was dented, and her lips dripping with blood. It was enough
to make the Beast \emph{hungry}. Sabah stalked forward and waited for
the heroine to charge. The sweep was not meant to hit her, just force
her into the right place. Claws closed around the struggling heroine,
and the Beast swung her down at the stands. Again and again and again,
until there were a dozen gaping holes in the stone and only then did she
toss the girl up in the air. The Champion rose higher and higher in the
sky, until she touched a ceiling that wasn't and crack snaked across the
firmament like it was a pane of glass. The arena shattered, and the
smells of smoke and death wafted to the Beast's nose. They were in the
city again, where they'd first crossed. The Beast roared, and went for
the kill.

Sabah watched.

---

It had been a very long time since Wekesa had found an opponent this
troublesome. He'd grown arrogant in his old age, it seemed. Come to
believe that a mere few layers of deception would be enough to keep a
hound of the Heavens off his back. This entire battle was something a
tactical mistake, in his eyes. This was far from the first time the
Calamities split to deal with a heroic band, but the circumstances were
not in their favour. Amadeus was adamant the White Knight had to die,
however, and in this Warlock was not inclined to disagree. Not as long
as Masego was attached to that Callowan slip of a girl. Promising as the
young villains assembled around Catherine Foundling were, they were not
ready to deal with this calibre of heroic opposition. Better to crush
the Wizard to dust here so she would never be a threat to his son.
Crushing a rune-covered stone in his palm, Warlock murmured an
incantation and watched a bubble form around the Hedge Wizard. A
derivative of the effect demons of Time could have, this, at least in
theory. Actual observation of such a specimen would have been too
dangerous even for him, as the Fourth Hell was nothing to trifle with.

The heroine was stuck, at least for now. He immediately gave ground
while weaving High Arcana, the seven spears of red flame that formed
sinking into the bubble. It was a crawl, from his perspective, but it
would not be from hers. The Wizard moved, inch by inch, and the bubble
popped. She had, it seemed, seized the guiding flows and broken them.
Unfortunately for her, that did nothing about the spears. She twisted
around most, but one took hit her in the shoulder and and another in the
leg. That should have crippled her, but the illusion she'd replaced
herself with broke instead. The heroine stood a foot to the side,
panting. Wekesa frowned and penned her into what he'd come to call a
quicksand ward. It didn't prevent anything, not exactly. It simply made
any exertion of power or movement much harder than it should be. Against
a practitioner of limited power like her, forcing a burnout was a
perfectly viable strategy.

``You killed my sister, you monstrous old fuck,'' the Wizard gasped.
``You're not walking away from this.''

Buying time to cast with distracting words. He'd pulled the same trick
many, many times.

``I'm rather surprised it stuck,'' Wekesa noted. ``I suppose once in a
while luck smiles on the opposition.''

Her spell flared into existence. The Liessen Chisel, by the looks of it.
One of the better Callowan works, an old favourite of the Wizards of the
West. It had been crafted specially to cut apart the stabilizing
elements of wards, but to accomplish this it did require a certain of
raw arcane power. She'd chosen poorly, given the ward around her. Her
spell collapsed the ward and a heartbeat later her wrist bones both
snapped. She screamed, but did not stop casting. Heroes had an
irritating tolerance for pain. A mundane mage would have lost the thread
of whatever they were casting when inflicted with such a distraction.
High Arcana runes bloomed in front of the both of them.

``She was better than any of you,'' Hedge hissed. ``She was
\emph{good}.''

``She was Good,'' Wekesa corrected. ``And evidently not quite better
enough to avoid the Tyrant's ritual.''

Her eyes went wide. Ah, she hadn't known that bit had she? There was
more than one intent at work in this band of heroes. That light delay in
working her will gave him the initiative. The red flares formed around
the heroine's head, the intensity of the glow they produced varying
wildly. She finished her spell a moment later and the moment the power
took shape all three flares exploded into a cage of red. The green smoke
she'd crafted went through the bars, but she was forced to dismiss it
and create a cone of force around herself to avoid being incinerated.
Wekesa's spell would have fed on both of her castings, which should earn
him just long enough to craft something more powerful while she got rid
of it. Duels between Gifted were very much a game of shatranj, in his
experience. Reacting to the immediate movements of the pieces without
glimpsing the long-term intent was a good way to end up dead.

``You're not invincible,'' the heroine barked. ``I just need to find the
right trick.''

The red cage transmuted into red smoke a moment later, but he placed the
last rune and four bands of transparent force formed around the wrists
and ankles. They tightened without any need for prompting, crushing
bone. Amusingly enough, what part of her wrists that was not powdered
was now almost reset form the initial snapping. Warlock could have gone
for a more lethal working, but he was wary of committing to such before
she'd used her last aspect. Each of them had called on two, and the odds
were that the loser of his duel would be the first to give in and call
on the third. His own loss, he knew, was unlikely at this stage but very
much a possibility. He'd already begun to prepare an exit strategy in
case it came to that. The Hedge Wizard wrapped strings of sorcery around
her limbs to keep them working, so naturally Wekesa inserted a little
gift into the spell and turned them into angry snakes. He felt sorcery
take hold of his own limbs and almost smiled. Ah, a transfer. Classic
Stygian work. He did not bother to craft an answer: the third layer of
the wards on his person prevented the spell from ever going through.

``Have you ever considered,'' Warlock said, ``that there is no
\emph{right trick}? That for all the gifts the Heavens have dropped onto
your lap you could die here tonight?''

The blue pane of light hit her head-on, sending her stumbling to the
ground, but her limbs shapeshifted into some sort of lycanthropic
derivative by the looks of the hair. Interesting, considering under most
recorded instances lycanthropy was a curse and not a natural state of
being.

``They don't really encourage you to think about consequences, do
they?'' Wekesa continued blithely. ``Your masters, that is. Perhaps
you-``

He paused, then chuckled.

``Oh, you crafty child,'' he said. ``You almost had me there.
\emph{Almost}.''

Hellfire was a drain, usually, but with the Red Skies so close to the
boundary it was barely an effort to form them. The smell of brimstone
filled the air and the crimson flares devoured the spell she'd formed
while he talked. Not one he'd ever seen before, this, though the shape
had similarities to Keteran formulas. Cascading of some sort? That would
have been very dangerous, if it had it the wards on his body. Instead
the hellfire engulfed the girl and she dropped to the ground. Another
three heartbeats before she died of it, and he prepared to counter
whatever trick she'd use to get away from certain death. That was not,
as it turned out, what he should have prepared for. A beam of light hit
the downed heroine, and it took Wekesa a heartbeat to parse out the
sequence. This particular spell was, in theory, an offensive one. But it
had a central sequence in the formula modelled after a miracle, which
meant\ldots{} the hellfire gutted out and the Tyrant grinned, lounging
on his floating throne above them.

``I have come to betray you,'' the cripple cheerfully said.

``Alas, I am surprised,'' Warlock replied sardonically, and snapped his
wrist.

The throne exploded and the boy went flying. That, he reflected, had
been worth the seven hours of preparation. The Hedge Wizard was back on
her feet. If they thought two of them would give them an advantage, they
were sorely mistaken. They'd only given him more to work with. There was
a soft sound at his back and the villain turned. An empty bottle of wine
had been dropped on the ground. The Wandering Bard, if he had to venture
a guess. The heroine cursed and shot him a glare.

``I'll be back,'' she said, and wings sprouted from her back.

She shouldn't have taken the time to talk, he mused. He finished the
spell before she'd risen more than a foot into the air, and the sliver
of darkness touched her back. Every wound he'd inflicted with his
sorcery tonight reopened and she dropped screaming. The Tyrant was back
on his feet and trying something. Dangerous for his age, this one.
Another runic stone broke under his grip and the bubble formed before
both it and the villain disappeared. He should be stuck in Arcadia for
at least a few moments. Things had grown out of control, here. If both
enemy factions were on the move and even the Bard had played a hand --
and wasn't it fascinating she would have had the chance to do that even
with Assassin after her? -- then the others were in danger. Time to wrap
this up.

``\textbf{Reiterate},'' the Hedge Wizard croaked out.

Ah, there was the third. Light collected around her body, a different
take on the spell from earlier that had reformed her missing body parts.
Warlock brought down his hand and the hellfire spear drove through her
skull.

``Consequences,'' he reminded the dead heroine, and made sure there
would not be enough left for a resurrection.

---

Amadeus was faintly amused at the notion of anyone trying to kill him
with a bow when he was a known acquaintance of Ranger. The volley of
Light arrows trailed behind him as he ran across the rooftops, splitting
tiles and thatching both. An archery-based Name, this one. Warlock had
been the one to kill the last Archer, but the green-eyed had tactics to
deal with the likes of this. The shadow tendril tossed a brightstick in
the White Knight's face, himself avoiding blinding by pushing a sliver
of Name power into his eyes to blind them preventively. A heartbeat
later he'd gained his sight back and three swords whistled towards the
sides of the hero. \emph{Change}. Still blind, Hanno batted away the
blades with his bare hands and tugged at the length of one. Amadeus
immediately cut it, forming a branch from another tendril to catch the
falling blade before retracting all of them. Hand to hand fighter, if he
was not mistaken. The Levantines were known for those. Black attacked
again, eyes sharp. The enemy was shifting between skillsets more slowly,
now that he'd gone beyond twenty. Thirty in a night might be his limit,
though that was not an assumption to be relied on.

The blow dented his shield, and did not even require the Light to do so.
Dangerous. Amadeus tossed the now mostly-useless tool in his opponent's
face and placed his blows. Blade to the ankle, avoided. Blade to armpit,
parried bare-handed. The crossbow bolt form the last tendril hit the
back of the knee but failed the penetrate. The villain clicked his
tongue disapprovingly. That had been almost point-blank, meaning Name
power had been at work. He ducked under an open palm that would have
collapsed his throat, pivoted around the hero and rammed his blade under
his arm. The White Knight danced away but his bare hand was cut by one
of the blades coming around. The second should have punched through the
back of the knee, Name or not, but the hero deftly stepped atop the
blade and flipped away before Black could cut the connection and make
him fall. Breathing hard, the White Knight raised both hands above his
head and a greatsword of Light coalesced. \emph{Change}. Not a known
quantity, this skillset. There were greatsword wielders among the
Lycaonese to the north of Procer, but the Principate was ever thin on
Named.

A probe, then. It was worth sacrificing his last corpse for what would
be learned. The undead charged out of a ruined house from behind the
White Knight and was cut down without a second thought. From too far,
Amadeus noted. The greatsword had lengthened. Not something he would be
unable to deal with. The Black Knight advanced cautiously, shadows
stirring behind him, and the greatsword rose again. The Light flared,
and for a heartbeat the shadows he manipulated were lit out of
existence. Amadeus did not miss a beat, for he'd been waiting on such a
trick since the beginning of this duel. The few heroes he fought more
than once all tried it, thinking him crippled without his additional
limbs. The moment where White was occupied amplifying the Light, he
accelerated and closed the distance. The greatsword came down, longer
than before, and when he sidestepped the cut it twisted and turned to a
lateral blow. He leapt and his armoured boot landed on the White
Knight's faceplate. The roiling Light had the goblin steel smoking, but
he used the man's head as a stepping stone and leapt again.

By then the shadows had returned to him.

The blade drove itself into the White Knight's back, piercing a lung
before the Light burst out and scrapped it. Unfortunate, though
inevitable. He only had so many blades hidden in his shadow, and two
thirds were already gone. There was limited space inside, unfortunately,
so decisions had to be made about what occupied it and there were tools
more versatile than swords at his disposal. The White Knight's stance
adjusted as Amadeus landed fluidly on the ground. \emph{Change}. Seven
heartbeats for the full shift, this time. The hero was overusing his
aspect. A single longsword of Light, this time, held in one hand. The
villain raised an eyebrow, recognizing the stance from the very recent
past. The Lone Swordsman had used it, in Wekesa's illusory reproductions
of the tussle in Summerholm. That had interesting implications. The
White Knight was using the skills of Named, then, as he had suspected.
William of Greenbury had been largely self-taught, meaning there was no
teacher, mundane or otherwise, to draw these skills from. It was quite
possible Hanno was limited to heroes as well, dead ones in particular.
That this could be done at all set an interesting precedent, one he
would have to ask Warlock to look into.

Black let out a long breath. He was beginning to tire as well, though
he'd conserved his strength as much as was physically possible. He was
no stranger to working through tiredness, and how he would not to
compensate for it. The White Knight strode forward at a swift pace and
swung. Amadeus stepped out of the blow, circling cautiously. The Lone
Swordsman had been heavily dependant on his blade, as he recalled, which
was a limitation the one made of Light would only work partially around.
Was it worth trading a minor wound for a more severe one? No, that was
hurried thinking. The moment he began to bleed the tide began to turn.
He feinted to the side and was immediately parried, or would have been
if he hadn't dropped the sword. He twisted to catch it with his other
hand and reversed the momentum, but he'd made a mistake. He'd taught
Catherine too much, there were similarities in their ways of fighting.
And the Lone Swordsman had duelled her several times before dying. The
boot caught him on the shoulder and he only barely managed to land in a
roll, backing away hurriedly as the other man advanced. He \emph{had}
wondered with the White Knight would rely on the skillset of a
relatively green hero.

Hanno was not without cleverness, and unlike his first aspect this one
he had fully mastered.

Still, this was an avenue to exploit as well as a weakness. Bringing
back to mind the few sparring sessions he'd had with his apprentice
before she left to quell the Liesse Rebellion, Amadeus adjusted his
angle. Feint to the side, but he let the prompt parry pass him by. The
second feint where he pretended to attempt a similar manoeuvre to
before, the White Knight ignored and instead darted the sword of Light
at his neck. Black caught the wrist and there was a heartbeat where the
both of them were going through sets of instincts. The hero acted first,
giving in to them and using a counter that would have worked perfectly
if Amadeus had been inclined to continue fighting with the same fondness
for close range as his student. The punch went wide, for he was already
backing away and freeing the wrist. Instead he angled his blade to the
side and carved into the White Knight's throat, the full weight of his
body pivoting behind him. Blood sprayed out as he gave ground, closed by
a burst of Light. That would have been a kill, on a lesser hero.

The White Knight opened his palm, and there was a silver coin in it.
Amadeus let all other distractions fall to the wayside. The coin spun in
the air, one side with laurels and the other with crossed swords. It
fell back on the palm, swords up.

``Amadeus of the Green Stretch, Black Knight of Praes,'' the White
Knight said.

The point of the sword went through the roof of his mouth. Amadeus
withdrew his bloodied blade and put the full strength of his Name behind
the swing, but when he touched the neck it bounced off. Something
infinitely larger than him swatted him him down and he was thrown down
onto the pavestones. They collapsed around him, the ground shaking.
Seraphim. His plate was ripped open and he was bleeding from the eyes
and mouth. The White Knight was collapsed as well, a mere five feet
away, but it might as well have been a mile.

``Formulaic aspect,'' the Wandering Bard said. ``You're a little young
to know about those, I suppose. Should have let him finish, Big Guy. You
don't interrupt the words of the Choir of Judgement without a price.''

Black closed his eyes and sought out his surroundings for a corpse to
raise. It was deserted of anything, dead or alive. He got on his knees,
spewing blood and shaking. She could not intervene directly. If he
managed to strike the final blow before the hero recovered, this could
still be salvaged. Sinking into his Name he called on the shadows, but
they did not heed his will. He'd exhausted all he had simply to survive
the blow from the Seraphim, damn them and damn him and damn them all.
Creation ripped open in the distance and howling winds spilled out. The
Tyrant of Helike fell out, without visible wounds. Amadeus closed his
eyes. \emph{Solutions. Or a way to turn this into a mutual defeat,
should this prove impossible.}

``Well isn't this is a mess, if you'll forgive my language,'' the Tyrant
grinned. ``Your ornery friend with the spells cost me a \textbf{Wish},
but it was worth it to see all this with my own eyes.''

He still had an aspect. His other two were done, but Destroy could still
affect the situation even if he could not. Affecting a physical
structure? There was a half-collapsed house close enough he might be
able to make it collapse onto the White Knight. The backlash from using
the aspect without a speck of power to his Name would likely kill him.
Alternatives were needed. The Tyrant strolled to the unconscious hero
and with a groan slung his arm over his shoulder.

``I'll just be taking this,'' the odd-eyed boy said. ``Don't mind me,
carry on.''

``Enemy,'' Amadeus croaked. ``He is your enemy as well.''

The Tyrant shrugged.

``Why do you think I'm doing this?'' he said. ``Given long enough you
might figure out a way to kill him, and it's not like this one can do
anything about it. Can't have that, can we?''

He pointed his thumb at the Bard, who waved cheerfully.

``Until next time, Black,'' the boy smiled, and dragged the hero away.

For a moment Amadeus considered collapsing the house, but this was mere
petulance. With another Named shielding him, it was a guarantee the
White Knight would survive. There was a loud crack from the rooftop. The
Bard, he saw, had a bag on her knees. There were walnuts inside and she
was breaking them open before popping them into her mouth.

``That's going to cost me, you know,'' the Named said casually. ``It was
supposed to be Hedge, but your Warlock is a fucking \emph{terror} lemme
tell you. Makes the old country proud.''

Nothing good could come of listening to bardic Named, but he did not
have the power left to shut down his senses.

``Would you like me to tell you how your friend is going to die?'' the
Bard asked.

``Bluff,'' he said. ``Champion does not have the skill or story to
handle Captain.''

``She's not fighting Captain,'' the Bard said. ``She's fighting a
monster. `swhy I picked Champion. The domain, big guy. She was bound to
let out the Beast in that.''

The White Knight was finally far enough that his amulet ceased taking
effect.

``Warlock,'' the green-eyed man said. ``The Bard is here. I am
incapacitated. Sabah under threat.''

``Amadeus,'' his oldest friend's voice replied. ``She's\ldots{}''

Black closed his eyes, and that was the only moment of weakness he
allowed himself. The grief, the fury, it all went into the box and he
closed it shut. All that remained was the cold clarity that was his only
remaining safeguard. Green eyes opened, turning to the Bard. She broke
another walnut, chewing it loudly.

``You still don't get the story that made it happen,'' she said.

``The caravans,'' he said, but did not elaborate.

There was something here he was missing. Pieces to the puzzle.

``You don't speak Levantine,'' the Bard said. ``Or you'd know their word
for maiden doesn't have a gender. Meaning's closer to `virgin'.''

Lack of sexual congress alone became the qualifier, if that was true.
Every caravan had a single individual leading it, he remembered, men and
women of different age and origins. Amadeus did not speak any of three
major Levantine dialects, or even the Baalite tradertongue they'd been
influenced by. There had been no \emph{need}, and so many other things
he had to learn.

``Monster took the maidens, and repeatedly, so that's one,'' the
Wandering Bard said. ``Now, I needed a monster-killer and she's the
closest thing we have left to one of those. That's two.''

He might as well have wielded the blade himself, he thought. He'd killed
her one order at a time.

``Third, I needed the monster to be the one attacking,'' the Bard
continued nonchalantly. ``That was the easy one. Love, Amadeus. Love
always fucks you over. All I had to do was suggest Champion join White
after the wall fell, and your dear friend stepped in.''

It wouldn't be enough, Amadeus thought. They'd only fought once before,
and not on that story. There lacked weight. The old thing wearing a
girl's face smiled, nut cracking in her hand.

``You could say it was a team effort, pulling it off,'' she said. ``Our
little secret, right?''

He did not reply. Engaging her any further could only be to his
detriment. Warlock would be coming in all haste.

``I'd say sorry, but you brought this down on yourself,'' the Bard said.
``I could probably destroy you in full, big guy, but that would take
\emph{time}. And effort. So I'm going to give you advice, instead.''

The Wandering Bard leapt down from the rooftop, half-falling. She came
close, kneeling at his side.

``Go home,'' she said. ``Murder your little friend in the Tower and
reign until someone puts a knife in your back. You're not as good at
this game as you thought you were.''

Hatred, Amadeus thought, was pointless. A bias that brought no benefit.
And yet.

``But you won't, will you?'' the other Named sighed. ``You don't
negotiate.''

She rose back to her feet, brushing away walnut shards.

``I doubt we'll meet again,'' she said. ``And fucking Kairos slipped one
by me, so I'll have my hands full.''

The Wandering Bard looked down at him, shoving her hands in her pockets.

``This one feels like a sin, doesn't it?'' she mused. ``Remember that,
when the gears start turning.''