And in the faint light of a waning moon

　　From loosened fingers arrows fly

　　Paint with the colors of the cooling heart-blood

　　Til it boils up and the young foals die

　　-From "Claim the Sun", a Karzakh Gaurl song

　　The Sower Monastery, moments before

　　 "I`ll alert the watchtowers," Aleks said, his voice running so fast he couldn`t keep track of it in his own mind. "And the Sowers and the Reapers." He tightened his grip on the hands of the others, shaking, looking Avishag in the eyes then glancing toward Melik (whose eyes still twitched constantly in the direction of the sword belted to his hip). Badem looked more nervous than he`d been when Kamila, weapon in hand, broke into the group`s little hideaway. He looked genuinely terrified. Aleks felt that terror, felt it strong and a part of him wanted to flee right then. If he thought he could have, he`d have turned toward the Rust Gate and gone back to Etyslund, tried to cocoon himself in a place that was safe and isolated, far from the violence but not just the violence. The danger was a terror, yes, but there was something fundamental that set the itch to the backs of Aleks` feet. He wasn`t meant for this, wasn`t meant to be this close to the happenings of the world.

　　 The memory touched him in a brief surge, as though he`d pulled on a string idly, not knowing the strength of his own fingers, and he`d pulled so hard that the string had snapped and struck him on the head. Light, but the brush was unavoidably there. He winced and tried to turn away from it, and it would not let him look away.

　　 "It`s good you found me," he said, his voice shaking, his throat dry and tight. Sweat pushed out from his pores and he felt it like pinpricks in his skin, except the needles weren`t poking into him from outside, they were poking out of him from within and no one else could see them and he could not see them, only know them and feel the cool sweat in the autumn breeze. "I know how to operate the radio," he said.

　　 He took a deep breath. Tried to relax. Couldn`t. "But while I`m doing that" - and he found his voice speeding up again, and he could not blame himself& "I want you to go and find as many militia members as you can and warn them. Go across to the Reapers first, actually. Tell them I sent you. Wait. Hold on. Do you know these soldiers? By name?"

　　 "No, of course not," Melik muttered, and Aleks felt the rush of embarrassed shame knowing he had asked a silly question. The kids - could he in good conscience call them that? - had probably not even seen the soldiers` faces, and why would they know anything about them? Enemies in war don`t bother to learn about one another, he reminded himself. He knew that from experience - someone else`s experience but experience nonetheless. It`s easier to fight and kill when everything is hidden behind layers of abstraction. There isa curtain in the hallway that leads from your room to the enemy`s, and through that curtain you see people only as shadows, silhouettes - real and fleshy and present so you can shoot them with a gun, but their faces are indistinct and their voices are muffled, if you even understand their language.

　　 "I didn`t get a good look at any of their faces," Melik said. Less than a second passed between his first utterance and the next. Aleks felt as though a part of him were lifting off the ground and he were listening to this conversation from further away, but that couldn`t be.

　　 "Of course, my mistake," he said, and his voice was far in front of him, and his voice was calm. He remembered to reach for the Sower`s Gift and it came like the flood of ecstatic satisfaction when a craftsman realizes he has finished his work, after slaving for hours at the edge of failure wondering if it would all have to be thrown away. "Here. That`s enough." He took in another breath and stepped back, letting go of the hands of the three of them. "Get moving, now. To the Reaper Monastery - just across the war. If you find Antonin Voloshko, tell him what`s happening. If not, if you see Hilda, my younger sister - have her accompany you, she`ll keep you safe. I`m going to get to work alerting everyone and then I`ll see what I can do to stop these four."

　　 "Four?" Avishag asked. "How - there`s only -"

　　 "No time. Go!" Already he was running, back around the corner of the wall and back into the Sower Monastery. "Tell everyone!" As he came through the courtyard and passed the gate he tried to refocus himself, with the Gift around his shoulders like it was a shawl and he was swaying under it and the memories of the past few seconds - seconds! - became clearer, and in them he saw the soldiers that way he`d seen them without realizing - consciousness without consciousness. Recognition without recognition. He paused in the gateway and felt the cool cross-breeze over his shoulders and remembered what he`d remembered and refused to remember, and it was the face of the soldier from Etyslund. Pepper-hair, anger and fear in the eyes and the hands, Zoe Bari - sitting next to him as he lay tied up at the execution site of his mother, screaming after him as he fled. Zoe Bari - in a moment of panic turning on her own comrade and wrestling over the spear.

　　 How long had it been?

　　 "Zoe saved my life," Aleks muttered under his breath. "She stopped Fatih from throwing that spear. He would have killed me." It was said almost silently, breathed out not because it mattered but because the words, the thought needed to escape him somehow. He already knew it was not important, next to the real danger that Zoe now posed. She was here, in Kivv, the captain of a team intending to soften up the city for an ambush. The kids` instinct was correct - Aleks` Scrying confirmed it. Even now as he entered the Monastery, made his way downward and downward toward the workshop where the radio cabinets lay, the threads of mist along which he might reach his mind unraveling, he saw Zoe at the head of the Tower of God. He saw the thing - the mockery of a corpse of what was once a world - standing at her shoulder, frowning and whispering. He saw her traversing the Vale, saw her kill and kill. Saw her put a bullet in a peasant woman`s head to save the hide of her own soldier, Maksym.

　　 He came to the workshop, where the radio lay, and as he went he tried to reach out again along the threads of mist. The strongest of them was a triple helix, and when he touched it he felt the echoes of the footfalls of three young people crossing the street heading north. He could only hope Hilda was close at hand and would receive their message. She would surely know where to find Kamila.

　　 On the table in the workshop, a laptop computer sat with its lid opened and text glowing on the terminal. Aleks glanced at it - no one had touched it since he had last done so, and the power cable still ran to the wall. The device was hardy, as it had to be - the supplies with which to build these things was difficult to acquire in this part of the world. This specific model was based closely on those found in the old Places of Refuge, after the Desert. Before the computer, there were other scattered objects. Most of them - to Aleks`s distaste - were weapons, weapons he`d been putting his work into for so long he`d managed to abstract away the reality of it until he barely cared about the true nature of what he was doing.

　　 He crossed to the wall and quickly tuned the radio, checking on the clipboard hanging next to him for the right frequencies. After he found it, he lifted the receive and said:

　　 "This is Aleks. We have A-Level Blue. This is Aleks. We have A-Level Blue."

　　 A long pause, though the other end was not entirely silent. He heard the shifting of things on the other end, shuffling, and something like faint words said behind a veil of static. Then: "Aleks, this is Zafer. We understand. We`re moving into place."

　　 "Where is Kotire?" Aleks asked. "Kotire, where is she?"

　　 "Who is Kotire?" said Zafer over the radio.

　　 Aleks shook his head and rubbed the spot of his forehead, just above his eyes. He couldn`t remember what he was supposed to remember. It had been seasons since he`d spoken to Kotire, but he felt that it was supposed to be her on the other side. He glanced at the clipboard, scanned down the list of contact frequencies.

　　 Kotire 12435.249

　　Kotire 45957.2

　　Kotire 12045.68

　　 He blinked, shook his head again. "Come on now," he muttered, tuning the radio again. He opened the receiver once more and said: "This is Aleks. We have A-Level Blue. Kotire, I need your cell. This is Aleks. We have A-Level Blue. Kotire, I need your cell."

　　 "This is Ekmekci," the voice on the other end said promptly. "We`ll move into place - we`re ready as soon as we are needed, don`t you worry. But - who is Kotire?"

　　 "You don`t know her?" Aleks asked, glancing over at the clipboard again. "She`s - I -"

　　Zafer 12435.249

　　Ekmekci 45957.2

　　Ejder 12045.68

　　 "Nevermind," Aleks muttered. "Just be ready. Movement is coming from the south, in great force. Carakhte may or may not be unstable. Soldiers may or may not have set out in their main mass from there. Can`t be entirely sure. The saboteurs don`t know enough."Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

　　 "Understood," Ekmekci said. "I will n-ti-- all ot-er ava---b-e A-m- c--- t-r---h --r --------."

　　 Aleks tapped against the side of the radio apparatus with the heel of his hand. "I`m sorry, what was that?" he asked. Though the Sower`s gift was over him he felt an uneasiness even through it. Like there was something he was supposed to have done, something he meant to do soon, something he had already finished with and that he needed to start -

　　 The overwhelming sense that he was doing things in the wrong order.

　　 This is absolutely suicidal, you can`t be serious about working with them -

　　 "Hey," Aleks muttered, "can you repeat yourself?"

　　 "I said we understand," Ekmekci said. "We have notified all other available Adma units and they are moving into position."

　　 "You move quickly," Aleks whispered. "How do you move so quickly&"

　　 "I sent all the necessary dispatches as soon as you sent word. What`s your status?"

　　 "I`m about to try to track down the intruders," Aleks said.

　　 "Then I wish you luck. Carakhte is on fire."

　　 "What?" Aleks exclaimed, but there was no response from the other side.

　　 He tuned the radio again. "Ejder, Ejder, do you hear me? This is Aleks. We have A-Level Blue in -"

　　 "I know," Ejder said. "Already we are moving into place. Do not worry - when Carakhte begins to burn we will be ready, and we will harry the Invictans all the way to Kivv. When they arrive at your city, they will be softened, and surely your weapons and your soldiers lying in wait will have little trouble with them. Though we must warn you - there are rumors that several of their most powerful magic users are with them."

　　 "Wait," Aleks said. "But Ekmekci just said that Carakhte is already burning -"

　　 "I assure you it`s not," replied Ejder over the radio. "Carakhte still stands."

　　 Aleks` breaths came in short and heavy gasps now, his eyes darting between the clipboard hanging from the wall and the radio receiver dangling in front of him. He let go of it, closed his eyes, tightened the Sower`s Gift around himself and reached out through the ground and the mist alike to the things that he had built, that he had known to be built, and he felt their connections. There were nearly a hundred weapons in this city planted by the Sowers, and each of them had a pulse of its own, not a life in the most literal sense but a pulse. A rhythm of what it could have been in the Aether. Aleks swept the mist over these things and he formed it into tendrils, and he pulled on the tendrils like strings of the finest and strongest silk.

　　 Aleks stepped back toward the middle of the room, reaching out with his awareness to all the city of Kivv. And he opened and closed his eyes, opened and closed them, opened them -

　　 And he was standing before a writhing tendril of sliding metal pieces, exposed wire and sparking energy flowing into a smooth, woven braid. When he reached out and placed his hand on it he could feel the world through it - the world built only by man, and not God. Beside him was his brother, and on his other side - the ever-calm Erick Sinclair looked as though he were staring into the mouth of horror itself. "Raz, are you sure about this?"

　　 He reached up toward his face and pushed the bridge of his classes further up his nose, took in a deep breath, ran his hands through his hair and sighed. "No, of course not. But& I know it`ll work. I`ve run all the necessary tests --"

　　 Through a nearby tower he felt the presence of death - stretched and stained across the rampart stones. There was something else there, another energy alongside it, a pulsing. He pulled on the silk string and the tower`s gun came to life, swiveling and scanning the area. Nothing. There was some distant movement, yes, but nothing within his line of sight and nothing that could be confirmed as Invictan.

　　 With twitches of his fingers, he moved on to the next, maintaining his grip on that tower and taking on the next.

　　 Again, there was blood streaked over the stones - recent and warm. And again, a pulsing energy within the tower that Aleks did not know. He scanned around - the wall was not far to the south, the camp to the east, and the canal ran nearby. But no Invictan soldiers within the city - all signs of life were inside, hiding. Perhaps they`d heard the gunfire.

　　 As if timed to his thoughts, another gunshot rang through the area then, and Aleks pulled the string, swiveling the gun about --

　　 He held the tendril of metal, the connecting wire of electric life, his gateway to the world, in one hand and brought it up toward his head. Beneath, the sound of unspooling wires. His fingers ran along the circular metal port on the side of his head, drilled just slightly into his skull. Beside him, Ofer his brother stared in anticipation, his chest rising and falling, his eyes fearful for his sister`s well-being.

　　 "Don`t worry," he said. "I know how this works now. I`ll just run some tests and be back before you know it." And inhaling, he pushed the contact point into its port in the side of his head -

　　Muzzle-flash and the breath of desperation gave away the Invictan sniper`s position. He was outside the city walls, lurking in a stand of trees and readjusting his rifle from the recoil of the shot. His free hand shot down to pick up the bag of supplies, to begin to run across the stretch of land outside and reposition so he could take his next shot. In response to the gunshot`s impact, Aleks reached out for the next string even while he maneuvered this one. He felt the presence of the Invictan soldiers dragging the sentinel`s body inside and planting new life where there had moments ago been life. And the new life was a pulsing energy, and they talked quietly of it among themselves, and they said that it was a bomb.

　　 With the swiveling gun of the southwest watchtower, Aleks lead the sniper`s run. He calculated in an instant the man`s next likely position, determined where he would step, the weight of those steps and the way his body swayed and the trajectory of the wind. The distance from his gun to the target, the weight of the bullet. He knew that these thoughts were not his own, but the weapon`s. He`d built the weapon to think this way - Cultivation of thought inside material, Cultivation of the circuits pulled from Places of Refuge hundreds of years old. The gun knew where it needed to fire, and it spoke to him, and he to it - and together, hand in hand, they took aim.

　　 A single bullet, a single ring of rings echoing out over the city. The shot took Wiktor behind the eyes and caused him to spin halfway around, his arms flailing outward as though he were a dancer. The bag of supplies, blood-flecked, landed hard against a nearby tree, while the rifle fell to the ground. In a convulsion, Wiktor fired it again, but the bullet only uselessly embedded in the earth, killing nothing but perhaps a worm or a vole. The body fell and Aleks shifted his attention, pulling the Sower`s gift tighter around himself to bite back the sickening feeling in his heart. The saboteurs planted their bombs and they heard the swivel of the gun, and one of them shouted out in fear and raised a weapon that Aleks did not recognize -

　　 Knowledge struck him, not as a flash of images or sounds like he`d imagined, but as a wave of raw, unfiltered thought. These thoughts made webs, which made a greater web - a single one stretching over almost the whole of the earth. The Ultrastructure shone like great suns within that maze of light but every light was knowable to him in the space he now stood.

　　 He could not see Erick or Ofer anymore. He could not feel his own body anymore. He felt the ecstasy of flight, of speed, and little more. The lights were everywhere, and when he reached out he could take one in his hand, take another, let them cast him across the earth itself.

　　 From these lights he took and began to craft for himself a body. And this body had no breath, but only light - an uncanny thing he puppeteered and carried over the earth that was not the earth. He reached out toward a Node - a great one buried in the Desert sands far to the east and south. There, he opened the Node and made himself step out into that sand - and a great red whirlwind raged overhead. And in that whirlwind there were a thousand screaming giants, their voices raised in a terrified song -

　　 All at once, the strings began to snap. Some stayed strong, but others frayed and broke in an instant. By instinct Aleks reached along with both hands the one that the soldiers had just stolen and he lunged, taking hold of the other end of the string before it could fall away. It began to fray and fall all through its length but Aleks pulled hard and he felt the stone come alive beneath him, and he brought it down upon those within. More strings around him snapped and frayed as explosions resounded throughout the city, and Aleks felt it in his body as well - the echoed vibrations of those explosions.

　　 The strands of mist that stretched out away from him began to dissipate - lives, the lives of soldiers who`d have burned his city to the ground. Elsewhere, there was still another - Zoe Bari, still living, but filled with fury and spite as she stared down her own mortality. And next to her -

　　 He pulled himself free from the sea of thought, letting his light-body dissipate and fall back, its pieces drawn inexorably to the Ultrastructure Node. The tide pulled him under and he struggled his way up again, over the surface, splashing and sending motes of light spiraling off into the infinite night. The sky shone cold overhead. He reached up, and rose, and thrashed through the open night air until he reached the great sheet of the sky. He passed an arm through into the air above, then pulled it back. He reached out again, smiled, made a slow move. His hand drifted toward the stars an inch a minute. His fingers caught on something, and he bunched them, pulled the fabric away and staggered up into the living world again.

　　 Pulling the tendril from its port, he staggered back, watched as the thing retracted into the floor again. "It worked," he muttered. "It really worked. Even the Ultrastructure is in my reach now. I think I might be able to find them."

　　 "You know that most of them are likely already lost," Erick said, crossing his arms. "Your effort may be for naught, unless you simply wish to prove to yourself what these people have ecome."

　　 "I already know what they`ve become," he muttered, staggering toward the wall. "I`m under no illusion."

　　 "Shouldn`t we be focused on trying to build the Refuge, then?" Ofer asked. "This war you`re trying to fight is already lost. There won`t ever be a winner. Only more suffering."

　　 "I know that, I know -"

　　 Aleks righted himself by catching the side of the workshop table behind him. His knuckles were white, teeth on edge, as he slowly pushed himself back up till he stood at his full height. Under his breath, he whispered his sisters` names, and then he looked down at his hands. They were marked by lines of red, and the skin around the fingertips was badly bruised. Aleks turned around to the table and picked through the weapons. He moved quickly, efficiently, keeping the Sower`s Gift heavy over his shoulders so that he would not fall to the ground and curl up and sob until there was nothing more he could do. He had work to do, people to help, a mission.

　　 He took several gear-laden grenades and a hammer full of moving pieces. With an experimental swing of the hammer, Aleks activated its shaft and caused the head to strike out forward, as though the whole thing was on a spring. He raised it beside his head like the barrel of a rifle and felt for the lever but did not press. Aleks spun the thing, and it collapsed down to a shorter form, and with the weapon trailing along behind him in one thin, muscled hand, he made for the workshop door.

　　 By the time that he arrived to his sisters` aid, they were already unconscious, but alive - and Zoe Bari was nowhere to be seen.