Day three. Early morning, 5:25.
Thirty-five minutes until the spirit-creature's borrowed time ran out.
Thea had stayed submerged beneath the seawater for hours, and only when she was certain the deadline was nearly upon her did she rise and board the ship to set the detonation in motion.
It was a freighter of mixed iron and timber, the Imperial double-headed eagle flying at her bow, three decks high and low. Her hold carried a full seven tons of cyclonite — a high explosive with a yield one and a half times that of TNT.
The instant it went off, the ship would become a single lit fragmentation grenade scaled to monstrous size, hurling its shockwave and searing shrapnel across the harbor quays.
And the quays were lined with warehouses, every one of them packed with industrial stock bound for the factories — cotton, flour, alcohol, sulfur, coal. Beyond those ran gas mains long overdue for repair, and farther still, the cotton mills and the chemical works.
The chain reaction after the hull blew was easy to chart: dust explosion, gas explosion, fire. From the harbor to the factory district, then onward from the factory district, spreading for perhaps a few hours before it reached the residential streets.
At 5:29, the Golden Furnace Knights petitioned the city hall for the fourth time, demanding the artillery corps be sent in for bombardment. City hall answered that the army had already been pulled away to escort the royal household and could offer no support.
At 5:35, the evacuation of residents was all but complete. Antonio arrived at the Cathedral of Our Lady. Dozens of templar-knights tried to close on him, only to be struck by a corrosion curse that cracked their armor; when they pressed the attack, they found that even 20mm explosive rounds did him almost no harm — instead the rats in the distance burst apart with little pops, the man having seemingly displaced the damage onto the vermin.
At 5:44, the templar-knights fell back to hold the cathedral, driving the besieging cultists off with flame and shellfire.
At 5:47, the Golden Furnace Knights mounted a raid against the chemical-works stronghold. Several cultists had been warned in advance and laid charges down the center of the road; more than forty templar-knights were wiped out to the last man.
Until that moment everything had held more or less steady — Nuremport's side had even held the advantage. Then, in a single instant, the scales of victory tipped over.
The Church couldn't begin to work out where all these cultists were crawling from. In barely half a day they had massed several thousand, and not a few of them were citizens who behaved perfectly ordinarily by daylight.
At first they'd carried only ordinary civilian arms. But by the end they had wheeled out two smoothbore cannon, decommissioned decades ago.
Only now did city hall manage an urgent reply: the artillery corps had been mobilized — and would still be half a day in arriving.
And precisely as the Golden Furnace Knights tried to organize a second raid, inside the chemical-works stronghold, the black-robed boy Lexius stood beside the factory machinery. He looked utterly different now, white mist coiling about him, an enormous ritual array chalked beneath his feet that spread across the entire floor.
To a long, tongue-twisting chant, from every direction twenty-four black-robed Transcendents lifted their voices together:
"We beseech the Twin Serpent, god of the unceasing coil!"
"We beseech the Twin Serpent, god of the slavering creation!"
"We beseech the Twin Serpent, god who circles the earth!"
— And all at once.
A shaft of light split the white mist.
There at its center, Lexius's pupils glittered with a pure, unblemished white radiance, the skin of his whole body like uncut, half-translucent mica, light bursting outward from somewhere deep within him.
The twenty-four cultists chanting the incantation cheered as one:
"Holy! Holy! Lexius!"
Lexius waved a hand. "Wonderful! I never dreamed it would take on the first try! Go, all of you — go now and tear out the purification nodes the Holy Church has laid down. They can't stop us any longer! Bishop Antonio will hold them at bay until noon!"
He walked past the assembled cultists, and with every step his skin cracked apart like glass — crack, crack — pouring out a luminous white light.
The light congealed into liquid, and the cultists scrambled over one another to cup it in their hands, to catch it with their mouths, swallowing every drop down — and then their eyes too blazed with that radiance.
"Holy! Holy! Lexius!"
The whole crowd surged into motion at once, streaming out of the factory like fish.
When the last of them had gone, Lexius stood alone in the workshop, grinning foolishly.
The working's purpose was to grant him, briefly, the power of a god — and then for him to hand that divine strength down, so that low-Sequence Transcendents could pry loose the ritual nodes that the Sequence Five Bishop Canthus had laid.
To have a god ride one's flesh was an honor in itself.
And on top of that, the moment he returned he'd be granted the rank of Bishop. Surely that meant he was on his way to being made a Holy Son?
Grinning, Lexius drew out his pocket watch. The hands had crept to 5:56.
Tearing out the nodes was bound to take time — three hours, give or take, to clear a third of them, and once that was done the whole working would collapse for good.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
In high spirits, Lexius stepped out of the workshop and looked up at the sky outside, where the sun was just beginning to rise.
The terrain here was poor for it. Had it been the harbor, you could have watched the blazing sun lift out of the deep sea, rolling slowly across the horizon, its light and heat scattering over a whole expanse of jagged glittering swells — a vast and burning spectacle, as if it meant to set the ocean itself alight.
As the sun climbed, the pocket watch turned its hands in good order.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Three minutes left.
The sun was about to rise.
The spirit-creature ran into the cargo hold holding a torch aloft. The explosives were all packed uniformly into wooden barrels and sacks of jute, heaped into mountains.
Cyclonite ignited somewhere between six and eight hundred degrees — a flame kindled from wood would set it off.
This was the final moment.
Thea flicked her perspective back to the cathedral and saw Antonio still besieging it outside — which left her faintly regretful. If only Antonio had been over in the factory district too, she'd have scooped up one more Sequence Five sacrifice for free.
Two minutes on the countdown.
She steadied her perspective on the spirit-creature again, allowing herself a one-minute margin for error and lighting it a minute early.
Ship's number, confirmed.
Flame burning, confirmed.
Thea reached out a fingertip and slit open the jute sack; with a soft rush, pale-yellow crystalline grains spilled to the floor.
Explosives intact, confirmed.
Hsss—!
Sparks scattered through the air, and Thea touched her flame to the sack —
— the next instant.
Tick.
The pocket watch's hands swept past 5:59.
Lexius froze for a heartbeat in the workshop doorway.
A blast, neither soft nor especially loud, rolled out and set the factory swaying faintly.
Not far off, out on the harbor's surface, countless tons of steel and timber caught and burned, the gas mains joining in, a single searing fireball swelling outward at terrible speed.
Before Lexius could puzzle over it, a violent shockwave arrived ahead of the sound, the roaring blaze already spreading into the factory district — and in the chemical works not far away, where a good deal of nitroglycerin had been stockpiled, that store became in an instant a death-knell tolling for them all.
— BOOM!
— BOOM!!
— BOOM!!!
Like dominoes toppled one into the next, the explosions ran on unbroken, thick black smoke billowing up in column after column. An enormous fireball rose together with the sun, burning away all that was evil under a heat of thousands of degrees.
【Advancement Task (300 points) — Complete!】
【No Blade Shall Pass This Place: Kill the enemy tracking you (400 points) — Complete!】
【I Will Make You Steadfast: Keep your niece, Elvira Salvia, alive for three days (300 points) — Complete!】
【No Blood Shall Be Shed: Complete the ritual together with two participants (200 points) — Complete!】
【Blood Runs in Rivers: Kill one ritual participant (100 points) — Complete!】
【Fire! Fire!: Set the Great Fire of Nuremport burning (1,000 points) — Complete!】
【Point Settlement: 2,300】
Ritual appraisal: iron drawn from water, flowers planted in fire
Current Rank: 1
Average requirement to advance: 907 points
Verdict: Ritual Complete
Advancement: Sequence Nine, Great Philosopher
Transcendent ability: Your flesh and soul grow fuller and healthier. You may use sulfur / mercury / salt to rebalance the ratio of flesh and soul, weakening one to strengthen the other at a ratio of 1:2; the ratio resets each time you adjust it again.
Before Thea could flick her perspective back to her true body, a boom went off inside her skull, and the world went black before her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was back at that first stone-table council — but the remaining six stone chairs were gone now, and three extinguished candles had somehow been lit once more, their light gathering into three arcs upon the candlestand.
Three objects surfaced in the flame of each of the three candles: a handful of salt, a crimson cup, and a white ball of meat.
And at that moment, before Thea's eyes, the luminous screen surfaced — the same one from when she'd offered up spirit in the Inverted Sanctum.
Now drawing a Transcendent trait. Please choose one of the three Transcendent traits.
【1. Salt Covenant: The effect of your "Great Philosopher" Sequence Nine Transcendent ability is reduced by 75%. You will gain 175% of the Holy Grail path's "Saint" Sequence Nine Transcendent ability.】
【2. Crimson Cup: You must pierce the skin and draw blood. Depending on the volume bled, your flesh gains a strengthening of 1%–500%. While you are in a bleeding state, your Transcendent ability requires no casting time.】
【3. Spirit Transplant: You will lose your original body, and must dive at least eight hours every day. Your body will be transformed into a spirit-creature, ignoring physical barriers.】
The three Transcendent traits were spelled out plainly, laid before Thea's eyes.
A Transcendent trait was not the same as a Transcendent ability. An ability came without cost — but a trait was more like a permanent ritual that required no materials.
When old Lawrence had faced down Scarlett's muzzle, he'd shown that ability to unfailingly evade a frontal attack — that, too, had surely been some Transcendent trait.
As for these three before her now...
First, scratch number three. A spirit-creature body was certainly convenient — it could pass through walls, could even manage a degree of invisibility, and was splendid for dealing with enemies, letting her assassinate them out of nowhere. But most importantly — the thought of Annie's nose pressed snug against her toes, the thought of that blissful look on the girl's face, meant she could not lose this body!
As for the Salt Covenant... she had to admit, it was tempting. Sacrifice her existing Transcendent ability for a stronger one. And if she took on a Holy Grail trait, she might even wangle herself a post in the Church.
But she knew nothing of the Holy Grail path's abilities, and had no intention of joining the Church in the future. No need to gamble.
Which left only the Crimson Cup.
The Crimson Cup's terms were straightforward enough: use her own blood to strengthen her flesh up to 500% — and on top of that, since her Transcendent ability could strengthen flesh by weakening soul, the boost could stack to nearly 700%.
What did that mean, in practice?
If a fairly powerful grown man could lift a hundred kilograms, then Thea, strengthened to her ceiling, could hoist eight hundred — strength to rival a brown bear's.
A single thrown punch could shatter concrete; her running speed would close on a cheetah's; her reflexes would sharpen enough to dodge a bullet, and at full velocity her clothes would simply burn away and leave her running bare.
The strength of a bear, the eyes of an eagle, the speed of a leopard.
Of course, to reach that pitch she'd likely have to bleed herself dry.
She chose the candle that bore the Crimson Cup.
And then.
— Whff.
Thea blew out a breath, snuffing the other two candles and leaving only the one to burn fierce and bright.
The red-gold candlelight lifted from the wick and drifted slowly into Thea's left eye, and within her amber pupil several red-gold veins came surfacing into view.
Beyond the Transcendent trait she'd gathered this time, setting off the Great Fire of Nuremport had surely reaped her no small number of Transcendents besides.
Their spirit was presumably stored in the Inverted Sanctum too — though she couldn't step into the Sanctum at once just now.
Thea had assumed that, once the advancement ritual was done, she'd become some manner of mage — that she'd command the whole field with the lightest flick of her hand, effortless and elegant.
Or that she'd be able to lard herself with a great stack of rituals, holding her opponents in the palm of her hand with traps and stratagems.
But she'd never imagined — that she'd turn into a close-quarters, hand-to-hand berserker...
In the bedroom.
Thea opened her eyes. The four candles before her had all burned down to nothing, the wax congealed into a single pool on the floor.
"The ritual was simpler than I expected. Scarlett earned her keep, and then some... So there were this many secrets behind the plague of sixteen years ago. Not a wasted trip after all."
And there was something more important still: the intelligence she'd dug out of old Lawrence's mouth concerning "Quickhand Pete."
By his account, the man was a North Harbor local. "Quickhand Pete" was an alias; his true name was Orlando. His mother, forty-six, worked at a cotton mill in North Harbor. His father, forty-four, was a wounded veteran discharged from the army, since taking work as a gatekeeper down in Great Harbor. There was a thirteen-year-old brother in the household too, and a two-year-old sister. Apart from Quickhand Pete himself, the rest of the family all lived on Cedar Street in North Harbor.
Tomorrow happened to be a good day to swing by the precinct and dig into all this a little more. That ought to be enough to turn up this "Quickhand Pete's" weak spot.
Thea rose from the armchair. The clock on the wall was creeping toward two in the morning.
More than two days had passed in the Nightmare — and only two hours, in the waking world?
Thea shook her head and didn't dwell on it. First to the kitchen, to boil the beans she'd left soaking and make a bowl of baked beans in tomato sauce.
There was a small rack of lamb in the kitchen too, picked up on a market run the day before; she dusted it with black pepper and salt, dragged it through butter and seared it a while, then added onion and carrot and minced garlic, until a mouthwatering fragrance came hissing up.
She'd opened a bottle of red wine earlier. In truth Thea was no great drinker — her understanding of wine more or less stopped at the level of a sleeping aid.
Since it was open, though, it would be a waste not to use it. She poured the wine into the pot, and once the alcohol had cooked off she dropped in rosemary and thyme, braising the meat low and slow until it fell apart tender.
By the time the meat was nearly done —
Chop, chop, chop...
— she'd put her apron back on, minced up some vegetables, and tossed together a green salad.
A midnight supper this lavish counted as a feast. But whether the warped time of the Nightmare had tricked her stomach, or whether diving into the Nightmare was itself fiercely draining, or whether finishing the advancement had left her in desperate need of fuel — her appetite was wide open, no question.
After eating her fill, Thea set down another diving ritual.
This time it wasn't for advancement, nor to sink into the Nightmare.
Her eyelids sank and shut at once, and a swift plunging sensation dragged her back to that familiar place — the Inverted Sanctum.
This time, what she found there set her trembling, helpless to stop it.