The Forging Of The Fulcrum Hammer/Part 5

The 20th Day of Resplendent Water, 767 in the Year of Our Empress.

The Abyssal paced the area of the command point, ducking now and then to avoid hitting his head on the top of the tent. The Lieutenant in charge of this operation didn't seem to notice, just as she had pointedly ignored every sign of his impatience. He was not within her chain of command but neither was he her superior officer, exactly. The ambiguity, and her lack of reaction, annoyed him.

"I don't suppose we're ready yet," Dissent asked, knowing how futile it was.

"Not yet, sir," the Lieutenant answered, spying out the terrain ahead.

In the Underworld, a place Dissent now knew better than Creation, this would be the Plain of Shards, the vast desert dominated by the First and Forsaken Lion and the desert nomads permitted to exist there. This was not the Underworld though. Today, the Lion was after living prey.

"Let me know when, Lieutenant," the Abyssal growled at the much shorter woman, eager to get to work. He had been an Immaculate Monk, a student of Pasiap. Once, patience had come as naturally as breathing. Now, it seemed so pointless when everything was doomed to die sooner or later.

At the moment, Dissent fervently hoped it would be sooner. Although the hastily erected command tent shielded them, the Sun beat down on the desert with brutal heat and light. Even in here, he could feel the roaring anger of the God who had killed Dissent's Masters.

"The Third and Forth Infantry Factions are in position, sir," said the Lieutenant, surveying the scene with a spyglass. She really was an amazingly statuesque woman. There were courtesans in the Thousand, both living and dead, who lacked her beauty or perfect body.

It wasn't the abstractly pure gorgeousness of the Princess Magnificent either. She radiated fertility, or would if she were not clad in the First and Forsaken Lion's uniform. A soldier's outfit could not conceal her full breasts, the narrow waist with seductive hips or a splendid ass that invited fondling. The first time he'd seen her, he had thought she was a concubine playing dress-up...until he'd seen her smoothly graceful gait and the steel in her eyes.

"Lord Dissent?" the Lieutenant repeated.

The Abyssal turned his head to face the commander, refusing to acknowledge that he'd practically forgotten she was talking because he'd been too busy gawking at her.

"We're ready."

"Quite." Dissent flexed his hands and smirked at the slight jerk in her junior officers when his soulsteel knuckles popped like a dozen swords snapping in half. "Let's get to it."

Dissent felt the Essence flows of his Black Exaltation and took comfort in the chill of the Hearthstone the Lion had lent him. It gave him the only access he had to renewable Essence up here in Creation. He couldn't wait to get back to the Thousand. The rotting stink of life, even in this barren land, nauseated him.

"I'm beginning now," Dissent said, as the first arcane words bubbled up in his mind.

Beyond the command point laid a stretch of desert broken up only by a large oasis. The settlement here was called Isis Minor and was a sizeable one, thanks to both the plentiful water and the iron fist of the Minotaur, a particularly ugly God-Blooded lord who controlled thousands of soldiers.

Tactically, this was a difficult place to attack without superior numbers. With so much open land, a surprise strike was impossible. The walls of Isis Minor were only clay but the nearest wood or stone for siege weaponry was far too many miles for any but the most determined attacker to bring in. Even the Fair Folk had failed to conquer it, though they had certainly tried often enough.

The First and Forsaken Lion wanted this place taken with only 5000 men, the Lieutenant's entire command. Dissent had seen the quality of this Company, one of the few mostly living groups the Lion had. They were excellent and had a reasonable chance of accomplishing it on their own.

With the presence of the Lion's First Abyssal, success was absolutely certain.

As if to prove that fact, Dissent brandished his fists toward the sky. The world darkened as life and death ceased to be meaningful different around the city. He could hear the screams from here, telling him that the tactic had worked. Warghosts would be material and cutting into the city's defenders already as the Shadowland settled in on the city.

At that signal, the 4 Infantry Factions attacked by total surprise. They seemed to come out of nowhere, an impossible feat for even Sorcery...but not so for the Elementals of Earth and Fire, those who hated the water of this oasis, hated it's arrogant God, and hated their subjection under the strong fist of the Minotaur. Each soldier had nearly walked to the walls themselves with their aid. The Gods were fleeing the burgeoning Shadowland now, betrayed, but they had served their purpose.

"The Second is slowing up against that wall," the Lieutenant observed through her spyglass.

"They'll be fine, I'm sure," Dissent replied, standing in silent superiority. He didn't need a spyglass to watch the battle, thanks to his Five Fold Sensory Exercise.

"Third has broken over the top, sir," the Lieutenant reported. "They're taking control now."

"Forth has captured their wall as well," Dissent chuckled. "Eager, aren't they?"

"Yes, sir," the Lieutenant said sharply, without any trace of humor.

"What's that?" Dissent said wonderingly, as he felt...something. His eyes sharpened inhumanly as he brought his Through Dead Eyes Charm to bear. "Someone's working Sorcery in Isis Minor. I thought your intelligence said they had no Exalts, other than the Minotaur."

"There was no indication of any," the Lieutenant said calmly, a flash of temper just beneath the polite reply. Despite Dissent's higher rank, the Lieutenant was the field commander and the First and Forsaken Lion had made it very clear where the lines of authority ran. Dissent was her superior but there was little he could do.

"There's a Sorcerer in there," the Abyssal said, looking back over the city. "Too far off to tell what it is...but if the Minotaur has a Sorcerer, they'll need dealing with."

"Sir, if you go, we lose our field Sorcerer. Please remain and support the troops." She didn't seem the least bit bothered that she had no way of stopping him from going on his own. The First Abyssal was not a Dusk Caste, after all, nor a Daybreak. His role was what he made it.

"You remain, Lieutenant. But I'm going to reinforce our men. If they have a skilled Exalt, you may wish to send in the Fifth with me because we're going to lose a lot of soldiers against them by the time I get there."

"Sir." The Lieutenant saluted smartly, which made her ample bosom bounce in a very pleasing way. Curvaceous and capable, a nice combination. "Then I will accompany you."

"Then let's move, Lieutenant," Dissent said, grinning at the prospect of the bloodshed to come.

He moved ahead of the Fifth Infantry Faction and he was somewhat amused to see the Lieutenant pacing him. The statuesque woman ran with an economy of motion that spoke of long and intensive physical training. She carried a steel sword and her face was a caricature of ice, faintly cruel alongside the control. The Lieutenant had definitely not softened from her years of safer command.

"You don't think I need protecting, do you, Lieutenant?" Dissent chuckled. He could have outrun her but an extra minute wouldn't likely make much difference in this battle. If a few dozen of their soldiers died, it wasn't so much a loss of manpower as it was a transfer into a different division.

"No, sir."

"You want to get into the fighting."

"Yes, sir." At last a trace of pleasure lit her eyes as she glanced at him. "I've been a soldier and field officer most of my life. Your entry gives me an excuse to join the fight. Despite what you may think, our intelligence is quite thorough. My junior officers can manage things while I prove my loyalty."

"For the Lion," Dissent said, not really questioning her.

"For his Majesty, the First and Forsaken Lion."

The reverential awe in her voice told him everything. This woman was pledged to the Deathlord, heart, mind and soul. While most of those who fought for the Lion subscribed to the philosophy of the Void, none matched the single-minded loyalty he saw in this one. She was a fanatic, even if she was mortal, and that made her very, very dangerous.

"Impress me and I'll put in a good word for you." Just a hint of temper warmed her eyes before she schooled her features, but he'd still seen it. Disgusting. He was not that kind of Abyssal, whatever Meticulous Owl's tastes were. "In battle, Lieutenant," Dissent clarified and was rewarded with a stiff nod.

They reached the walls of the city. The Second was still struggling hard to take the tall clay battlements and it didn't help that the defenders were raining arrows down on them. The field commanders yelled at their troops, the grunts climbed and died, even as the defenders were slain and more brought to the fore.

Why hadn't First, Third, and Forth flanked the Minotaur's troops on the wall and crushed them?

With a snarl, Dissent charged forward, striking his soulsteel knuckles against each other. Great shrieking sparks fell from his hands. Then he reached the wall.

Roaring, Dissent exploded right through it.

Defenders on the inside were racing to get up the walls. Those immediately around him fell from the shower of debris and the whole formation slowed up, beginning to react to him. Stupid.

Dissent swung his mighty arms as he ran and shattered their ranks. Archers unleashed arrows at him and that was just as useless. The shafts that caught him broke against his stone-like skin and their misses hit their own troops. A brace of swordsmen tried to stop him. He ignored their pathetic weapons, trusting in the power of the Enthralled Chains binding him head to toe to stop mortal steel.

Instead, his fists pumped in rapid-fire. Executing one Earth-Style kata after another, his soulsteel fists broke faces, crushed breastplates in, and batted aside swords with contemptuous ease. Even when he'd been a Dragon-Blooded Immaculate, these would have been little trouble for him. As it was now, their blood and death only made him stronger.

"Ahead in the courtyard, sir."

Dissent turned, surprised at the address, only to see the Lieutenant savagely hacking a soldier's head off. She was slightly out of breath but her sword was out and she was laying into the enemy with a ferocity that shocked even him. A fanatic indeed.

There were more important things to worry about than her surprising skill. A quick examination yielded the Exalt immediately. Standing in the very middle of the courtyard, a robed figure clad head to toe in voluminous grey robes stood with their arms outstretched. Rows and rows and rows of the dead warghosts lay spread across the grounds. Had she really killed so many? No wonder they were having trouble taking the town.

A deep purple and blue Anima rippled out from her and miniature Sorcerous runes danced about the glow. She was a Lunar. His education from his Deathlord had been thorough and now it was paying off. He didn't recognize the spell she was employing, though.

The color and shapes of the runes was surprisingly distracting. Dissent blinked and looked away...only to see the Regiments staring openly at the Exalted Sorcerer, as if hypnotized. Maybe they were. They were starting to react when the reinforcing soldiers of the Minotaur moved to repel them but it was a slow, ungainly response.

Standing next to the Sorcerer stood Felissin Varamunjiroro, a Fair Folk Noble and Cataphract of known skill and fame in the South. As he was secretly their primary objective in today's mission, Dissent was pleased that he wouldn't have to tear the whole place apart looking for him. A quick glance told him that the Faerie would not likely protect the Lunar Sorcerer, which made his next action certain.

Dissent plowed through the defending ranks, the royal embroidered robes of the Lion fanning out behind him as like the veil of death.

The robed figure's hood lifted toward him, revealing a light creamy green silk veil beneath with a printed butterfly-like image that almost seemed a mask. With startling speed, the Exalt lunged to the left, rolling across the courtyard and coming up in a ready stance against the town's wall. Now that her arms were down, Dissent could make out enough of a figure to realize she was a woman. Who was she, though?

"Most Esteemed Spear of the South," Dissent bowed low before the Faerie Noble, just as the First and Forsaken Lion had taught him. "I would beseech an audience with one of your inestimable skill but it would seem you have a prior appointment?" He nodded significantly at the robed Sorcerer.

"I do. Perhaps the two of you could negotiate priority?" The Cataphract chuckled in a musical, edgy way that evoked an image of chiming bells with razors bristling across their surface.

"Of course, Lord Varamunjiroro." Dissent flexed his hands, cracking his soulsteel knuckles. He relished how the sound made every soldier in hearing range wince.

Dissent charged forward, his great legs churning up the dirt of the courtyard with each stride. Coming upon the Lunar, he seemed to loom over her. Did she even come to his chest?

Silver chains suddenly lashed out from her sleeves, shooting across the space between them with shocking speed. As fast as he noticed them, the ends caught his hands and the shiny links wrapped around the dark metal of his fists. She jerked savagely, Essence flexing the metal, and any other Abyssal might have been pulled from his feet.

Dissent was not the fastest Abyssal to walk Creation or the Underworld. There was no question in his mind, though, that he was the strongest. The terrific tug rocked him but it could not bring him down. His muscles bunched and he yanked back. Her chains whipped back off his hands, cutting her free before she was pulled into reach.

He laughed scornfully at her and shook his fingers, as if shaking away pain.

The chains coiled across the ground, moving sinuously, as the Lunar stood there staring. The silvery metal resonated with her royal purple Anima and the moonsilver seemed more alive with tension than she was. Around them, the Regiments were beginning to secure Isis Minor, but neither gave the troop movements any notice.

Dissent lifted his boot and slammed it upon the ground, channeling a Hungry Earth Strike into the tightly packed dirt. A great crack opened up, breaking its way to drop her into an abyss. One of her chains swung up and wrapped around a second-story support beam of a nearby house. The Lunar pulled herself off the ground with a single effortless motion. Dissent jumped after her and took her other chain fully in the face as she lighted atop the roof.

The metal cracked into his cheek and bounced off as if it had hit a cliff of granite. His head rang from the impact but it hadn't done any serious harm, thanks to his Charms and the Enthralled Chains. Dissent hit the ground, rolled and came back on his feet, if not quite as graceful as his opponent.

"You can't win," he growled softly, knowing the tales of the Lunar and their senses. "I'm a Deathknight, in the bloom of my power, and it's been a year since any but a Deathlord could stand against me in battle."

"But I don't wish to fight you," she said, just as softly. His Fivefold Sensory Exercise was the only reason he caught the whispery words. "We're not supposed to be fighting, don't you know?"

"Nothing living wishes to die but everything does. Everything," he said, carefully enunciating all three syllable. "I'm going to catch you, Lunar. I'm going to rip your heart out. Now, later, doesn't matter. It's as certain as the Moon you worship."

"Once wasn't enough?" she said bitterly, a sound of heartbreak that paused him even in his first step forward.

"What?" he asked.

In answer, she came off the roof in a whirling storm of silvery death. Her chains tore buildings, ground and loyal troops apart with equal ease and then they came for him. His hands were a blur of soulsteel as he tried desperately to block every link of moonsilver. Her Charm imbued the chains with some kind of unnatural Essence, a kind he'd never seen before, and all he could tell was that if it caught up to him, he might not survive it after all.

But then she landed in front of him and he was still standing. Lines of darkness ran from the Abyssal and his shadow. Then, it stood in front of the recovering Lunar and, a split second later, he was there as well.

One powerful hand seized her throat. The other grabbed her by the waist. He lifted her off the ground without strain and thought about ripping her in half. She hardly weighed more than the Enthralled Chains that both burdened him and made him stronger than anything should be.

"I've never had a Lunar," Dissent snarled. "I wonder what you taste like? I wonder how easily you would break. The First and Forsaken Lion doesn't like prisoners, you know. He'd rather I just kill you right here. But part of me thinks it'd be fun to torture you until you served me, body, spirit and soul."

"Once I did," she croaked weakly. The veil was pulled tautly across her face and, through it, he could only make out the visage of a legendary beauty. "I'm already broken, Chance. Don't you remember? Don't you?"

"What?" he asked again, as again the Lunar stopped making sense.

"Don't you?" she growled, shuddering in his hands. "All I ever wanted was to make you happy, Chance. I was your Dragon but you...you were the monster. You ruined my life, you bastard! You killed...you killed our whole family. You didn't even leave one of our sons or daughters alive. How...how could you?"

Great sobs choked their way past his grip on her throat. And then Dissent realized she'd dropped from his grip to lie weeping at his feet. His hands hung loosely at his side...as he remembered...

...when her husband had betrayed her. Stupid animal. He'd sided with the Sidereals.

Taking Chances perched among the statues of the temple to Mela. That still made her laugh. The Immaculate Philosophy was such a pathetic front, though she would admit to a grudging respect. The Sidereal had learned their lesson well from the example of Ya'moire. Build your own religion, convince them that your way was the only true way, and you had an army of fanatics who would never falter.

Below her, in the crossway, the Golden Dragon walked. Behind him walked several Sidereal, the stinks of their astrology thick upon them. Taking Chances found it a little harder than usual to concentrate on them. They'd done something to themselves, she thought. Something that made them forgettable. She knew all mention of their existence had been disappearing from Creation for a century now but this was the first time she'd seen the effect so pronounced.

Interesting. If she could master that trick, there would be no end to the revenge she could exact.

So her husband was still with the Sidereals. Taking Chances could have forgiven almost anything of the Gold Dragon but that. Her Lunar mate and husband of 2000 years had, in the end, supported those who had put her entire Exaltation to death. Even her Circle.

Hierarch Ya'moire, killed when the Joybringers had put the Deliberative to death. Of course they'd killed her first. The Head of the Deliberative was too strong to dare risk her escape. Seville, she'd heard he died somewhere out in the West, and even the Faerie hadn't been able to help him. Given how he moped over Ya'moire, it was probably just as well. He hadn't been worthy of his Exaltation.

Kyvath...they were still telling the stories of how his own army committed suicide to show their abhorrence of his perceived sins. Because of their example, the fool had actually been dumb enough to get rid of Gold Revelation, the artifact that made him invincible. He'd let himself die. He had never been the true warrior his predecessor, Ensorcelled Beauty of Death's Deliverer, had been.

And of course, there was Nocturne Iridescence, the unquestionably greatest Sorcerer of the First Age and the inventor of Necromancy. Her body had been found, the evidence had pointed to her husband, Padrick Ganan, but Taking Chances didn't believe it. Nothing could kill that woman. Nothing. She'd bet against herself if they ever came to blows.

Either way, the Golden Dragon had been complicit. Taking Chances almost killed him in Yu-Shan 90 years ago but he'd walked too far into the Forbidden Manse of Ivy and her Charms had warned her that she wouldn't get out if she didn't leave right then. For a century, she'd waited for a chance to get him back. Waited for a word, a sign, a breath that would tell her that her husband had left Heaven to come back after her. Maybe he'd bring his Sidereal friends. That was fine, she was aching to pay them back too.

She had thought putting every living descendent of theirs to death would have been enough bait to draw him. No dice. Then she'd killed all his friends and family. She'd smeared his reputation until the Shogunate cursed the name of the Golden Dragon and reviled him even more thoroughly than the other cowardly Lunar who'd fled. Still nothing.

"I know you're here, Chance." The deep rumble of the Golden Dragon was music to her ears, a long-missed caress. She'd had Dragon-Blooded lovers aplenty in the last century, even a husband or two, but there was nothing like your own Lunar. That's why he had to die first. The sooner and more certain he was dead, the sooner he could be reborn into a new man, one she would be able to bend and twist from the beginning.

That's what you had to do to animals. Train them, discipline them, punish them, until they never defied you again. Oh, she would too. Maybe she'd pull the wings off the Star-Children until then, to kill the time. Might be fun.

"How did you find me so easily?" she asked. "I changed my scent, you know." There was a thousand tricks she could have pulled, voice misdirection, evasion and escape. But she was getting bored. She was the Inspector of the Night, the greatest Night Caste who'd ever lived. And she was tired of running when all she wanted to do was see how much blood she could rip from her husband's body.

"You changed your scent...but not the one that binds you to one who couldn't have known better," her Lunar said, sighing heavily. The golden scales rippled across his body as his muscular arms tensed involuntarily. Taking Chances looked past him, looked past the half dozen Sidereal with him, and saw Navia. Her own daughter!

"I should have known," Taking Chances laughed with malefic bitterness. She fell from the statutes to land in front of the man she'd borne dozens of children to. "All the Charms of the Night Caste but no one ever thought to find a way to fool a Lunar's Blood-Kin Sense. No one ever thought they'd need to."

"Not even you," he said, grief carved across his face. "I loved you, wife. But you're a murderer. How many people still fear your name? How many mortals have you killed? How many Sidereal? ...how many Lunar?"

"Millions," she grinned. "Over a thousand officials, if you want to know. 4 Sidereal, though I'm hoping to improve that tonight, maybe an even 10? And 4 Lunar. Your whole Pack."

"Mother, don't!" The young teenaged girl looked frightened out of her wits. She should be. Taking Chances saw and grimaced at the field of stars in her only surviving child's eyes. They were green. Navia had been born with blue, like her Dragon-blooded father.

"Scratch that, lover," she said to the Golden Dragon but still looking at Navia. "Better make that 11 Sidereal. Right under my own nose, huh?"

"I'm going to kill every last one of you...and then I think I'm going after Jupiter." Taking Chances laughed. "Even the Incarna aren't invulnerable. Heh, we should know, we killed their creators. And I think it's time the Gods learned who the real powers in Creation are and that they should keep their damned hands off my children."

"Chance..." her husband whispered, in a voice that begged her to stop. Perhaps a tiny corner of her wanted to yield to that voice, a corner that remembered what it had been like to love. But a river of passion, of altruism and hope, could never quench the ocean of hate inside her.

Faster than anything in Creation could move, Taking Chances caught her husband by the throat. Her fingers exerted all the strength she had and his windpipe collapsed, blood spilled through ruptured flesh, and she squeezed until his head came off.

"I love you, my Dragon," she whispered to the horrified head she cradled in her head. "Sleep well. Because when you wake, you'll be mine all over again..."

"Void curse you!" Dissent screamed and he realized he was still standing over the weeping form of his Lunar mate. He had a wife now, where once he'd been a woman with a husband, but the similarity was too disturbingly similar for him to brush it off. The memory...Pasiap, what had he done?

| Pasiap? | the Whispers snarled in his mind. | There is no Pasiap. Only the Void! |

Dissent's eyes cleared and he looked down at his defeated wife. His mouth tasted of ash and he reveled in the sensation, at a new and unique source of pain. Every wound, every injury was one more chance to transcend what he'd been.

"Get up," he said without emotion.

"I didn't remember," she sobbed beneath the hood of the robe, concealed from his sight. "I didn't remember until I saw you. Luna...why? I'm supposed to love you. I've hated the last 40 years in Heaven and all that kept me going was the hope that I would find my Solar someday. You...you're supposed to be my dream come true. Why?" The raw agony of her words brought a smile to his face.

"Because life is meaningless when everything dies," Dissent said grimly. "What's your name?"

"Heart-Wrought Silver," she said, her voice choked up.

"Stand up, Heart-Wrought Silver."

Slowly, she placed her hands on her knees, straightened, and stood with obvious effort. The hood of her robe angled up and the veiled face tilted toward him, the green silk sticking wetly to the face beneath.

Dissent reached up and pulled off her veil. An inhumanly beautiful face was revealed, with skin of purest silver, hair finer than the chains of Luna that had vanished back up her sleeves, lips darker and deeper than heart's blood. Dissent, who had never truly lusted for a woman, lusted for this one. On her cheek was an inky-black mark, shaped like a woman's kiss of lipstick.

The Abyssal sighed at the Lunar...and then his hands slammed around her neck again. She tried to cry out but could only choke futilely at the inexorable pressure. Dissent lifted her off the ground and marveled at how hard it was going to be to break her neck.

"I'm not doing this because Taking Chances killed you this way," Dissent whispered in her ear. "I'm doing this...as a favor to you. I'm sorry I treated you so badly before, my Dragon. Now, go to sleep. The next time I find you...I really am going to break you until there is nothing in your eyes but the Void. Until Creation burns out and we burn out with it."

Dissent growled with pleasure as he felt her spine creak. Then she let go of his hands and touched his arms.

Where her fingers touched, an icy ache ran up his forearms. Dissent gasped as the foreign Essence invaded him, shooting through every nerve fiber to reach his heart, his brain, his every vital function. In the mind of the Abyssal who had once had the name of Mnemon Matthias, the truth emerged like soulsteel from the forge. Dissent, slave of He Who Holds in Thrall, was enslaved by her Charm.

Heart-Wrought Silver willed his arms to let her go and so he did. Her will drove him to pick her up in his arms and cradle her to his chest.

"I have plans for her. Secure this place. I will return." The words were not ones he meant to speak but he spoke them anyway. He realized that the battle was over, that the Lion's forces had won. Yet he'd lost. The Lieutenant saluted him crisply and went about ordering on the poisoning of the oasis.

Dissent walked out of Isis Minor, out into the desert, and deep into the sandy wilderness. As he walked, he quietly informed the Whispers of what had been done to him and where he could be found. It was not a certain method but it was the only option he had.

"I'm sorry, husband," Heart-Wrought Silver said in his arms. "I'm sorry Heaven was right. Everything I learned in the Forbidden Manse of Ivy was true after all. Your kind really are monsters."

He could only look at her because she let him. Then he stopped behind a sand dune and put her down, kneeling next to her.

"You are going to die out here, husband," she said. The beauty of her face cut him to the bone when she looked at him. Her Anima shone fully! How could she still be disguised? That couldn't really be her natural face, could it? "I can't allow something like you to hurt more people. I remember what you did in the First Age. You'd do worse this time if you could, wouldn't you? You wouldn't even deny it if I let you."

She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. Then she leaned into him and kissed him gently. The bruises at her throat were already fading, he noticed, right before she pushed him back in the sand.

Moonsilver chains spilled across her fingers. Like a snake, it slid off her hand, touched his neck and coiled about it. Her fingers clenched and the chain clenched with it, abruptly cutting off his air.

Dissent gagged, helpless under her Charm. Tears fell on his face from the Lunar above him. Improbably, they itched.

"I'm sorry, Chance," she said, swallowing hard to get the words out. She bared her teeth at him in a grimace of predatory fury and the chains tightened even more. "I know what it's like to suffer with no one to save you. I promise, it will be as quick as I can make it."

Her perfect cheeks flushed and streams of water trickled from her eyes despite her glare. The chain around his neck laxed...then fell away entirely. Dissent gasped for breath, glad that her Charm gave him that much freedom.

Heart-Wrought Silver bowed her head, concealing her face beneath her hood, and sobbed for several long minutes. When she looked up, her eyes were hard again. The colors were strangely reversed, he realized, so that her eyes looked like a lake of black with chips of ice floating in the still water.

"I can't...I can't kill you. I won't kill you, Chance, for two reasons. I'm no murderer and I won't have my husband be the first man I kill." She bent and snatched her veil from his hand. He'd forgotten he was holding it.

"Secondly...there may be a slim ray of hope for you. You were someone glorious once, Chance. For the sake of your soul, for the sake of us, I will give you a chance just as slender as that hope. I'm leaving you here, to meet your Destiny beneath the Sun you defied. Seek Him in prayer, my husband, I give you that much. If He can find it in Him to forgive you...then maybe I can too."

She gave him a tiny smile, a tremulous thing full of wonder. It was the most innocent thing Dissent had ever seen, a smile that spoke of a depthless faith that good would win out. It was unexpectedly painful, for hope had abandoned him years ago. To see it now, directed his way...it hurt.

With that last smile, she turned and walked off into the desert.

Dissent lay in the sun and realized he still couldn't move. Her last thought to him had been to remain perfectly still...and he couldn't overcome the order. He couldn't break free!

So much for her faith and hope!

The Abyssal screamed at the chains in his mind and bent all his considerable willpower toward breaking free of it. The harder he pressed, the more he felt the bars of the cage she'd imprisoned him in, but they wouldn't give. He'd never met a Charm like this. Without understanding it, he couldn't hope to overcome her strange power.

| Break free, Dissent. | the Whispers demanded. | Remember what you are. |

| I am the Fulcrum Hammer. | Dissent's mind hardened into diamond with the effort. | I can't die. |

Sudden revelation swept through him. He really couldn't die! The Maidens themselves had consented to his Prophecy when they'd brought about this Pivot Child he would someday fight. In order for the Pivot Child Prophecy to be valid, he had to survive to oppose her, didn't he?

Even Creation's Destiny couldn't allow him to die.

So he wouldn't.

With renewed vigor, Dissent bore himself against the Lunar's Charm, pushing inch by inch until it suddenly broke. Sitting up, he gasped for breath and rubbed his scalp against the crushing headache that descended on him.

He slammed his fist into the sand and stood. Even with Charms, he couldn't see her now. It had taken too long to overcome hers. Perhaps he could track her but she was beyond the scope of his orders...and he had a job to do.

Either way, he was still standing. Dissent wouldn't insult himself by saying he still lived. But breathed, yes, moved, yes. Hated, oh yes.

This would not be the last time his wife saw him. And now he had a taste of her Charm. | The Essence was flavored with Star-magic. | the Whispers told him and he listened. | Now that you've broken it, she'll never chain you again. | Dissent grinned, looking forward to the next time. His hands ached to hold her neck once more.

Dissent patted his robes back into place, carefully tying the braids in the fourfold manner one did for the honored dead. He walked from that place and looked out over the sea of dunes. Far to the east, Isis Minor was beginning to burn.

It was time to get back. The First and Forsaken Lion wanted a meeting with that Faerie Noble, after all. One of Dissent's rank was called for in the least, when the Fair Folk Cataphract in question could help negotiate their interest in aiding a Faerie invasion of Creation.

One way or another, they would tear this world apart. Dissent began to run toward Isis Minor. If he was lucky, there might even be a few prisoners left to kill.