[Tristan]

Octavia reached Nemea shortly before sunset. Nemea was a sprawling town, built all around a hill upon which stood a fortress that dated back to the early Storm Ages. According to local legends, Nemea had hosted a big settlement of Ghosts, and the fortress had been built right on the ruins of the houses of the Ghosts. The fortress itself had been built using material salvaged from the houses of the Ghosts, but after the Blackout, the Ghosts of Nemea disappeared along with all the rest of the Runaway Gods, to never return. Whether the legends were true or not, the fortress and its immediate surroundings had been a hotspot of Invisible Light emergence events for the last centuries.

Octavia performed a wide turn above the city, shedding altitude and allowing us to take in the majesty of the sight. We had been freed from the cells, handcuffed, and taken to a viewing compartment right below the envelope. I suspected the count wanted us to feel overwhelmed by the sight of the power and might of the League.

He was succeeding, as far as I was concerned.

There was a vast arcaded square right below the fortress, surrounded by tall buildings, all flying buttresses and League flags billowing in the wind. Teams of workers were busy in the square, assembling some kind of wooden scaffolding.

"Do you like what you see?" Count Delauney asked breezily, entering the viewing compartment followed by a half dozen of aides. I realized Octavia was orbiting around the square, keeping it in full sight.

Count Delauney reached the glass and pointed at a group of buildings on the left of the fortress, tall and austere, shiny white marble and black bronze gargoyles. "That's Nemea Palace, home of the Princess of Mahoroba. A woman of great culture and kindness. I arranged for her to have urgent business abroad. You know, to spare her the sight." Then he pointed at another, more garish palace surrounded by gardens and fountains. "That's my humble abode, that I use whenever I am in town, and inside whose dungeons you will be hosted tonight. And then there's Lyonesse Square. Do you see it? The big plaza with the construction teams working?"

We all nodded.

"Quite a sight, isn't it?"

We nodded again.

"Great. You're about to see it much closer than this. Because you will all be burned alive in Lyonesse Square if Agatha does not swear allegiance to the Awakening League."

There was a small aerodrome in the city, but Octavia was too big to land there. The airship docked briefly at a mooring tower of the House Delauney palace and extended a small gangway. The count disembarked first with his retinue of assistants and servants, and then it was our turn. We were taken directly from the platform on the top of the tower to the dungeons, where dark cells were waiting for us. The cells were cold and damp, with stone walls covered in mold.

The count's minions threw us inside and slammed the doors behind us. Saoirse was moving like a doll, her mind overwhelmed by the weight of what she was going through. Jack and Sister Hinewai were pale and hunched, Sister Hinewai in particular a mere shadow of the big and strong warrior of just a few hours before. Agatha was somehow managing to keep a defiant look, but I had a feeling it was just for the benefit of our kidnappers.

There were already pieces of stale bread and jugs of water in the cells. After locking the doors, the soldiers went away taking the torches with themselves, and we were plunged into darkness.

We were alone, all the guards had left us.

I ate in silence.

"Agatha?" Saoirse, whispering. "Agatha?"

"Yeah?"

"The fatso was kidding, right? They can't burn people."

Silence.

"Agatha?"

"Leave me alone."

"I don't want to be burned alive," Saoirse said. "It's gonna hurt."

"Don't worry," I lied. "We will come up with something."

"Yes, now go to sleep," Sister Hinewai said, voice cracking. "Tomorrow we will find a solution."

"Why can't Agatha just do what the fat guy says?"

"Because it would hurt a lot of people," Sister Hinewai said.

"We are people too, aren't we?" Saoirse pointed out. "Why is it right that we get hurt?"

I sighed. "Please, go to sleep, Saoirse."

"I'd like to hug my brother."

"Tomorrow," Jack said. "As soon as they open the cells."

"And if they keep us apart?"

"We'll find a way, Saoirse. Now sleep."

"Agatha?" I called.

"Leave me alone."

"It's not your fault."

"Have you taken a class in platitudes or is it a natural talent?"

I sighed. "I just wanted you to know it's okay."

A long pause. "I didn't want any of this."

"Well, I did. Not the part when people die, particularly the part where the ones dying is us. But it has been a privilege for me to help you along the way."

"If we come out of this alive, I'm gonna kick your butt."

"And I'll be honored to have my butt kicked by you."

Another pause. "I'm awfully sorry for Saoirse. I mean, for you, Jack and Sister Hinewai too, but she's a child."

"Nobody should be given this kind of choice," Jack chimed in.

Silence.

"But please, save my sister if you can."

More silence. 

[Agatha]

The whole city was ready for the show.

There were people lined up on both sides of the street, dressed in their best clothes, eating dried meat and potato chips from paper bags or drinking from beer mugs, standing on tiptoes to get a better view. The herald opening the parade was announcing that the prisoner from the United Kingdom of Chimera and Tiangong and her entourage of minions were being taken to their fate, and the good people of Nemea had the rare privilege of seeing the Chancellor's kindness (towards his subjects) and justice (towards us evil strangers) at work.

The parade was made of three open-top wagons and a dozen horsemen. The herald opened the line, then came the wagon I was on, then another with Jack, Sister Hinewai and Tristan, and finally the third with four more hooded prisoners. Saoirse was among them; the count had apparently decided it was better keeping the fact that he was going to burn a child alive a secret until the end.

Too much to stomach even for League hardliners.

There was a pole bolted to the loading bed of the wagon, and I was handcuffed with my arms around it. Four Imperial Army soldiers stood guard at the four corners of the wagon, and a somber-looking driver was making sure that the pace was slow and dignified. The wagon Jack, Sister Hinewai and Tristan were on had three such poles, and they too were handcuffed like me, and the same went for the four hooded prisoners on the last wagon.

The sun was high and the day very bright, with a slight cool breeze. I was beginning to feel a little cold. That morning the guards had given us bundles of clothes and told us to change. There was no point in making a fuss and then being forcibly changed into the new clothes, so we had all obeyed, and now we were dressed in knee-length cotton black tunics, males and females alike. We were barefoot.

The parade was going through the main thoroughfare of Nemea. It was called Centaur Avenue and it was lined with the most beautiful buildings in town, all light veined marble, stained-glass windows and polished gargoyles. The most well-off families were attending the parade from their balconies instead of having to mix with the peasants on the sidewalk.

Here and there, some people in the audience looked like they were about to throw eggs or apple cores at us, but a stern stare from the soldiers on horseback was enough to dissuade them. The wagons were huge ceremonial contraptions full of marquetry and golden decorations, the soldiers were in high uniform, even the harnesses of the horses pulling the wagons were covered in precious embroidery.

Following the wagons, two companies of Abominations were marching ponderously on the cobbled street. I had never met so many Abominations together. Their halo of loss and loneliness was overwhelming. It followed me like a cold cloud obscuring the sun.

Like being taken to be burned at the stake along with my friends wasn't enough.

And then there was something else, some sort of unnamed feeling at the pit of my stomach. At the back of my head. A sense of being watched. There were thousands of people watching me, yet I was feeling like someone else was there.

Centaur Avenue ended in Lyonesse Square. The square was already crowded with people, and League Army troops were pushing them aside to clear a path to the scaffold. The buildings all around had banners and standards hanging from windows and balconies.

The scaffold was a huge frame, a crescent-shaped wooden platform covered in three feet of firewood, with seven poles bolted at regular intervals. Right ahead of the scaffold, another scaffold rose, smaller but taller, with another pole. To the right of the scaffold there was a stage with a House Delauney standard and lines of the count's personal guards on both sides.

Count Delauney was already there.

He was looking intently at us, ramrod straight, hands behind his back. Rows of seats had been placed on a raised platform behind him, and the town's upper crust was already there, dark velvet and golden braids for the men, laces and muslin gowns for the women. A few parasols were open, but I suspected they were going to fold them as soon as the show began.

A team of hooded executioners was waiting for us in front of the scaffold.

The feeling of being watched was stronger by the second. I was sure it had nothing to do with the crowd. It was like being watched inside. I was beginning to feel sick in the pit of my stomach.

The wagons stopped in front of the scaffolding, and the executioners came aboard to help us off the wagons. The guy handling me was big and tall, with huge, calloused hands. One of the guards handed him the key, and with precise and swift movements he opened the handcuffs, pulled me away from the pole and locked the handcuffs again.

All around the scaffold the soldiers were taking position, four rows of League Army riflemen in front and one company of Abominations on each side. There were two hundred riflemen lined up in the square and more than a hundred and fifty machine-corpses in total, which seemed a bit excessive, considering they were about to burn alive a few handcuffed and unarmed prisoners, but probably the count had a soft spot for gratuitous shows of power.

The crowd moved grudgingly back to make room for the soldiers and the Abominations. I could see people standing on tiptoes and snorting with frustration as the bulky newcomers blocked their view.

I desperately wanted to say something defiant, but nothing was coming to my mind.

The crowd fell silent as we got off the wagons.

My executioner marched me to the ladder that led to the higher scaffold with the single pole and climbed up to the platform keeping me by the arm. I followed him without putting up a fight. He was three times as big as me, and there were about four hundred guns in Lyonesse Square between the soldier and the Abominations.

As I climbed the ladder, I realized I was beginning to see white sparks flickering at the fringes of my field of view. The feeling of being watched and the sense of loss were so strong I was beginning to feel dizzy. I was scared to death at the idea of being burned alive, but this was something else.

Something was happening.

The executioner more or less yanked me bodily up the last steps with a grunt of effort, then pushed me on the top of the pile of firewood at the base of the pole. He leant my back against the pole, opened the handcuffs, pulled my arms back and closed the handcuffs back again, shackling me to the pole.

I had a commanding view of Lyonesse Square. Neat rows of lined-up soldiers standing at attention, rifle barrels in their hands and stocks on the ground between their feet, twin formations of Abominations with sunlight gleaming off their steel parts, and a sea of wide-eye faces, eager to see the show of me and my friends burning to death.

The executioners had helped the hooded prisoners off the wagons and marched them up the other scaffolding, and now were handcuffing them too to the poles. They pulled the prisoners' hoods off, and the crowd erupted in cheers at the sight of them.

I looked over my shoulder. Count Delauney was having the time of his life.

The executioner put his hand on my head and forced me to turn to the crowd.

The other executioners turned my friends with their backs to the crowd, facing me.

Allen, Sharma, and Jack were on the left, Tristan at the center, Saoirse, Sister Hinewai, and Chyou on the right.

Nobody was missing at all.

Sharma and Chyou were uncertain on their legs, recent wounds still aching, and probably blood loss blurring their vision. Saoirse was crying in silence, tears streaming down her cheeks and soaking the collar of her tunic.

"I'm sorry," I managed to say, but my words got lost in the noise of the cheering crowd.

Tristan nodded, probably reading my lips. A dark stain was spreading on Sharma's left side. Her wound had reopened. Not that it mattered an awful lot, since we were all about to die anyway. 

[Agatha]

"People of Nemea!" a herald said in a thundering voice. "People of Nemea! Please listen to His Honor Count Delauney, the right hand of the Chancellor!"

The crowd fell silent in a matter of moments. In the corner of my eye, I saw the count walking up to the stand in front of the blue-bloods platform, raising both hands to acknowledge the crowd, then lowering them.

"People of Nemea," he said in a powerful yet calm voice. "It is with a heavy heart that I have summoned you here, to see these young lives being extinguished. Yet it has to be done, because the League is first and above all justice, and justice must be served.

"You know the Chancellor wants three things, and three things only, which are peace and prosperity for all his subjects, and respect from his enemies. It is no secret that the Bridges have been deteriorating in the last centuries. Generations of good scientists of the Guild of Machines have been studying a solution to fix the Bridges, but so far, their efforts have yielded only small and pale results.

"Yet the Ancients decided to offer us their hand and help us in our quest for the salvation of all the Lands Beyond.

"This girl, this girl you see here," and he pointed theatrically at me, "she holds the secret to fix the Bridges inside herself." Pause. "Her name is Agatha Holmes. You'd think she'd be eager to put that gift into use, to share it with the scientists of the League and help us in our mission for the good of humanity."

Another, longer pause.

"You'd be wrong!" Fists smashing against the stand. Crowd roaring in anger and indignation.

Hands raised to calm the crowd.

I was feeling so sick I was about to throw up. White sparks flickering incessantly, a feeling of someone looking right through my flesh and into my mind.

A looming sense of loss and mourning and sadness and loneliness.

"This girl has decided that the power to fix the Bridges belongs to her and her alone! She is ready to die and see her friends die in front of her eyes, and all that only to keep her secret to herself!"

More roars.

The count raised his hands again, and the roar died down.

"The people you see in front of you have committed unspeakable crimes against the League and against the peace the Chancellor is trying to keep. They deserve to die, all of them. But you know very well the Chancellor is nothing if not merciful, so at his order, I will give them one last chance."

... who are you?...

A whisper in the back of my mind, softer than a breeze, but that sent a thunderbolt of pain through my skull. It wasn't a Helmsman. It was something else.

Who is that?

... who are you?...

I am Agatha...

I groaned in pain, feeling acid welling up in my throat.

Tristan and Chyou were looking intently at me.

I closed my eyes.

"This is their last chance," the count went on. "If Agatha Holmes decides to pledge allegiance to the League, and to put her gift at the service of the Chancellor, I will spare her life and the lives of her accomplices. All will be forgiven, and these people will be free to leave."

... who are you?...

I groaned again in pain. The executioner looked at me nonplussed.

I am Agatha... Who the hell are you?

Count Delauney stepped off the stand and marched solemnly to the front of the scaffold, while liveried servants handed the executioners jugs of petrol, and the executioners emptied the jugs on the firewood under each of the condemned. More liveried servants appeared and splashed liberal amounts of petrol on the rest of the firewood on the side of the platform facing the crowd. The petrol began trickling down the supporting struts of the scaffolding, forming rapidly expanding puddles on the paved ground.

Count Delauney stopped in front of the scaffold and extended an arm.

A servant put a blazing torch in his hand.

"This is the moment of truth, Agatha."

The ache was splitting my head in two. The feeling of being watched wasn't there anymore, it had turned into the feeling of being skinned alive. And something else was happening. The sense of loss and mourning. It was still there, but it was changing. Some other feeling was mixing with the mourning. No, it wasn't something else. It was still the mourning, only it was somehow focused.

Focused on me.

The Abominations were mourning me.

... who are you?...

I already told you. I am Agatha Holmes from Manticore.

"Pledge allegiance to the League, and I will spare you and your accomplices. Refuse, and first you will see them die, then you will die."

I groaned again. The pain was unbearable. I was pretty sure my face was contorted with agony, but the count was probably thinking it was just because I was scared of dying.

Which I wholeheartedly was, by the way.

"What's your answer, Agatha Holmes?"

"Kill me. I don't care anymore," I managed to wheeze. "Just let my friends go. I'm begging you."

The count shook his head minutely, pretending he hadn't been able to hear me. The burning torch in his hand was rock steady.

... who are you?...

"I am Agatha Holmes from Manticore," I groaned. The executioner frowned. "Who the hell are you?"

"What's your answer, Agatha Holmes from Manticore?" Count Delauney shouted.

Another unbearable stab of agony between my eyes, reaching through my brain.

... I am the shadow of the Runaway Gods...

... I am the Invisible Light...

...who are you?...

"I AM THE HOLY KEY!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

A bomb of light and heat exploded in my head.

And then everything happened at once.

Count Delauney disappeared.

No, he didn't exactly disappear. He turned into a cloud of blood and shredded flesh and bone fragments. A split second later the roar of hundreds of rifles engulfed me.

The Abominations had opened fire, all at once, all at Count Delauney.

The burning torch spun lazily in the air as the mangled remnants of what had once been Count Delauney collapsed to the ground. In a scream of abused servomotors an Abomination covered the dozen yards that separated it from the count and grabbed the torch in mid-air before it fell into a puddle of petrol and ignited the pyre.

I had never seen an Abomination move so fast and didn't even think it was possible.

A few Abominations moved their rifles in my direction and fired.

I shut my eyes, but felt the bullets slice right through the metal of the handcuffs, freeing me. In fractions of a second, all of the condemned had been freed.

The executioners collapsed to the ground as their heads exploded under a barrage of gunfire.

I fell on my knees, holding my head in my hands. The pain was so strong I was seeing double.

Jack sprang towards Saoirse as Tristan grabbed Chyou, who was collapsing to the ground.

Lyonesse Square erupted in screams.

The Abominations moved their rifles to the center of the square and began surgically mowing down the lined-up soldiers. No bullet hit any of the bystanders, who were swarming out of the square. And no bullet hit the soldiers who dropped their rifles. The Abominations aimed and shot, aimed and shot, aimed and shot, and in a few seconds only the disarmed soldiers with their hands in the air and their rifles on the ground were standing.

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Tristan was kneeling down beside me.

"What is happening, Agatha?"

"The Invisible Light," I manage to groan through gritted teeth.

I have to go now, the voice whispered in my mind. Otherwise, you will die.

"No, wait!" I screamed. "I don't know a thing! I don't know what to do with the Holy Key!"

I am only a shadow of the Runaway Gods. I can't give you the help you need.

"Then who can?" I wheezed.

Not all the Ghosts have run away. Some have stayed.

"Are you talking about the Ghost Embassy?"

I am only a shadow, and my time is over.

And all of a sudden, the pain in my head disappeared. A wave of gratitude and consolation engulfed me for a fraction of a second, and then was gone.

I realized silence had fallen.

I opened my eyes.

The Abominations were motionless. I didn't feel their mourning and their loss anymore. They had finally and really died at last, pushed by the Invisible Light to take one last stand to be set free from their undead flesh, and now they were finally resting. The wave of gratitude and consolation I had felt had been their farewell.

I tried to stand up and failed. Tristan helped me to my feet lifting me bodily.

"You keep your hands to yourself, dude," I growled.

He grinned. "Then you're all right, Agatha."

"You know, I've been better, but this beats being burned alive every day of the week." I frowned. "Weren't you the one supposed to handle the saving part?"

He looked uncomfortable.

I grinned. "Never mind. The damsel in distress act never really suited me."

[Tristan]

Lyonesse Square was empty. The crowd had dispersed, the city bigshots had disappeared, the surviving soldiers had quietly but quickly fled the place. We were alone in the company of the corpses of soldiers and machines. A few faces had popped up behind closed curtains from the windows of the buildings surrounding the square, but nobody had ventured out yet.

We hugged each other tightly, as if wrapping our arms around each other and squeezing was the only way to be sure that we were still there and still alive.

"What happened, Agatha?" I asked again.

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. I guess here the Invisible Light is still alive, or functioning, or whatever. Like in Finisterre, as your newspapers said. It sensed me, and when I told it I was the Holy Key, it took control of the Abominations to save me."

"And now?"

She shrugged again. "Now it's gone, I think. The Invisible Light has gone back to sleep. The Abominations too are gone. They were happy to end like this. Now they aren't slaves anymore. They have died for real and for good."

"We too have to go," Chyou said. "The locals will keep a low profile for a little bit longer, but not forever. We have to get out of town."

Sharma and Allen were already busy picking up discarded rifles from the ground and checking them.

"I think we should be ready to stand some heat anyway," Sharma grinned. "Not that I expect the natives to put up much of a fight. You know, you being able to unleash the wrath of the machine-corpses and all."

Saoirse wrapped her arms around Agatha again.

"I'm so sorry I landed you in this," Agatha said, burying her face into Saoirse's hair.

"I know you're crazy, but I trust you," Saoirse said. "Just don't let me end up getting burned alive anymore, please."

"Deal," Agatha grinned.

Allen handed rifles to everybody, then nodded at Centaur Avenue. "Let's go before the natives wake up and smell the coffee."

"Yeah, but where?" I asked.

"You find someplace safe to hide," Agatha said. Saoirse let go of her at last. "I have things to do."

"Such as?"

"Where have you been in the last hours, dude? I am the Holy Key. I have to heal the Bridges."

"A shame that stuff didn't come with an instruction booklet," Sister Hinewai pointed out.

"That's why I have to find the Ghost Embassy and ask them. I think that's what the Invisible Light told me to do. But first I need to go to the labor camps of Adiri. The Graham kids need saving."

Sister Hinewai and I exchanged a glance. "Need a hand?"

Agatha snorted. "Nope. You'd just be in the way."

"You called us friends just a few minutes ago," Sister Hinewai said.

"Slip of the tongue. I was about to die."

"Well, we've all heard you. So now you either let us help you, or you will have to shoot us to get rid of us."

"Don't tempt me."

I rolled my eyes. "Does everything always have to be so complicated with you, Agatha?"

"All right. But don't complain if we get in trouble again."

"Deal," I grinned.

And we set off along Centaur Avenue, towards the Bridges waiting to be healed.