So many defenders crowded the ramparts and the roofs beyond them that their attacks overlapped across Circuit Court, leaving Roy to follow its progress by the changing colors in the glass. Under the benches, FDR's platform continued to carry them toward the wall, passing the main gate at an angle that brought an empty section into view.
"The gate gives them several directions from which to surround us," FDR said. "We will make an entrance here."
As FDR pressed his gravity against the wall's upper face and its stonework began sinking, Truman sent two Fat Ladies into the section beneath it and drove the broken masonry inward. The opening widened enough for the court to pass. Loose blocks scraped across the laws protecting its roof, then fell behind them as the Fireside Ascent entered the avenue beyond.
The capital had been rebuilt often enough that old stone foundations now supported upper floors of smoother material, while several towers had acquired bridges joining additions of different heights. Repairs crossed whole walls in bands of mismatched masonry. Between the buildings ran conduits whose purpose Roy could only guess at, following streets worn by centuries of traffic.
Among the families abandoning carts along those streets, a furred creature dragged two smaller ones from a doorway while another gathered fallen belongings into its clothing. Farther ahead, a heavy shell caught against an overturned wagon, and three people hauled its owner free before following the others into a side road. Their bodies made the flight awkward in different ways, but Roy could follow what each was trying to save.
"I don't think this is quite right," Roy said. Lynder started to answer behind him, and Roy cut across the first word. "I know. They're monsters. They can't be trusted. Every person down here would kill us if we gave them the chance. I've heard it, Lynder. I still have to watch them run away from us, and it still feels like shit."
"Very well. Your ears may have a temporary reprieve." Lynder joined him at the window. "They will endure my frustration later. Mark my words."
The figures moving across the adjoining roads wore white-and-red armor with polished ceremonial ridges along the shoulders, and kept their formations while civilians fled between them. FDR followed three through an opening between buildings, then marked their positions for the others.
"Those fighters move like the generals. Treat them accordingly."
One of them raised a spear and gathered a red formation along its blade before firing across the avenue, striking Circuit Court hard enough to put a bright crack through a window. JFK reached the damaged section before the next attack arrived, layering contracts across it until the glass held. Beside Roy, Eryndra put one hand against the frame and prepared to leave.
"Stay inside for now," he told her. "We can keep moving."
The guard followed the court long enough to test JFK's repair, then withdrew toward a side street. Ahead, an arch crossed the entrance to an older district. Writing covered its span, each large character assembled from smaller symbols packed so closely that the inscription looked woven into the stone.
Lynder leaned toward the window to follow it. "Some portions resemble an old court language. The syntax belongs to something else, however. I cannot translate it." Below the inscription, dozens of carved figures supported the arch with raised hands and bent shoulders. "The sculptures are rather easier. This district belonged to Azzemude."
Passing beneath the ranks of small woven bodies, Circuit Court entered a square whose balconies and broad steps gave spectators several levels from which to watch whatever the government chose to display on the impalement spire at its center. A corpse in decorative armor hung above them, and Roy recognized it while he was still trying to remember where he had seen the plating.
"Hey, that's the guy we made run around at Thanksgiving."
Warrex came to the window. "Tommy said he killed him."
"And then they put him up here for everyone to look at." Roy followed the balconies around the square before returning to the body. "He did what we told him, went home, and got this. Fantastic."
Halfway across the square, the courthouse lurched sideways, throwing Roy into the wall as a bench caught his legs and the building beside them broke across the windows. The court plowed through its furnished upper floor, carried a section of roof into the next street, and continued through two narrower structures while FDR tried to stop the Ascent beneath it. Through the dust ahead, a vast windowless box filled Roy's view.
The courthouse broke through its wall and came to a halt beneath a roof that had split from one end to the other. A slab dropped onto the reinforced columns, forcing them lower before the joined magic held it above the passengers. Dust covered the windows, leaving them with the light of their own spellwork and the sound of masonry settling against it.
"What hit us?" Roy asked.
At the forward end, FDR worked to recover control of the platform while Harmony replayed the recordings from every nearby drone. Her first answer came after several attempts to isolate the moment before the court had left the square.
"Nothing entered the sensor field at the point of contact. Visual, thermal, depth, and motion feeds all show the court being displaced. I cannot identify what displaced it."
Lynder sent bands of False Void beyond the damaged walls, but they passed through the settling dust and returned without finding a structure he could break. "I can find no spell either."
Through the thinning dust, Roy could make out rows of bodies held upright on long spikes, with additional hooks securing their limbs to frames along the chamber walls. Some hung where the collision had left them, others moved against their restraints, pulling enough to widen the holes through which the metal passed.
Light traveled down the runes covering the spikes and into channels beneath the floor, where separate currents joined and continued under the surrounding buildings. Tubes carried other flows through the walls and out of sight. Even where Circuit Court had torn through the structure, the undamaged portions kept drawing from the bodies fastened above them.
Near the breach, light burst unevenly through the runes below a spike whose base had split, making the prisoner fastened to it convulse. Each discharge dragged its arms against the hooks until the current faltered, dimmed, and stopped. When the body sagged, a small metal object struck the floor beside it.
"These ones drop loot," Lutrian said.
Crossing a damaged section of the courthouse to study the nearest living captive, Lynder passed a line of False Void through its neck. Beneath the falling head appeared a folded piece of silver cloth, and JFK went out after him to retrieve it. Two further attacks left a narrow black blade beside one spike and a ring at the foot of another.
Roy watched light continue moving from the remaining prisoners. "The general told us Delvar impaled people to power his magic. I suppose this is where he keeps them."
Crouching over a channel exposed by the collision, Lutrian followed its current beneath a translucent section of flooring, where it joined several others before descending farther beneath the chamber.
"The energy is being collected," he said. "I cannot see it feeding an active spell. They appear to be storing it somewhere below us."
"So we're in a battery."
"Yes, and the loot may help explain who they put in it. The people outside left us nothing when they died, but these prisoners are still recognized by the dungeon." Lutrian stood to examine the rows. "If they came with the original force that settled here, we may have found what became of that population."
As Lynder and Lutrian followed JFK and his handful of loot back onto the deck, cracks opened beneath Circuit Court, and pale spikes rose through them to fasten to the underside of the Fireside Ascent. Light drained out of the platform, taking whole sections of the courthouse with it. Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Monroe pressed more mana into the columns, but each renewed section fed the structures clinging beneath them.
As the roof dissolved into a blur of script and the walls buckled after it, the massive overhead slab plummeted through the empty space. Eryndra shattered it in midair before it could crush the group, scattering debris through the fading magic as the Ascent shut down and dropped the last foot to the chamber floor.
Navi'N surged outward beneath their feet and swept up around them while the Presidroids immediately formed a defensive perimeter around Roy. Eisenhower yanked Grant clear of a collapsing section of wall just as a damaged impalement spike snapped nearby, allowing the creature bound to it to rip itself free through the closing curtain of dust.
JFK drove an arm through the creature's chest as it reached for Orin, dropping it beside the broken spike and leaving a thick metal ring on the Navi'N floor. He collected it while Zehrina joined the roof of her dome and caught the last falling debris above them.
Roy followed one of the pale points pressing against the sheet beneath their feet as it slid under his boot, withdrew, then reappeared beside Rava's staff. More were moving under the whole group, searching the connected dust for a way through.
"They cannot damage the Navi'N," Zehrina said. "They can keep being disgusting under it, though."
Turning the new ring in his fingers, JFK compared it with the bands already on Orin's hand. "Oh, another one. Orin, catch."
Catching it against his chest, Orin worked out the writing inside the band. "Ring of the Giant's Third." He fitted it beside the others, held all three up together, and summoned his Ethereal Armor.
All the sections he had previously struggled to sustain formed with the rest, letting Orin move his arms and take a few steps through the space the others made for him. He turned to show Rava the complete armor.
"I can use all of it now! And I can move normally!"
An experimental hop lifted the armored feet several inches above the dust, but the landing drove the sheet down far enough for Roy to feel the stakes beneath it. Zehrina caught the entire layer and pulled it back into place, carrying everyone with the correction.
"Stop jumping. I have to hold the floor up every time you land."
"Sorry." Orin dismissed the armor, though he kept turning his hand to examine the three rings.
FDR watched fresh spikes attach to the remains of his platform. "Another conjured transport will feed the same system. We proceed on foot, with support for anyone who needs it. Watch the ground."
"I can cover that." Zehrina lowered the dome until a transparent dark floor remained beneath the party. "Keeping the entire enclosure dense enough costs too much. I will handle what's under us. Everyone else can look after the rest."
As Zehrina's roof dissolved, the first volley came through the breach, and Eryndra knocked a burning projectile into the broken ceiling while FDR increased the gravity around a falling mass of stone. Truman followed the attacks back to two firing positions visible beyond the hole in the wall and sent a Fat Lady toward each.
One blast removed the upper floors of the nearer building while the other tore through the base of its neighbor, dropping the firing position into the street. With Eisenhower supporting Grant and the remaining Presidroids on the flanks, the group walked out along the route Circuit Court had made, Zehrina's Navi'N moving beneath their feet.
For several streets, the resistance came in scattered shots from upper windows, drawing barriers from JFK or breaking against FDR's gravity before each attacker withdrew ahead of the party. The white-and-red guards had disappeared from the roofs. Ahead, the older district crowded close enough to reduce their view of the throne tower to a strip between walls.
"They are still watching us," FDR warned. "Keep the formation."