Act 3, Chapter 99: The song is starting now

Day in the story: 29th January (Thursday), past 1 p.m.—12 hours into the time trial

Alex Weatherlight

Mason was the one who stopped attacking when he saw his brother cease moving entirely, his music barely lingering in the air.

The Feng Shui manipulator continued her assault, while Adrian lifted one of the swords from the hand of an unconscious soldier and slowly approached the fallen man. His eyes moved back and forth between Robbie and Mason in the distance, as if judging whether he should attack one or finish the other. Shadowlight flowed across the blade in a slow, mist-like current until the entire length of the sharpened steel was covered by its luminous presence.

“Stop now,” he said to the woman, showing her an open palm. “I will do it.”

He approached Robbie, knelt down, and thrust the blade toward the fallen man's head. His surprise, when the Rhythm rolled onto his back and let the sword plunge into the ground instead, lasted only a moment.

Immediately afterward, Robbie produced his handgun from beneath his coat and fired at Adrian from point-blank range. The bullet, empowered by the beat of the song, pierced the shadowlight armor created by Adrian’s Authority.

The Chinese woman shouted in horror as she watched her teammate clutch at the hole in his chest. Robbie, meanwhile, sprang back to his feet, spat on Mr. Brawn once, and kicked him in the head the moment Adrian looked up at his killer.

His face collapsed beneath the music master’s boot, and his spine bent as he was thrown backward and smashed further by another beat of the song.

“Liu,” the Rhythm addressed the woman, tilting his head to one side and spreading his arms in an open gesture that left his body exposed. “He had to go. You’ll fuckin’ join him soon, though, so don’t fret.”

[This is getting out of control.] Anansi mused, observing the situation unfold. Maya, hovering above, seemed to feel much the same.

This guy has some main-character-protagonist level of plot armor, doesn’t he? I sent the thought away, already certain that my plan to set EoT against him had failed.

He would not expose himself again, and they had clearly underestimated both me posing as him and the real Robbie as well.

As if to confirm my thoughts, the next second the Domain projection was in full swing again, creating a sphere around the Rhythm that protected him from the effects of the dampening field set up around him. And while the woman called Liu tried to protect herself by unleashing a literal storm of tiles—ripping them from the floor and sending them into a whirlpool around herself—those amounted to hardly anything now, as Robbie simply pushed them away with fast-tempo repulsions centered around himself.

The tiles broke into pieces as, within seconds, he was holding the woman by her throat and lifting her off the ground with one hand. She kicked and thrashed, but he squeezed, and when her windpipe broke under the pressure, he discarded her, tossing her limp and twitching body aside. The environment she changed evaporated into the shadowlight mist, rising slowly off the ground and cast adrift into the wind alongside the last frantic breaths she tried to catch.

It was an echo of her body that gave Robbie a jump scare as it appeared in the air right in front of him. Mason had materialized it to distract from his approach. Within seconds he was near his brother, pushing himself through the repulsive sound field Robbie had created around himself.

I was already on the ground dismantling the devices set up by EoT, sending them away into the apartment within the bridge-building. Once I was sure they weren't trackable or otherwise dangerous, I would take them into the Domain, as they seemed far too useful to simply leave behind.

Me taking the first of them had already collapsed the whole field, however. Something both Mason and Robbie noticed, quickly glancing toward the sky, which no longer shimmered with faint red light. With both of them regaining full control over their abilities, they resumed the fight, while I ran alongside the outer wall to collect whatever EoT had left behind.

Mason punched Robbie in the midsection, following up by creating a shield out of the man's own echoes when he tried to return the blow. He weaved to the side in some almost breakdancing move and followed with a neat strike to the ribs that bent the man in half.

Robbie responded by changing the field around himself even further and, with it, the rhythm of the universe.

His movements slipped out of sync with what Mason perceived, making him miss his next attack and allowing Robbie to gain some distance between them. He constantly backtracked, sending more and more violent beats at his brother, who kept pushing through them in his charge.

“You got better after you died,” he said when the soundtrack changed to some cinematic piece full of cymbals and electronic sounds resembling ship sirens. Each of those attacks hit with such force that the ground behind Mason cracked after every block, leaving wakes of crevices in the concrete.

I had to give Malik credit where it was due. He truly was an echo of his brother in the way he understood rhythm. He was always perfectly ready to respond. Whenever the music changed to something more forceful and oppressive, he pivoted immediately, leaving a clone behind to block whatever Robbie forced the attack to become. Whether it was a slash he slid beneath or a wave of force made from the beat itself, he continued advancing in an unrelenting march toward the man.

“And you done turned out way worse in life.” Mason responded.

By then I had sent away the last of the devices. Focusing on Maya high above, I teleported directly to her.

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While in the air, I used the tattoo of the Zweihander and summoned it beneath my feet, using its power to cling to whoever held it and applying my own interpretation of artistic Authority to turn it into a flying sword with the sole intent of reaching Robbie.

At the same time, I summoned the spellbook again and from within it drew a secret weapon the spiders had been painting at Alexandra’s behest.

A long, wide canvas appeared above the two combatants and me. Its upper half believed itself to be a cloud, allowing it to hover effortlessly in the air. Its lower half depicted Silas “Red” McCray—the Foreman of the Bridge-Castle—and the power he wielded to silence everything around him. I poured Authority into the painting, animating it and compelling it to become the very field of silence it portrayed.

Then I fell from the sky like a spear hurled by a god, while the shadow of the canvas swept across the battlefield below, and perfect silence descended with it.

Mason realized that the attacks had stopped the moment I dropped behind the Rhythm—still unnoticed by him. Robbie shouted something within his Domain’s projection. I was fairly certain sound still functioned inside it, even if it clashed heavily with my Authority outside. Even here, his will fought against mine—but wherever it did, I found it within my aura and quenched it.

I too held power over music now, over its artistic identity and structure, and wherever he tried to project it through the field of silence, I caught it and, with my own Authority, reduced it to a simple song, stripping it of the magic he tried to weave into it. It was eerily simple, supported by the power I had borrowed from Red.

Robbie looked around, confused, then up toward the canvas above, trying and failing to do anything about it. He was almost powerless now. I stood behind him having sent the Zweihander away, while Mason closed in and struck him—both with a physical blow and the echo that followed.

I summoned my Motus Gladius instead, the Roman sword, and cut across him in one clean slash. Robbie’s Authority resisted, but weakened by everything else, the wound still formed—a gash across his chest. Blood spilled out in a sudden rush.

Within the projection, his music still played, and Mason inside continued to block and pivot, leaving clones of himself to shield against the attacks. But he quickly learned to step out of the field of the Domain to recover, then re-enter to strike again. I stayed further back, and struck whenever Robbie retreated.

It was also then that the web-slingers arrived brough in by my command. They skittered silently across the battlefield toward Robbie, and while he was occupied trying to survive his brother’s assault, they leapt onto him one by one, leaving strands of silk anchored to the ground. They wove it around him, binding him further to the earth.

They worked in tandem with Mason, and soon Robbie’s movements were constricted, his limbs caught in the threads and pulled wide apart like a crucifix.

He dropped to his knees, and Mason finally halted outside the Domain’s reach. Robbie, unable to maintain his projection, let it collapse. He remained kneeling, beaten and still bound to the ground by spider silk.

His head jerked between me and Mason. He spat, shouted, raged—but nothing came through. Mason turned to me and began to speak too, but no words came out. When he realized that, I met his gaze and initiated a resonant gaze link with him.

He was surprised, but accepted it, and we were both pulled into a soulspace formed as a bridge between our spiritual beings. The column of shadowlight from my Domain towered over his, and yet he felt strong to me. It was strange how many ways power could be expressed.

“You want me to kill him?” he asked. In here, I realized I looked like both Alexandra and myself at once, as if our bodies overlapped in the same place, slightly out of sync.

“I can do it if it’s too hard for you. I will not accept backing off now, though.”

“Man… I don’t think I got enough left in the tank to finish this.”

“He is your brother. I understand.”

“Am I cruel for goin’ through with it?”

“Letting him live would be cruel to all those who would cross paths with him.”

“I still love the memory of him… but I realize he’s just an echo of what he used to be. And every echo fades and dies eventually.” He lowered his eyes and looked onto his palms. I reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. The distance didn’t seem to matter here—I was beside him in an instant.

“Are you sure you don’t want to do it? I know it feels difficult, and I know I probably wouldn’t have it in me to finish Peter or Penrose if it came to that, so take my words with a grain of salt. But I still think it’s better to carry this burden yourself instead of relying on others.”

“He is my responsibility. I know that. And yet all those things I told you about killing—how vile it is, how wrong and broken you are if you allow yourself to do it—I’d be a hypocrite to do it now. He is restrained and neutralized. That would be an execution.”

“This is how capital punishment is usually delivered. You study law—you should know this.”

“I did it for my parents, not for myself.”

“And this you would do for yourself—for both of you. Out of all the reasons to kill—self-preservation, practicality, cruelty, survival—doing it to protect others seems like the best one.”

“There ain’t no way he gon’ change, is there?” He clung to the last thread of hope.

“Everyone can change, Malik,” I said without lying. “That’s the truth. But what you have to act on is what he has already done, and what he is doing up until this very second. This song, the new one, is starting for you now… Mason. You will live free of your brother’s shadow. You will live with the guilt of taking his life, but with the memory of him as he was to you. Carry all of it—I believe you both need it, to understand the world you’ve stumbled into.”

“So I just hold onto the good moments and bear all them heavy decisions? That my hero moment or somethin’?”

“I don’t know. I will end the gaze now, and if you don’t do it, I will finish him off. I’m going to give you a few seconds to make up your mind.”

When the connection ended and we were both back where it started, Mason immediately looked back at his brother, still bound to the ground in silk. Paper spiders continued weaving over and away from him, tightening the web around his body. They glistened with traces of shadowlight here and there, and the man in their hold had stopped thrashing. Now he just looked at his brother.

At first there was rage in his eyes. Then, as realization set in, it shifted into fear—and something like grief.

Mason held the singing blade I had given him, meant for protection if he needed it. His left hand was firm on the handle, while the fingers of his right slowly traced along the spine. He exhaled once and met my eyes one last time before stepping forward.

He dropped to his knees in front of Robbie. With his left hand on Robbie’s shoulder and his forehead pressed against his, he placed the tip of the blade against the man’s chest.

He whispered something—I was sure of it, though I couldn’t hear it. He stayed like that for a few seconds, then pressed the blade in slightly. Robbie’s head jerked violently, back and forth. He spat blood and gritted his teeth.

And yet Mason stopped. He froze mid-motion. His body trembled under the weight of what he had started. I moved in closer, behind him, and embraced him over the shoulder. My right hand reached for the blade’s hilt and gently guided it, wrapping my fingers around his hand as well.

Together, we drove the blade into Robbie’s heart.

We watched as the light in his eyes slowly faded, until what remained was only a body encased in silk. He lived in the noise he created, but died in a silence enforced upon him.