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It died quickly, a candle flicker compared to the Rover.
Nash's pose on the railing – and Noi'sposition hanging over it – were not so perilous at second glance. The balconies were merely sectioned offportions of the roof of the tier below, with a broad expanse of concretebeyond. Still Madeleine desperatelytried to lever herself off the carpet because there were only leech Blues nearNoi, and the attention of the room had been drawn to the fight with the 'South'of the Five.
But from two lone escapees their numbers had grownexponentially, each freed Blue quick to put to use the skills and knowledgegained during their possession. It wastwo ski
Another domino.
ooOoo
Madeleine was resting her eyes, with occasionalinterruptions. The first had been Tyler,prodding her to drink lukewarm soup. Next, a relative hush in a room which had been humming with voices. Then a question.
"Is it possible?"
"Yes."
Not Noi, but the lightly accented voice of the former South,a Malaysian man in his late twenties named Haron. Madeleine opened her eyes to look at him, thefocus of a room crowded with forty or so freed Blues.
"It is a faint chance," he went on,apologetically. "When the Spire'sshield is down, but it is no longer functioning as a portal – as it will be inthe moments immediately after the Core returns – the Spire is vulnerable. A pulse, an application of carefully timedblows of force, will paralyse it, preventing the raising of the shield. If this is followed by a continued attack,there is a chance we could kill it, but more likely it will withdraw."
"Kill it?" That was Nash, startled. "It's alive?"
"The Spires – all the Spires – are a single, livingconstruct. A grander creature than theHunters and the Aerials, but sharing the same origin."
Only the leech Blues reacted with surprise. Curled in a corner of one of the room'scouches, Madeleine considered the faces of the Musketeers among the crowd offreed Blues. Pan, Min, Noi, and Emily,each having looked through a window at an alien world and culture. The knowledge alone would always separatethem, and the experience had marked them in other ways. They were all so bruised. Pan tried to disguise it with his usualfrenetic energy, but drooped when there was no-one to bounce off. Emily hadn't spoken, not once, while Min'sfew words had been sharp, full of edges. Noi's eyes were shadowed.
Three days since they had danced barefoot. Every one of them silently wounded.
Madeleine glanced at Fisher, who did not drop his eyes quitequickly enough to hide that he'd been watching her. His face was drawn, the lids drooping withexhaustion, and despite her determination to not deal with her feelings untilafter the coming battle, she had to check an impulse to wait until he lookedagain. He continued to take adeliberately businesslike tone to everything, giving her little chance to gaina sense of him, but already there'd been glimpses of a different person to theone she'd known. A hint of impatience, atouch of sarcasm. More often brief glancesrather than those calm, unhurried surveys. The co
Too much noise to think. Forty freed Blues, each with their own opinions, making it impossible tosimply issue peremptory commands without explanation. Madeleine closed her eyes on the debate, thenopened them to check again on Noi, subdued and contained, holding an icepack toEmily's shoulder. Now that all theMusketeers were free, Madeleine had lost her immediate drive. Incapable of celebrating, unable to mourn.
She shifted so she could see Tyler's profile. Always distant in his own way, yet conjuringa sense of comfort, safety, the certainty of family. He would always be her cousin, no matter whathappened. But even with Tyler she couldnot find any way to explain her confusion, or her need to have Théoden'ssacrifice acknowledged, could only tell herself over and over that now was thewrong time. Everyone had their ownhurts, their own struggle with the coming battle. She shut her eyes again, trying to listenwithout feeling.
The crux of the debate was the consequences of failure. If the Spire remained functional, then theunited clan response would mean the deaths of most, if not all the freed Blueswho had mustered to fight, followed by a release of dust to create more Bluesaround Sydney. Even if they succeeded,they would be facing the Core and two Quarters – and a dragon.
"Eight years."
Noi hadn't raised her voice, but her flat tone still managedto cut through the noise.
"The gap before the next cycle of primacy will be eightEarth years," she continued. "Why are we even discussing this? You mightn't have been hosting one of the Reborn, but it still must beobvious to you all that there's no question of passing up this chance, or ofmaking sure the information we have is spread as far and wide aspossible."
"A cycle." Nash had straightened in dismay. "Of course. That has alwaysbeen there, right in front of us. Acycle suggests repetition."
"They'll come back," Noi said. "Until there's not enough people left onEarth to make it worth their while. Andthen they'll skip our planet for a few cycles, until we've built up a bigenough population for them to care. Over, and over, and again. Unlesswe stop them."
There was no argument after that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A small 'command group' – primarily the Musketeers and theleech Blues – woke Madeleine a third time, returning to the North's suite for astrategy meeting after the rest of the hotel had been cleared. Of the three hundred and fifty-odd possessedBlues in Sydney, they had now freed a hundred and eight. There were as many Greens in the building,posing such a technical difficulty for the freed Blues that any suggestion ofrescuing Blues in other hotels was quickly shut down.
"It will have to wait until after we've faced theCore. If the Spire withdraws, the Greenswill recover themselves in..." Noishrugged, her eyes still flat and dark. "The North didn't know the exact timing. A day or a week – long enough that we'll beeither fighting, avoiding, or have our hands full helping them. The most we can do beforehand is try to limitGreen involvement with the initial battle, and then deal with them after, alongwith any Moths which attack us."
"Any guesses how many will?" Nash asked.
"While the Spire stands, and the Core's alive, all ofthem will come. That's not an option forthem. The longer the battle lasts, themore we'll have to fight." Noi noddedat the television, where an endless series of battles between possessed Blueswas being waged. "Less than twohours till dawn, and we'll want to be in place well before, in case that wrapsup early. Let's get this recordingdone."
"I'll wake Fish," Pan said, picking up one of apair of compact video cameras Fisher had produced from his backpack.
"No, we'll do the technical sections first." Noi glanced at Madeleine, not Fishercollapsed on the couch opposite. "Everyone should get as much rest as they can."
Drowsy, but no longer numbingly exhausted, Madeleine stayedcurled up, watching as Noi explained the process of freeing and reviving Blues,and the best techniques for fighting Moths and their creatures. Then Haron set outthe plan to bring down the Spires, in the hopes that if they failed anothercity would be able to carry it out.