Unfallen Dead

Crimson essence exploded from the portal. The whine of the engine broke free, no longer muffled, and a police motorcycle soared through the portal. It hurtled upward in an aura of flame, trailing a streak of burning essence. The bike came down fast, landing in front of me, its rear wheel skidding out sideways. Essence billowed over me.

“Don’t just stand there. Get the hell on!” Murdock shouted.

He spun the bike toward the portal. A wave propagated through the ground, and the hill became a gully. Murdock revved the throttle in the face of a growing peak of earth. I barely swung my leg behind him before he let out the clutch. The engine sang as the front tire lifted, and we tore up the hill. We rode the ground swell like a boat riding a wave. At the crest, we went airborne. The engine screamed as the tires spun free.

The portal twisted toward us, the lintel stone cracking and throwing fist-sized chunks of stone. The last of the circle collapsed, and the portal heaved over. Brilliant essence sprang from the spear and tore open the veil.

Images cascaded across my vision, buildings and trees and people, as the bike flew out of the fairy ring. We hit the ground, and the bike skidded from under us. Murdock’s body shield took the brunt of the initial impact, but I rolled free, falling down an embankment until a tree stopped me.

I winced as I propped myself up to catch my breath. Several somethings felt broken inside. The air vibrated with essence, a steady, bass throb against my skin. The wind carried the rich, flinty odor of essence-fire. Flames burned everywhere, and the damaged landscape showed evidence of major exchanges of essence-fire. The great oaks at the top of the hill lay broken and uprooted.

So many people on the Common earlier had set off my riot radar in my old security muscles. The destruction around me confirmed it hadn’t been wrong. The entire Common was in lockdown, empty of the crowd that had streamed to the fairy ring. The only people remaining were fey from the Guild or human police. Even at this distance, Keeva’s essence signature was identifiable up near the statehouse dome. Dana

The fairy ring had changed. What had been a hazy fu

Murdock picked himself up, looking no worse for wear. Of course, he had the body shield, not me.

“Thanks for the save,” I said.

He shook his head at me like we had done something amusing and embarrassing. “It’s not like I could just leave you with a bunch of dead people.”

I smiled, too tired to argue with him. “No, only a jerk would do that.”

He gestured at my hand. “Does that hurt?”

Essence radiated out of the spear, too powerful for a simple wooden shaft to maintain. I didn’t think the spear was even there anymore, not in any physical sense I could understand, white fire taking on the spear’s shape as it bled through from wherever the light was coming from. The essence coiled up my forearm, igniting the silver mesh like a tattoo of light. I couldn’t see or feel my hand. I didn’t know if I still had a hand. “Surprisingly, no, but it probably will as soon as I remember to feel.”

The ground shook. The column of light soared higher, its bottom edge expanding across the remains of the fairy ring. “Is that supposed to happen?” Murdock asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said.

If I wasn’t sure of my hand, the dark mass in my head decided to remind me it still existed. It shifted, probing into the essence of the spear, both essences pushing for dominance. I closed my eyes, encouraging the spear to feel my desire. It was not like ability control — I didn’t even think it was an ability, at least not one I understood. It didn’t hear me during Vize’s throw; otherwise, it would not have injured Ceridwen. No, the spear had its own agenda, responding to me only if it chose. Whatever it was doing, it caused a hell of a lot less pain than the dark mass, and I welcomed it.

“I failed,” a voice said.

Startled, Murdock and I moved together but saw no one. The air rippled and Vize appeared in a relaxed posture, his sword in his hand but down at his side. The nixie squatted on the ground chuckling, her hand clutching the hem of Vize’s tunic. Chalk up cloaking as another of her abilities.

Murdock called up his shield. My sensing ability detected no metal on him at all. He had lost his gun somewhere.

I pointed my blade at Vize. “Drop the sword.”

“Do I have your word you won’t run me through?” he asked.

“You mean like you did Ceridwen?”

He held both hands up, the sword high in his right. “What needed doing is done. I did what was demanded.”

I gestured. “Drop it.”

He relaxed his knees, keeping his eyes on me as he crouched, lowering the sword parallel to the ground and placing it on the grass.

The nixie grabbed at it, and I focused my blade on her.

“No! No! Keep it, Berg! He has two teeth, and you have none,” she said in an old variant of German.

Vize straightened, stroking the nixie’s matted hair. “Hush, Gretan. We have more to achieve here than our lives,” he replied in the same language. Loathing filled her eyes as she glared at me. She released the sword and clutched Vize’s leg again.

“The Wheel could have dropped me anywhere, Grey. It chose here,” Vize said.

“The fact that you want the spear might have something to do with that,” I said.

He shrugged. “Perhaps. But I didn’t cause this, Grey. You did.”

“I have a different interpretation of who caused this, Vize,” I said.

He gave me his back, watching the column in the sky grow wider. “Yes, well, I’m sure you will take great solace in that as we all die. Can you read the runes on the spear?”

The runes. They were there, faint, almost lost in the white essence in my hand. Way Seeker. Way Maker. Way Keeper. I pressed the spearhead against Vize’s neck. He didn’t flinch. “What do you know about them?”

He tilted his head to see me over his shoulder. “What they say. The holder of the spear seeks the Way of the Wheel, makes it and keeps it. And the spear seeks whoever the Wheel decides will make and keep the Ways. It seeks someone to execute the will of the Wheel, like it did when it came to me in TirNaNog.”

I exchanged glances with Murdock. I didn’t believe Vize. “The Wheel of the World wanted you to try to kill Ceridwen?”

Vize returned his gaze to the column. “I dreamed a figure in red would destroy everything I sought to achieve. I tried to eliminate that threat, and the spear seemed to will it. I tried three times and picked the wrong person each time. I misunderstand the metaphor. You are the red figure, Grey, you with the spear in your hand and a bloodstained face.”

“Then I’ve stopped you. I’ve won.”

He gestured at the sky. “Have you? Congratulations.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care. The spear left me, and the Wheel turns, Grey. Some say we do things that change Its direction. Some say we can’t. Doing nothing is the same as doing something. We always choose. In the end, the Wheel turns. I can accept the choices I’ve made. Can you?”

A sending fluttered through the air. The nixie gri