webcrawl/APGTE/Book-4/tex/Ch-057.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-42-the-skeins-plan}{%
\section{Chapter 42: The Skein's
Plan}\label{chapter-42-the-skeins-plan}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Chaos is a ladder, Chancellor. It never goes quite where you
need it to, and the rise is always more graceful than the descent.''}

-- Dread Emperor Perfidious
\end{quote}

Like proper villains, we put a magic gate between ourselves and the
consequences of our actions before silently agreeing to pretend none of
it had taken place. The Woe had taken to that part of villainy better
than any other, truth be told. Probably didn't help that I was the
closest thing Archer had to an authority figure in her life that wasn't
\emph{Ranger}, or that Hierophant had been raised to believe that
repercussions were a thing that happened to people who didn't have
family dinners involving the full roster of the Calamities. Seriously. I
would be dishonest not to acknowledge that having Black cleaning up
behind me for year hadn't, uh, encouraged me to display a perhaps
disproportional amount of recklessness in my actions. But even at my
worst there'd been an amount of calculation involved in those risks. In
contrast, Thief had at some point robbed a Legion pay convoy and somehow
expected to get away with it, while Diabolist had gone out of her way to
personally piss off every single living villain with a higher body count
than her. Well, before Liesse anyway. She'd murdered her way to the top
of that list quick enough. It was telling that the closest thing we had
to a steady hand around was Adjutant, and he'd rather famously gotten
into a slugging match with a demon.

Gods, was Juniper the voice of sanity? She ate people, for fuck's sake.
Well, corpses anyway, and she hadn't done it in a while that I knew of,
but \emph{still}.

``I have so many questions,'' I told Akua the moment the gate closed.

``Flammable and inflammable mean the same thing,'' she replied without
missing a beat.

I paused.

``What?'' I managed.

``I noticed you've been misusing the latter,'' Diabolist said with a
beaming smile. ``The word is actually derived from the Old Miezan verb
\emph{inflammare}, which means `to set on fire'.''

Masego let out a noise of approval, the filthy traitor. Of course of all
the Woe's habits the one Akua had to pick up was giving me lip in the
middle of delicate life-and-death situations. `Closing ranks in front of
outsiders' had been too much to hope for, I supposed, but Merciless Gods
I would have settled for `prone to collateral damage we can't afford to
pay for'. It wasn't like she didn't have a history. I made the decision
that choking my only current source of insight on what was happening was
unwise, which I thought was very queenly of me.

``Where are we?'' I patiently asked.

``Before the gate to the central chamber,'' Akua said, inviting me to
look behind her with an elegant gesture.

If you'd one sinister rune-engraved stone gate, you'd seen them all.
This one was ridiculously large, but given the alleged size of the Skein
that wasn't a surprise. Besides, this one didn't even have a terrifying
face-shaped demon bound inside. Strictly small time compared to the
Tower, that somehow-standing pile of horrors. I considered my next
question carefully.

``How?'' I finally said. ``Just\ldots{}''

I gestured to encompass Creation.

``\emph{How}?''

``As a part of your mantle, she can draw on Winter to an extent if so
allowed,'' Masego said.

``Yes, yes, we all knew that,'' I lied. ``Not need to state the obvious,
Masego. But here precisely?''

``The chain,'' Akua simply said.

Which bound her to me, or more accurately the Mantle of Woe, and to an
extent Winter itself. That explained how she'd been able to open a gate
towards my location, anyway. How had she even gotten here in the first
place? The whole point of the Threefold Reflection was that it could be
turned into an unsolvable maze at the drop of a hat.

``You used Winter, to make your gates,'' the shade reminded me. ``Your
works were known to me.''

Setting aside the headache-inducing implications of that for later, I
frowned. So she'd seen where I was planning to get out of Arcadia and
gone there. Which told me why she was here, but not how she'd gotten
there in the first place. I eyed her warily, since the question had been
implied, but she did not speak again. More secrets. Exactly what we
needed, at the moment.

``My eye, if you would,'' Masego stiffly asked.

Akua sketched a bow and produced the glass orb with a flourish of the
wrist. My frown deepened.

``You've been running the ritual this whole time,'' I said. ``He could
see through his eye, you through his, and you sent him instructions
through it.''

``Cards,'' she agreed. ``As I was instructed, though I did not always
know the reasons why.''

I passed a hand through my hair. Which, as I immediately remembered, had
been formed out of Winter smoke and mirrors mere moments ago. There was
no sweat matting the strands even after my extortions, which I was
almost thankful for. The inhumanity of that was almost comforting,
compared to the reminder that any sweat I'd feel would be a lie I told
myself and my will enforced.

``We're on Buzzard, I take it,'' I said.

She nodded. I eyed the stone door.

``So now?'' I probed.

``We enter,'' Diabolist said. ``After the sixth rune in your head is
disabled.''

Skipping a few there, huh. That aside, Vivienne's card had given me the
eloquent instructions of `don't' when it came to the Skein, so it was
worth asking her if-

``And Thief is gone,'' I said. ``Please tell me someone else saw her get
out of Arcadia.''

Masego finished putting back his eye in the appropriate burnt-out
socket, yet another reason to be thankful eating was now optional for
me, and straightened up.

``I did as well,'' he said. ``Though she disappeared within moments.''

``And you didn't think that was worth mentioning?'' I asked.

``I assumed there was a reason,'' he replied.

Yeah, that was today in a sentence wasn't it? Could hardly rake him over
coals for that.

``Romance my brain, Zeze,'' I ordered with a sigh. ``Let's get this cart
back on the road before it catches fire. Again.''

His hand rose, and immediate-

--

\emph{``He reads stories,'' Vivienne said.}

\emph{``We can as well,'' Masego pointed out.}

\emph{I intervened before that could turn into a proper bicker.}

\emph{``So we come at him with a plan, he'll have seen it from beginning
to end,'' I said.}

\emph{``Essentially,'' she said, after flicking an irritated glance at
the blind mage. ``Though the interesting implication is that he can only
`read' a single story at a time. It is possible to fool him.''}

\emph{``Multiple schemes will be required,'' Akua mused. ``With a degree
of bridging between them. It would be ideal to begin on a scheme and
move into another before the Skein can arrange for a point of
failure.''}

\emph{``That means someone has to know enough of them to lead us to
change tacks at critical moment,'' I noted. ``Considering you can't
really fight, Diabolist, it'll have to be you.''}

\emph{``She'll need to be fooled as well,'' Hakram spoke up. ``Given
more plans than we'll actually use and kept in the dark about which few
options are really on the table.''}

\emph{``Go random,'' Indrani advised. ``That always fucks with
oracles.''}

\emph{Akua nodded in agreement.}

\emph{``The rest of you will need to be kept ignorant of large swaths of
what is planned,'' she added after. ``Lest the moment you begin a plan
the enemy be made aware of it.''}

\emph{``Masego, you can do memory blocks right?'' I asked.}

\emph{He nodded.}

\emph{``An easy enough enchantment for all save you and Diabolist,'' he
said. ``Conditional triggers can be woven in, though no more than one
per `block'. Too high a degree of sophistication risks permanence, the
human mind is a complex device.''}

\emph{``I don't like how complicated this is getting,'' I admitted.
``But once you're wet, there's no reason not to swim.''}

\emph{``I don't follow,'' Masego said, brow creasing.}

\emph{``We don't leave him to guess between a handful of plans,'' I said
grimly. ``We \textbf{drown} him in them.''}

--

-ly. Rude.

``So this is a stupid plan, but it's stupid on purpose,'' I said,
rubbing my forehead. ``That's comforting. You know, except for the part
where we fail and die horribly.''

``I was hoping we would avoid that,'' Hierophant gravely said.

``Yeah, well, you know what the Dead King put up on the gates into this
place,'' I replied. ``Fine, it's too late to run anyway. Akua, you got
anything to add?''

She bowed smoothly.

``I was ordered,'' she said, ``to fight as an extension of you, should
it come to swords.''

``Well, it's not like today has been a cornucopia of good decisions so
far,'' I mused. ``So what the Hells, let's give it a whirl. Zeze, get
the door would you?''

With a deep grinding sound, the stone slabs parted.

``This is the part where I praise his efficiency,'' Akua announced.
``Because misunderstandings and incompetent assessments are humorous.''

Was it wrong that the one of the most horrifying things about the
mass-murdering maddened shade of my former rival was that she was trying
to develop a functional sense of humour? If so, Black had shown a lot
more foresight than I'd thought back in that alley.

``In we go,'' I said, warily eyeing the darkness within. ``Before I
start debating whether it'd have been more reassuring to blow our way
through.''

Robber was, inarguably, a horrible influence. The ground wasn't stone, I
knew that just from the feel of it under my boots. It wasn't even flat.
It crunched. Didn't even need to glance down, the sound was easy enough
to recognize: bones. Charming. The inside was pitch black save for a
single well of light illuminating the artefact Thief had spoken of:
three layered wooden wheels on a stick, with pieces of string joining
them haphazardly. She'd not mentioned, however, that every wheel was
about as broad as I was tall. Hierophant followed behind me, and the
grinding sound told me that-

``Yeah, so \emph{that}'s not happening,'' I noted.

Ice bloomed in the way of the closing stone doors, shattering for the
first few inches but eventually forcing them to a halt as I kept pouring
power into the working. I was already standing inside a massive dark
cavern filled with bones, there was no way I was letting the Skein keep
us stuck inside. Speaking of, there was no sign of the Revenant.

``At least he's not waiting on a throne,'' I mused. ``Those fights never
seem to go well for us.''

There were tall curved rib bones from something definitely not human
serving as a sort of antechamber leading to the wheels, but that
screamed `trap' even more than the rest of this room.

``Hierophant?'' I prompted.

``We can use them,'' Masego replied. ``I can already glimpse them. Deep,
but simple.''

Good to know. Still didn't tell me where the Hells the undead rat was.

``Oh what a stroke of luck,'' I loudly said. ``The Skein isn't here. I
guess we'll just walk towards those wheels and-``

Sword clearing the scabbard in a heartbeat, I stabbed the bones beneath
my feet and poured the howling might of Winter into the mess. Frost
crept through the mass of bones, and my eyebrow rose when I realized how
deep it actually went under us. At least sixty, seventy feet. Not trace
of the Skein though.

``Catherine,'' Akua said.

I sighed.

``He's above us, isn't he?'' I said.

The answer wasn't so much laughter as it was the quiet rumbling of the
storm. A massive shape leapt down and bones were sent flying in every
direction while I smoothly rose and fell into a guard. Hierophant,
prudently, came to stand behind me. Diabolist was at my shoulder know,
and all I felt from her was a hunter's patience. Furred body bending
over the wheels and cutting through the light, the Skein watched us with
a leering grin. He was large as Thief had said, but her short
description had not done the Revenant justice. Thick dark fur covered a
body that was almost humanoid, save for the long wormlike tail that came
from its lower back, but it was the head that was discomforting to look
at. We call their kind ratlings, but looking at that rotting leather it
was a snake I thought of. The pale golden eyes with deep red gouges
under them only deepened the impression. The two pairs of bone-like
antlers ripping through the top of its head were wickedly sharp, even
after what must have been centuries. A Horned Lord. Even Ranger
considered the likes of that difficult to deal with, and when we'd come
across that woman in Arcadia I'd felt like she could murder the lot of
us in the span of a single breath. Not an opponent I should take
lightly. Not an opponent I should fight at all, if I could help it.
Sadly, my mouth disagreed.

``So can we knock off the theatrics?'' I asked. ``Because, let's be
honest here, Akua's probably more Evil than you are and if I told her to
fetch my slippers she'd do it.''

The creature's dry red tongue licked at fangs half the size of me.

``Take the wheel, lead the Empress to the orc,'' the Skein said, then
cocked his head to the side. ``Or. The Empress escapes, yet dies to a
blade of stolen moonlight. Two paths.''

``Well, I'm glad someone knows the plan,'' I mused. ``Would you care to
monologue about how we're going to fail?''

The Revenant laughed.

``Then you strike,'' he said. ``Or. She strikes with you. Or. You flee.
Tricky little things, skittering around, but you entered the maze. You
did. Surrendered too many paths. No end remaining is fortunate.''

I reached for the last card inside my cloak and my fingers came away
wet. My hand rose.

``Just give me a moment,'' I asked.

The ancient abomination stilled. I got the sense he was somewhat taken
aback. Last card, huh. I slipped it out and angled it so the light well
the Revenant was across would make it clearer. The Queen of Swords.

\emph{You have an invisible crossbow.}

Written diagonally, across the whole thing. I flipped it. Nothing on the
other side. Seriously, Past Catherine? That was the entire message? She
might as well have just drawn herself flipping me the bird. What an
asshole.

``Catherine?'' Masego probed.

``If you were hoping for a solution,'' I said. ``That was not it.''

``It was pointless,'' the Skein said. ``Seventeen stories? Pretty little
tales, but you always end up here. No matter the path, the destination
is the same.''

Seventeen. Gods. There wasn't enough alcohol in all of Keter to justify
that, and even worse I was pretty sure we'd planned this sober.

``Look,'' I said. ``I'm with you on this one. This whole thing has been
a debacle from start to finish, and the person responsible should be
buried alive. We're on the same side, here.''

The Revenant stilled again. Evidently, this was not unfolding as
expected.

``You did this,'' he tried.

``That can't be, I don't remember it,'' I immediately denied.

I'd fought enough Praesi to know that sufficiently high station and
blatant lies could get you out of nearly anything, if you played your
cards right.

``We should look into it together,'' I told him. ``Have you considered
we might be getting framed? I'm just saying, this is a horrible plan. I
could do better. It just doesn't add up.''

``Does this actually ever work?'' I heard Akua ask Masego in a whisper.

There was a beat.

``It got us into Skade,'' he eventually conceded.

``Are you trying to lie to an oracle?'' the Skein said, by the sound of
it genuinely offended.

``I would never dare lie to you,'' I lied. ``You're obviously a\ldots{}
rat-person of highly discerning judgement. If you just get Malicia in
here, I'm sure we can straighten all of this out.''

``It's like watching a demon get loose,'' Akua murmured. ``You know you
should run, but you just \emph{have} to look.''

``You want me to bring the Empress here,'' the Revenant said. ``The
Empress that you are trying to kill.''

``That's completely unrelated,'' I said, proceeding forward with greatly
unwarranted assurance. ``And hearsay besides. I'm as loyal to the Tower
as any Praesi.''

Assuming said Praesi was highborn, anyway.

``Did you truly expect this to succeed?'' the Skein eventually asked.

``I've rolled the dice on worse odds,'' I admitted, perhaps a little too
honestly.

While that was not a high point by any definition of the term, it
definitely went downhill from there.

---

I'd learned several things today. First, elves were bullshit even when
they were dead. I wasn't unaware that I didn't have a lot of room to
talk when it came to recovering from wounds, but who the Hells just
decided they were all right and had Creation agree like a drunker
singer? Second, when the Lady of the Lake called a breed of foe `hard
fuckers' she meant `how would someone even kill that thing if it wasn't
already dead?'. I was now on my eighth sword, and beginning to
appreciate why heroes always got handed some nifty legendary blade
before they were sent into the meat grinder. I might as well have been
trying to breach a wall swinging at it with a salmon. And, not, I grimly
thought, even a large one. That was, sadly, not even in the top ten of
my current problems. The Skein's jaw hung unhinged, gaping wide, and it
closed only when the last of the darkness had been swallowed into it.
There went my domain.

Which he had eaten, because that was a thing that could be done.

``It comes,'' Akua whispered into my ear.

\emph{Thank you, helpful collar fairy,} I acidly thought. If I'd wanted
a running fucking commentary, I'd have asked Black for a talking sword.
I leapt onto a platform even as the Skein's bare fist collided with the
bones beneath where I'd stood, immediately leaping onto another before
the swing of his tail could catch me. I'd learned the hard way that I
couldn't take a hit from the Revenant without spending precious moments
rebuilding whatever passed for my spine these days.

``Burn,'' Hierophant said.

Ribbons of golden flame streaked across the dark cavern, folding around
one of the Skein's limbs, but he turned and casually sucked the fire
into his open maw. The breath that spread was putrid, like something
left to rot for so long the rot was all that was left. The Horned Lord
flicked at glance at Masego, who stood atop a ring of bones surrounded
by a pale globe of light, and without warning \emph{moved}. Fuck. I took
a running leap off my platform, then as the fall quickened my momentum
called on my domain again. The brushstrokes of night came but twice
before the Revenant lazily struck down right through them. The darkness
dispersed like smoke and then the backlash hit. My eyes froze in their
sockets, then shattered, and with a hoarse scream I dropped out of my
controlled fall into a pile of bones.

``Move,'' Akua said.

I rolled to the side without thinking, and a massive impact close to me
had me spinning back in the air. I reached for my face -- was that a rib
going through my cheek? -- and forced the eyes to form quicker. Vision
returned just in time to see the massive handful of claws headed my way.
Flick of the wrist and ice sprouted on them, forming a long staff I
caught by the side, and then the tail smashed me into the wall of this
accursed place. There went my spine again. There really was not getting
used to that, was there? I heard Masego bark out something in the mage
tongue and dropped listlessly to the ground. Diabolist was there, red
eyes and pleasant smile, helping me up.

``There was mention of fighting together,'' I said after spitting out a
few of my teeth.

Akua Sahelian offered me her hand.

``Shall we?'' she said.

Gods help me, but I took it.