Vincent
Something pulled at the edge of Vincent's awareness. A whisper, distant and faint, so soft his thoughts immediately dismissed it as his own nervous imagination.
But something about it still drew his attention, and he turned just in time to see the distant, terrifying figure of the Golem just as it began to take a step.
Vincent let his awareness expand, reaching for the fires of the outflow pipes along the wall, and seized a half-dozen of them. A rush of euphoric grandeur washed over him as he flexed new fingers made of dancing fire, heard the wind through ears that hung over a hundred feet away, and saw through eyes that burned.
And through those eyes, he saw the massive creature of stone, eyes blazing with light cast from molten metal. He could hear the howl of cracking stone as the Golem raised its leg, even across the long miles. And he felt, in the way the wind batted at the fire he felt through, as it's crashing step shook the ground and beat at the air.
"Fires below," Vincent said in awe.
Through the fire, he could see his master focused on the ground, and knew she was watching through the flame. Master Polden was half-blind, and seeing something ten miles off was a feat she had long been unable to do without the flame. But the shock had left her wringing her hands, and her mouth open. Crafter Saval's expression was a mix of terror, awe, and something darker that Vincent couldn't place.
Even Crafter Howel was shocked, and his hands shook at his sides.
Vincent looked over to Corporal Redgrave just as everyone else on the wall did. The young man, his hair slick with dirt and sweat, his padded coat ripped in two places, somehow knew that the terror everyone else was feeling had brought their eyes to him.
Something about the sight twisted at Vincent's heart, that this company of a half-dozen Crafters, the greatest power in the City, was reduced to looking at this young corporal for guidance.
And impossibly, magnificently, the man rose to the occasion. He stood taller, rested one hand on his sword, and pointed with the other towards the next watchtower, to the south. "Every report we've read from earlier invasions suggests the Golems march for the Spire. At a straight line from the Golem to the Spire, we believe the next contact point will be half a mile down the wall. Shall I take you there, Crafters?" the corporal asked, the tenor of his voice potent.
His question seemed to shake Crafter Howel's pride loose from the fear that had been smothering it, and he strode forward to put himself at the head of the group. "If you would, corporal. We'll leave now."
Breckan Howel, without turning around, pointed directly at Crafter Saval. "That chest of yours can stay on the burning train, Cass. I didn't ride for sixty miles just to watch a Golem kick in the wall."
The half-dozen Crafters started down the wall, following the corporal. Their shadows fell into step a little ways behind, and Vincent waited to walk beside his master.
When Olivia reached him, she glanced up to the torches he had seized, and asked, "What do you see, Vincent?"
"The Golem's a frightening thing," Vincent admitted. "I've never actually wanted to let go of the flame before, just so I don't have to see something."
"I know the feeling," Olivia admitted. "But look closer. Tell me what you see on the Golem. Your ability to fracture your awareness without loosing your sense of self is impressive, even by the standards of the Guild. Now's as good a time as any to use it."
"Right," Vincent said. And he took one of the flames dancing at the end of the pipe, and shaped it. He twisted it into lines and shapes, moulding fire and light like clay. Metal-warping heat bent beneath his will, stretched at his command, and took shape how he wished. He twisted the flame into wings, carved feathers from air so hot it was rent into plasma, and bound it together into a piece of himself.
He took wing and soared into the fields, even as he walked beside his master on the wall. His will soared across fields, crossing the long miles of burning crops and candling orchards. His wings beat even as he stepped, until his flight took him to the edge of the fires in the fields, to where the Gloam lurked.
The grey mists flinched and shied away from his luminous form, quivering as he passed above it. And at the edges of his awareness as his burning eyes scanned the mists still pouring through the gap in the wall, he felt the impossible power that had brought a mountain of stone to life.
The Golem burned beneath its stone skin. This close, Vincent could feel the simmering rage of the fire beneath its skin as surely as he felt the Spire. Currents of molten metal flowed from a burning mass somewhere deep in its core. And he was startled that he could feel a will behind that flame, just as he could feel the Craft as his master and the others wielded the flame.
That strength terrified Vincent, cutting through even the intoxicating joy of wielding the flame. The will that burned within the Golem was so much more than Vincent that it felt like a child trying to stop a moving train.
Awestruck, Vincent flew up and spun around the monstrous figure, even as it took another step. He flew behind it, and around its cargo-train shoulder span, looking at the smooth rivulets of newly melted stone running like visible veins on its arms. He passed further, to see the molten metal that poured from the Golem's eyes, and down its stone face.
And as Vincent looked in those eyes, he knew the Golem was returning that gaze. That distant, immense, inhumanly powerful will held him in its gaze.
Looking at him, Vincent could feel its will reach for him.
Grab him.
And snuff him out.
A grip like the Golem held his body in its hand wrapped around Vincent's craft, and squeezed. Fingers of something hungrier than the coldest ice, a void so deep there was no hope for heat and light to sing rent his craft from his grasp and crushed it with terrifying ease. The pain exploded in Vincent's chest, and he fell to his knees, coughing in an agony so potent he wondered how he called anything else in his life pain.
"Vincent!" he heard his master call out, from somewhere beyond the shores of the sea of pain he was drowning in. Each breath between a cough made every cell in his body scream, and his lungs burned as they pushed something from his chest, past his lips, and into the floor.
Unable to see, barely able to hear beneath the pain, he reached out with his will, and brought a small fire to life just beyond his fingertips. And once he did, the pain was pushed away, cast aside. It still raged through his body, ravaged his cells and his senses, but so long as he was more than flesh and blood, the mind-crushing agony meant nothing.
Vincent took a deep breath, and spat something out of his mouth that tasted of salt and iron. It took him a moment to realize it was his own blood.
"Vincent, what the burning hell just happened?" his master asked. She was kneeling beside him with one hand on his back, and another holding a small flame a foot away from his face. He smiled, seeing her take to the flame to see when it mattered. Her eyesight was barely enough to read in daylight.
"Something attacked me," Vincent replied, pushing himself up to his knees.
"Attacked?" Someone asked. Vincent was surprised to see the lean corporal standing close by, his right hand resting on his sword. "Something attacked you?"
"My Craft, that I sent out to take a closer look at the Golem. When I got close to it, I could feel..."
"Take a moment," Olivia said, holding out her unlit hand and setting it on his chest. "Breathe, relax, make sure you can stand on your own without the flame. Then tell us."
Vincent nodded, and pushed himself to his feet. Surprisingly, the pain was receding, he felt it with the muted fascination of watching someone else's trauma fade away. To make his point, he held his flame in his hand, and let it fade. The pain washed over him again, but it was a pale imitation of what he had felt just a minute ago.
"Something attacked my craft. It felt like I was in that Golem's hand when its fist closed," Vincent explained. He brushed off his master's helping hand, and pointed down the wall. "Whatever this pain is, it seems to be passing. But that will, master. I've never felt anything like it."
"That might be extremely important," Crafter Saval said, stepping up to Vincent and examining him closely. "It's always been believed that the Golems are resistant to the Craft. But we might have just learned the reason for it."
Olivia turned to look at Crafter Saval, and her eyes narrowed. "Do you know something about this?"
"To wield the flame is to make it a part of yourself. A Crafter doesn't just see through the flame, it becomes their eyes," Crafter Saval said, and she pointed to the blood at Vincent's feet. "It follows that if you were to break that will, it would be akin to an amputation. You already know this, at least on some level. We all do. I have just never heard of it being done to a Craft that someone else was already holding."
"Burn me," Olivia whispered. Louder, she asked, "Howel, does the Guild know about this?"
"No," Breckan Howel admitted, shaking his head. "I didn't even know it was possible to quash a Craft. Even an apprentice's."
The guildmaster stopped and turned around. "If it wasn't clear before, Olivia, your apprentice will not take part in this battle. Furthermore..."
Crafter Howel stepped up to Vincent, and put a hand on his shoulder. He was surprised to see the taciturn guildmaster was wearing a smile, but only the way one wore a mask. The expression didn't touch his eyes, which were wide and wet. "I am tempted to send you back now, so you can report what you've learned. If things go poorly for us, take that corporal leading us and make sure the two of you escape."
Vincent glanced over at Corporal Redgrave, who had stopped and was standing just far enough to ensure that he and the other soldiers could not overhear. "Why the corporal, Crafter Howel?"
"He's a communications specialist. You can see it on the emblem on his shoulder," Crafter Howel said, and he gestured to the corporal to have him draw closer. Once the soldier was in earshot, Breckan Howel continued. "If this goes badly, escape and have him relay what you learned here to the rest of the Guild Council. Until then, shield him from harm," Breckan Howel ordered.
"Yes, Crafter," Vincent said, with a nod of his head.
"Good," Breckan said. "Corporal, are we almost there?"
"Another two hundred yards, sir. To the pair of soldiers up ahead," the corporal replied, pointing down the length of the wall. The corporal then turned and started marching in that direction.
"Corporal, would you mind if we talked?" Vincent asked, stepping ahead.
The lean man turned his head back, and nodded. Vincent moved into a slow jog until he could stop beside him, and held out his hand. "Vincent Hearthsward. I'm an apprentice in the Guild."
The man shook his hand. "Valen Redgrave. You wished to talk about something?"
"I did. How close were you to the Golem when it reached the wall?" Vincent asked.
Corporal Redgrave frowned, and scratched at the stubble on his face. "Perhaps a mile and a half away."
Vincent nodded. "I see. Do you remember how long it took the Golem to breach the wall?"
Redgrave gave Vincent an appraising glance, and nodded once. "I'd estimate twenty minutes. I can't be more specific than that."
"Twenty minutes to breach the wall. Fires below," Vincent whistled. "Did you have a vantage to see it strike?"
"I did not. We were in the field, assisting the evacuation of a nearby work-camp," Valen replied. "If I may ask, what happened to you just a minute ago? I believe you made a small bird with the craft, and flew it towards the Golem. Then you started coughing up blood."
"Something quashed my Craft."
"It's odd because the Golem stopped moving when that happened, and it hasn't moved since," someone else noted. Vincent turned to see a woman pointing out into the field. She had a poorly fitting army coat, without any marking of rank, and a weather-worn hat that looked like it had only ever been fashionable in the wearer's imagination.
Vincent blinked in surprise, and turned to the Golem. Even at the distance, the monstrous form's stillness was frightfully eerie, as if the monster had somehow returned to the mountain it had been hewn from.
"Even the Gloam has stopped," Valen whispered beside him.
"What?" the woman in the hat asked.
"The Gloam. It normally churns with its own strange currents. The mists are never still," Valen said. "I've been on the watch for three years, and I've never seen it like that."
"02:47. One of you, find a piece of paper and write down the time," his master said sharply, marching ahead to join them. She had a watch in her hand, and was still looking out at the Gloam as she walked.
"I have paper, but no pen or charcoal stick," the woman in the hat said, pulling out a small pad of paper sheets, each barely larger than her hand.
Vincent took the offered paper, and letting his will take hold at the edge of his finger, traced a pinprick of flame against the top sheet. He began by writing the time at the top, and continued by beginning a record of what he had seen and felt before his flame had been quashed.
"So," his master said. "What the Golem, or whatever power commands it did to you, it may have just stretched itself to quash your Craft, Vincent. Write down everything you can remember, every detail you can. I don't care how trivial it seems. Once you finish, hand it to Corporal Redgrave."
To Vincent's surprise, when his master turned to the corporal, her tone lost a great deal of its imperious air, and she took off her glasses to look at him. No, Vincent realized, not to look at him, but to be looked at. His master was nearly blind, after all. "Corporal," his master asked, "As a communications specialist, could I ask you to take what he wrote down and have it forwarded to the Guild Council, care of Crafter Olivia Polden? Expediency is essential, secrecy is not."
The corporal smiled, and set his right hand to his heart. "Of course, Madam Crafter."
"Olivia, you're just jumping at shadows, imagining something important," another Crafter said, and he strode past them while he cracked his knuckles. "So an apprentice got his fingers burned getting too close to a Golem. Let's see this happen to a proper Crafter before we decide it's anything to worry about."
"Bartlet, do us all a favour and cauterize your tongue," Olivia responded. "If you and my apprentice squared off, I'd end up brushing what's left of you off my coat. Now shut the burning hell up and start taking the end of the world seriously."