Caleb held Chelsea’s hand tightly, even as they were flung end over end through crushing, suffocating darkness. She gripped his hand just as tight, and somehow in the painful, wild, crashing tumble, they pulled themselves to each other, wrapped their arms around each other, and held on.
In the wild, spinning, careening flight, there were brief flashes of… something. Caleb wasn’t sure what it was, but there was light, wasn’t there? Briefly, sudden flickers here and there, gone as soon as they appeared. And a warmth, too, almost. It was hard to tell. But when Caleb crashed into something and bounced off of it, it was a strangely soft surface. It didn’t hurt.
The wave of Darkness that had issued forth from the throne, that had blown them all back with such violent fury, was over in a few moments. And when it ended, Caleb and Chelsea landed, rolled across, and were then caught by…
Sea turtles.
Gleaming blue sea turtles.
“Grandpa,” Caleb murmured, grinning. There were two of Oscar’s flying sea turtle Summons. One had slowed them down, the other had caught them, and now carried them on its back to a safe haven on a high platform — the same high platform where Oscar had planted himself at the start of the battle, providing cover for the Healers and those they tended to. Athos, the mighty tortoise Summon, stood strong and solid in the center, while six sea turtle Summons flew a protective screen around the platform’s perimeter.
As Caleb and Chelsea caught their breath and stood, though, they realized…
Not everyone had been as lucky as them.
No, scratch that. No one had been as lucky as them. Anastasia, Bronn, Stride, Galahad, Jacob Crowley, and all the rest of the front line melee fighters were lying bloodied and barely breathing on the platform. Artemis and Jackson and the rest of the ranged fighters had met the same fate. Midnight, Lorelei, Gwen, Will… even Hagen and Mercedes, the most powerful and experienced Guardians after Oscar, now lay broken and barely clinging to life.
Only Oscar, Caleb, Chelsea, her owl Summon, and a pair of Healers were still up, still in this, still ready and raring to go.
“Glad I caught you,” Oscar said. He stood, his cane planted on the stone in front of him, both hands clasped atop it. His voice carried with it the usual tone it always had, a casual, warm, unworried tone. But there was a slight edge of steel in it, and the slightest taste of bitterness. “I wish I’d been able to catch more, but…”
He trailed off. What more could be said? Caleb and Chelsea rushed to check on their team. All of them conscious, barely, but that was about it.
None of them were up for a fight.
Not even Mister Midnight.
“The pylons are in place,” Midnight said, his voice so soft, so ragged, Caleb had to put his ear right up to his teacher’s lips to hear. “You… might still be able to… make the Prison. But…”
Caleb grasped his teacher’s hand and nodded. He understood.
Even if he made the Time Prison now — assuming he could without Midnight making it with him — it would still be just him and Chelsea against Sal. Oscar would have to defend those who remained. The Healers would do their best, but getting any of those hit by the wave back to fighting fit in even hours would be a marvelous feat.
And they wouldn’t have hours.
Caleb gave Midnight’s hand another squeeze. “I’ll figure something out,” he said. He walked over to Will, knelt beside him, and grasped his hand. Will gave his hand a little squeeze, just enough to show he recognized Caleb’s presence. “Hang in there, Will. Just stay alive.” Caleb pressed his knuckles against Will’s forehead. He saw a glint in Will’s half-lidded eyes, nodded, and rose. While Chelsea checked in on Lorelei and Gwen, Caleb joined Oscar at the edge of the platform. “What’s he doing?”
“It seems that attack took quite a lot out of him,” Oscar said. “Or there are… other complications stalling his next assault.”
Caleb looked down at the throne, now so very far below him. Even so, he could see Sal well enough from here. He seemed to be…
Talking to himself.
“Can you hear what he’s saying?” Caleb asked.
“I can get a gist of it from watching his lips,” Oscar said. “Perhaps Alexander is doing his part better than we’d hoped. Shana may have been onto something.”
“Not soon enough,” Caleb said, looking ruefully back at the sorry state of the strike team. As he did, Chelsea joined him and Oscar. There was fire in her eyes. But that fire was tempered with dread.
She could see just how much the odds were stacked against them now.
“Can you protect them if another wave like that comes?” she asked.
“Oh, I can handle just about anything he can throw at us,” Oscar said. “I can say that with confidence now that I’ve seen a greater showing of his true strength. But I cannot redirect his attacks back at him, not like I have often done with so many other foes. The Darkness doesn’t harm him. Alone, I cannot hold his attention.”
“Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that,” Caleb said with a sigh.
The implications were clear.
He and Chelsea were going to have to hold Sal’s attention. Alone.
Suddenly, a crackling of static sounded in his earpiece. It hadn’t made any noise at all for a while now — something had come through about interference, and then all communications had ceased. When the static vanished, into his ear spoke a voice, loud and clear.
The voice of his mother.
“Caleb?” she asked. “Fae? Shana? Shias? Delilah? Do you read me? Am I coming in clearly, or —”
“Mom?” came Fae’s voice, surprise evident in her tone.
“Mom!” said Shana, sounding on the verge of joyful tears.
“Mom, I hear you loud and clear!” said Delilah, focused and determined. Fae and Shias swiftly acknowledged their mother’s voice, and then it was Caleb’s turn.
“I hear you, Mom,” he said, his heart surging with newfound hope. “And everyone else.”
“All right, everyone,” Deirdre said, and Caleb could hear the tears and the smile in her voice. “Status reports, fast as you can. Let’s finish this.”
Caleb was taken aback for a moment. Let’s finish this. Now was the time to end this, there was no doubt about that. If Caleb’s team had been beaten down like this, he could only imagine the challenges his siblings were facing. But how did they…?
No. Now wasn’t the time for doubts. The confidence, the determination, in his mother’s voice had said it all. Hearing his sibling’s voices again had only added to it.
They weren’t beaten yet. Things had gotten worse than ever in one fell swoop.
But that just meant it was the perfect time to turn this around.
“We got hit hard,” Caleb said. “The whole team’s down, except for Chelsea, Grandpa, our Healers, and me. Sal’s distracted, conflicted, but we can’t count on it lasting long.”
He heard his mother suck in a quick, startled breath. “And I’m sure your sisters aren’t ready to turn the Key?” she asked.
Negatives came in, one by one, from Shana, Delilah, and Fae.
“Even with the Time Prison — if you can still form it without Mister Midnight — you can’t expect to last more than a few seconds, just the two of you, against Sal.”
“Perhaps they could launch ranged attacks from behind my protection,” Oscar said.
“Perhaps,” Deirdre said. “But that might not be enough to keep Sal’s focus on them. He needs a reason to apply himself to this fight. A reason not to pay attention to the others.”
“We can take him,” Chelsea said. Her owl gave a determined hoot, ruffling his feathers. “As long as we have to hold out, we can hold out.”
“I admire that confidence,” Deirdre said, “but there’s a reason we sent as many as we could against him. The Throne of Night is the seat of his power. If he’d been contained in Grimoire, you might stand a better chance, but there, where he’s strongest…”
While Deirdre trailed off, thinking furiously, an idea occurred to Caleb. “Then we dethrone him,” he said.
“How?” Chelsea asked.
“Phase Jump,” Caleb said. “Just like when I brought all of us to Starlight Spires, out from Verdant Garden when it was being swallowed by Darkness. Pull us — and him — through the Void, to another Location. Hopefully Grimoire, but whatever’s close and safe, really.”
“Remove him from his seat of power,” Deirdre said, and Caleb could envision her nodding in understanding. “It’ll help. But how many can you take with you?”
Caleb hesitated. “Probably not everyone. And we wouldn’t want to separate any injured from the Healers. And… if it backfired somehow, I wouldn’t want them separated from Oscar’s protection, either.”
Chelsea gave him a look. “Just you and me and the Lord of Night, huh?” she asked.
“Hold on,” came Tock’s voice, shaky and nervous. “That’s… even with him removed from his throne, even with him conflicted by Alexander, that’s still practically suicide.”
“We can’t beat him,” Caleb said, then — at a different look from Chelsea — amended, “probably. But that was never the plan to begin with. We just have to buy time. The Time Prison, I might be able to make it work now, but even so, it’s still just us, here at the Throne of Night. Where, even wounded and conflicted, he’s still at his strongest. If we can get him onto friendly, or even neutral, ground, that gives us much more of a fighting chance. And it’ll really grab his attention. He won’t be happy, and he’ll be surprised, too. Throw him off his game, take him away from his seat of power… it gives us a fighting chance.” He watched Sal, and shook his head. “Look, we don’t have a ton of time to debate options. He’s gonna collect himself and attack again soon.” He looked at Oscar, then at Chelsea. “What do you guys think?”
“I’m in,” Chelsea said, gripping Caleb’s hand tightly.
“It’s clever, and I’m never opposed to cleverness,” Oscar said. One of his sea turtles flew up to him, and then over to Caleb, giving him a warm headbutt against the shoulder. “Take Aramis. He’ll improve your odds greatly — and that way, I’ll still be with you, too.”
Caleb smiled, stroking Aramis’ head. “All right,” he said. “Mom? We’re going for it.”
A stifled sigh came through the earpiece. “Be careful,” Deirdre said. “Fight smart, fight careful, fight to buy time, not to win.”
“Oh, we’re fighting to win,” Chelsea said, fire in her eyes. “Buying enough time for the others to do their thing is winning, right?”
Caleb nodded. “Right.” Even so, even as he stepped to the edge of the platform and prepared to leap back into the fray…
He did feel a little twinge of fear. He was reminded of the fight against Valgwyn in the Library of Solitude, so long ago. There, Midnight had been the star of the show — and still hadn’t been able to slay Valgwyn. And when Caleb had stood alone against Valgwyn, fighting with all he had to defend his teacher…
He’d been nearly useless.
Could he fare better against the Lord of Night? He’d come a long way. And Sal wasn’t exactly in top form. But…
Then he felt the hand gripping his, and his anxieties vanished. Back then, when he’d done his best to hold back Valgwyn, to prevent the inevitable…
Chelsea had flown in to his rescue.
His fondest memories, and his greatest victories. They all came like this.
With Chelsea. Every step of the way.
He took a deep breath, gave Chelsea’s hand a squeeze.
Together, with Aramis trailing after them and Chelsea’s owl flying right beside them, they leapt from the platform. Hand-in-hand, they tilted into a dive, hurtling headfirst towards Sal.
“When do you Phase Jump?” Chelsea asked over the roar of the wind.
“When we’re almost to him,” Caleb said. “In just a second, and…”
Sal finally looked up. The Lord of Night ceased his mutterings, ceased his argument with himself.
His eyes met Caleb’s. And he smiled.
Bring it.
Caleb entered Time-state, then Phase Stepped. The blue of the River of Time washed all over him, around him, transforming the Throne of Night from a nightmarish dark abyss into a deep blue ocean of light and wonder. Throughout the space, he could now see what he could always see during a Phase Step, the familiar silver cogs and gears and flywheels, and the bolts of cobalt-blue light leaping from here to there.
A gasp beside him startled him. “This is… what you always see?” Chelsea asked.
Caleb gaped at her. She wasn’t a hazy blue phantom like people became during Caleb’s Phase Step. She was as solid as he was, and fully alert to what was happening around them. And so was her owl, flapping his wings as they all came to a stop, turning this way and that, astonished at the sights.
“You… you’re here in this, too?” he asked.
She stared at him. And then her eyes widened in matching shock. “Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, whoa, okay, yeah, this is new.”
They both looked down, at the hands they were grasping. “Maybe… because we were holding hands before I entered Time-state, but…” Caleb started, then shook his head. “Okay, question for my teacher when all this is over. For now…” He turned his attention back to Sal.
Sal, who was a hazy blue phantom, seated on his throne.
“How do we pull him out of here?” Chelsea asked.
“Just find the tether,” Caleb said. He reached out towards a flicker of blue light, and took hold of an invisible cord that became visible when he grasped it. That cord pulled taut, running straight to Sal and wrapping around him tightly. He grabbed a second cord, too — one that connected to Aramis. He wasn’t about to leave Oscar’s gracious protection behind. “Here we go. Let’s get out of here.”
With a quick half-flip, and then a kick of his legs, Caleb had them hurtling skyward, dragging the stopped-time Sal behind them. Chelsea let out a shaky breath, clutching Caleb’s hand tighter. “It’s all you,” she murmured.
Memories came to Caleb’s mind — memories of trying to teach Chelsea to swim two years ago. It had been a complete and utter failure. He hadn’t even been able to teach her how to float, which had felt like a huge mark against his supposed expertise, until their lifeguard bystander had launched into a mini-lecture about buoyancy, suggesting that Chelsea had none, and learning to swim was just impossible for some people.
Caleb still hadn’t forgiven that lifeguard.
“I haven’t given up on you, you know,” Caleb said, grinning. “When this is all over, let’s try again. I’ve learned a lot since the last time.”
Chelsea chuckled, shaking her head. “Good luck,” she muttered. “But… yeah. It’s a date.”
“See up there?” Caleb asked, nodding skyward. There, beyond Oscar’s platform, beyond the entrance platform, through the darkness, there was a shimmering veil. “That’s the boundary of this Location. Through there, we’ll enter the Void… and see what our options are.”
“Yeah, okay,” Chelsea said. She hadn’t lessened the death-grip she had on his hand, and she couldn’t keep the nervousness out of her voice.
“I’ve got you,” Caleb said. “All the way.”
Chelsea nodded. “I know.”
They reached the boundary of this Location, and Caleb pushed them through it. Out into the Void, the sheer, startling, impossible emptiness. A shiver ran through him, and he felt the same from Chelsea. This was not a place to stay. They needed to find the nearest Location, and race towards it.
In the distance, Caleb spied three separate bubbles, Locations encased in their boundaries. He didn’t recognize them, not yet, so started to swim closer…
A sudden sensation made him lurch back. Something was…
“Ngh!” He grunted in surprise and pain as he was suddenly slammed backwards, pummeled by some invisible force. He fought it, but only for a moment, before he was totally overcome, sent hurtling back…
Back to the Throne of Night.
He shot through the boundary, Chelsea and her owl, Aramis, Sal, all still with him. But he didn’t hold onto Sal for long. In the hand that held that tether, a sudden burning sensation, something so painfully cold that it was searing into his skin, erupted along the tether. He let it go even as he was falling, falling, his hand freezing, burning, his other holding on tight to Chelsea… there was a sudden sound, cracking stone, so loud and sharp it stung his ears…
He came tumbling out of his Phase Step, out of Time-state, barely catching himself with a Mobility disc, then another, bouncing him and Chelsea to a safe landing on the nearest platform to the Throne of Night itself, a slab of rock hanging just a dozen feet diagonally in front of and above the throne. Gasping for breath, he shook out the hand that had held Sal’s tether, but looking at it saw no damage. Even now, the pain was receding.
He looked down, at the throne and Sal.
Sal, who had crashed into his throne. And the throne, which had been broken. The high stone back of the throne had been spit in two, a jagged diagonal break along the center. The top had fallen, and then shattered into fragments upon landing.
Sal was lying in a heap, shuddering, convulsing. Steam rose from his body, and Caleb could see faint lines across his face, a webwork of scarred veins. Like thread-thin burns, webbing across his neck and the side of his face.
“What… what the heck just happened?” Chelsea asked. She shivered, and her owl beside her mimicked the action. Aramis, for his part, floated in a slow circle around them, seeming unperturbed by… well, whatever had just happened.
“I don’t…” Caleb started, racking his brain. “The Void. And that… sensation. Whatever pushed us back, we were… we were rejected. Or…” he looked down at Sal, his eyes widening in understanding, “he was.”
“The Void spat us all back here because it didn’t like Sal?” Chelsea asked.
“It wounded him,” Caleb said. “Him, but not us.” He shook his head. “I don’t know enough about these things to say for sure. But that seems like what happened. And…” He looked at Chelsea, and she looked back at him, both of them with the same meaningful look.
“This is our best chance,” Chelsea said. “The throne’s broken. Sal’s even more badly wounded than before.” She nodded, twirling her lighter. “Let’s finish this.”
“Just to be sure…” Caleb entered Time-state again, and breathed a sigh of relief that he could. Last time he’d Phase Jumped, he’d been locked out of Time Magic for quite some time. “Okay. I can see the pylons that Mister Midnight put in place. I might still be able to make the Time Prison. Just to give everyone the best chance.”
“Go for it,” Chelsea said.
Caleb reached out, with his mind, with magic, not with his body. Spread wide in a sphere around the perimeter of the Location, twelve pylons — cobalt-blue stakes, glittering like ice, portions of the River of Time crystallized by some technique Midnight hadn’t taught Caleb — were fixed in place, forming the initial boundary of the Time Prison. Caleb was supposed to do this with Midnight, but by himself, he could still reach out and touch those pylons. He could feel the connections between them, tethers like those that connected to people in his Phase Step. And he could feel more than just those tethers, including what lay along them.
Locks. Combination locks of a complex design, with infinite possibilities. All Caleb had to do was set each of those locks to the agreed combinations that he and Midnight had devised. Once they were all locked, the walls of the Prison would fall into place. The trap would be complete. In here, within the Time Prison, time would feel as if it were passing normally.
But that wouldn’t be the case. Not to everyone outside.
Caleb input the combinations into each lock, feeling and hearing a satisfying click with each success. One by one, he locked the connections in place, until he finished the last one…
And the serene, calm atmosphere of Time-state erupted into chaos. Bells started tolling, more like gongs, the wild chiming of the hour from a thousand massive clocks. And as they tolled, the pylons began to fly down, fly up, fly closer to each other at rapid speed.
The perimeter was shrinking.
“That’s not supposed to happen!” Caleb cried, ducking as a pylon flew right at him, barely missing him and continuing on down.
Down to the Throne of Night.
There the twelve pylons stopped, forming a tight sphere around that small platform on which the Throne sat. On which Sal lay, shuddering, convulsing.
The clocks continued to chime, now at seven chimes, with the eighth beginning and echoing outward in a resonance that set Caleb’s teeth on edge.
“The prison shrank?” Chelsea asked.
“And we need to get inside before the walls close!” Caleb said, realization dawning on him. He started to leap off the platform, but Chelsea held him fast.
“Why not just leave him in there?” she asked. “It’ll take him at least a little bit of time to break out. But a little bit of time in there will be a long time out here.”
Caleb shook his head. “A Time Mage has to be inside, or it’s not a prison at all,” he said. “I have to serve as the warden.”
“It’s a tiny prison,” Chelsea said. The bells chimed ten, going on eleven. “Okay, all right, sure. Let’s go! Close-quarters, we can do this. He won’t have anywhere to dodge my fire.”
They dove off the platform, Chelsea’s owl diving with them. They shot through an opening between the pylons, came to a harsh, leg-buckling landing, and Caleb looked up. The walls were coming down, sealing off the Time Prison from all outsiders.
And Aramis was still outside the Prison.
“Aramis!” Caleb cried. Aramis was slowed, he wasn’t sharing in Time-state like Chelsea and her owl were. Caleb tried to Phase Step, so he could grab Aramis’ tether and yank him inside…
And was promptly ejected from Time-state altogether.
It was Chelsea holding tight to him that kept him from falling flat on his back. The walls closed, and the Time Prison was complete — a River-of-Time blue dome that shimmered and rippled like water, but was opaque, solid.
Impenetrable, as long as Caleb was inside. As long as Caleb stayed alive.
Caleb, Chelsea, and her owl were in. But Aramis was out. Oscar was out.
Everyone else was out. No help could reach them here.
Caleb caught his breath, steadied himself, and turned with Chelsea to face Sal. The Lord of Night shuddered once, twice… and then stood. Quickly, too quickly, too easily. His face still had that webwork of burns, steam still wafted off of him, and he grimaced in pain.
But he was in better shape than Caleb had hoped. And there wasn’t a lot of space for a Mobility-Magic-loving boy to maneuver in. The platform that bore the Throne of Night was only twenty feet in diameter. The dome of the Time Prison was similarly twenty feet high, but it was a dome — that was only at its center, and everywhere else the ceiling sloped off, getting lower and lower towards the edges.
On one edge of the circle stood Caleb and Chelsea. On the opposite end, beyond the sundered throne, stood Sal.
Twenty feet apart. Enough for a boxing match, enough for two ordinary humans to duke it out with their fists.
For three people with incredible magical power, it was a different story.
“What hope do you think this will grant you?” Sal asked, gesturing mockingly at the dome surrounding them. His voice was strained, but still carried his confident, spotlight-loving showmanship.
“Reverse Locational Time Magic,” Caleb said. “Seconds in here are minutes out there, minutes are hours… you get the picture. And even someone with your powers won’t be able to see beyond the Time Prison.”
Sal cocked his head to the side, as if listening to something. A moment later, he chuckled, and then bent in a graceful, if somewhat stiff, bow. “Well done,” he said. “It is as you say. So you have bought your family more time. But will it be enough?” He rose, eyeing Caleb with a smile, but there was something dangerous in his eyes that made Caleb’s heart stutter. “A Time Prison, with you as the Warden. Clever. Then it means I cannot escape… until you are dead. Correct?”
Caleb took a breath. But that was all he got.
Sal wasn’t waiting for an answer.
Darkness exploded out from him, sharp, thrusting tendrils that leapt across the distance between them in less than a second, questing for Caleb’s heart. He started to turn, started to step, started to react, but he didn’t have time.
Chelsea did.
Emerald flames blasted into the tendrils of Darkness with high, melodic whistle. The two forces clashed, exploded, and Caleb staggered back a step, heat washing over his face.
The tendrils of Darkness were gone.
“It is an honor to face your fire directly,” Sal said with a smile, somewhat twisted by the webwork of thin burns on his face. “It should only be the Light, or powers wielded by Paladins and Sub-Paladins, that can harm my Sons. You proved yourself the first exception to the rule. And the most stubborn exception of them all.”
“Thanks,” Chelsea said, her tone rough, curt, uninterested in conversation. She clicked her lighter, and a streak of emerald flame shot forth. It struck Sal’s chest, exploded in a fiery rage that consumed his whole body…
And then the flames were ripped apart, cast off, extinguished by a blade of Darkness. Sal stood unscathed by Chelsea’s attack.
“Well,” he said, brushing stone-dust off of one shoulder. “Now that we’ve exchanged pleasantries… shall we begin?”
Caleb and Chelsea tightened their grip on each other. An instant later, they and Sal launched fully into battle with all their might.