by Chris Fox
“What do you have in mind?” Anu’s voice came through her armor’s speakers.
“Does anyone know either the implode or disintegrate spell?” I figured both would be common among eradicators.
“I have mastered disintegrate.” Pride thickened the student’s voice that I’d just saved.
“I have implode,” Anu offered.
The last student didn’t speak, so I assumed that to be a no.
“That’s workable.” I drifted up a few meters and peered through the trees at the keep. “If we can get there without being detected we can use a spotter to find targets. We’ll rotate which one of us use a spell to kill them. Implode can do it from range, if we’re close.”
“And the disintegrate?” dude-that-I-saved asked.
“They’re going to come fast and hard for us as soon as they know what we’re doing.” I shuddered just thinking about the idea of a half dozen war mages charging our lines. That would end badly, and quickly. “You watch the direction they’re coming from, and disintegrate the first target to appear. If you nail them, then the others might hesitate. The rest of us will shift to backing you up, and we’ll try to finish our kills on the squad they send to take us down. We never actually need to enter their temple.”
“I like it.” Anu nodded then started into the air. “Neither of you has a better plan. We all know it. So let’s go.”
Anu took charge and we flitted through the tall trees after her. They resembled pines, but the trunks were too fat, and the needles were red instead of green. They cloaked our approach up the mountain. Our opponents knew we were coming, though, and if they had fire mages they were definitely tracking our progress.
Theoretically you could ward yourself from scrying with protection, which required spirit and water. At least one of the other mages probably had spirit given that we were near a Catalyst, but I doubted they had water. That information would already have been volunteered.
We made it to the top of a ridge directly under the keep’s thick stone wall, which towered over us into the relative darkness. I spotted a window up above us, and then parapets on the wall high above.
“Okay, human. You’re up,” one of the nameless hatchlings hissed. “Find us targets, like you promised.”
I’d never been a spotter before, but nothing like learning through doing, right? First, I activated my sight. That was where the cheating started. See, the limitation of scrying, as I’ve mentioned a time or two, is that you need to be familiar with the area you’re scrying, or at least have a holo or high-definition photograph of the area.
A fortified keep wouldn’t let us get any of those things without a fight, so they probably assumed they were safe-ish. Nope. Not today.
I extended a palm and conjured a flame, then peered into it and tuned out the rest of the world. I focused on the area above us, on the perch where I’d spotted the first shooter.
An Ifrit in mottled green armor lay in a sniper’s nest, the barrel of her spellrifle just another blade on the barbed wire around the edge of the tower where she hid. It would have been perfect cover, if I hadn’t cheated.
“Anu, this one’s yours,” I whispered through my suit’s speakers. We weren’t even on damned comms.
Anu raised her spellrifle, but didn’t aim at anything in particular. Instead she focused on my flame. The pull of void within her was so close it spoke to the magic within me, and then the sniper’s chest simply exploded. I dropped the flame as I had no desire to see the resulting mess.
“Okay, I’m next.” I conjured another flame, on one of the guards on the other side of the keep, not the second sniper as our enemy would likely predict. I familiarized myself with the hatchling’s position, right next to a window he could lean out, and then my implode shortened him by about a quarter of a meter.
Yells came from above, and searchlights ignited atop the walls. They were coming for us now, just as I’d hoped they would.
11
Enemy Response
We sprinted into the darkness back the way we’d come, rather than flying, because it made enough of a commotion that our pursuers would definitely spot us fleeing back into the trees.
“Let’s hope killing two of them got the rest angry enough to come after us,” I panted as I vaulted a fallen log. Anu had managed to outpace me, but to my surprise I’d kept ahead of both hatchlings. My dad would have been proud.
“There!” Anu sprinted toward a transport-sized boulder that jutted out of the forest floor. She skidded to a halt next to it, and used the rock for cover.
There was more than enough room for all of us to find different shelters, and to set up to cover the trail. By the time we heard the hum of spellarmor zipping through the trees we were prepared.
I waited for the hatchling who could cast disintegrate, and held my breath as his barrel came up and he took careful aim. He waited for the lead target, a bulky hatchling in the same mottled-green spellarmor, to clear the trees and nearly reach the rock.
And then dude-that-I-saved ended him with a single spell. A bolt of negative light that seared my eyes as it streaked past enveloped the entire suit. It burst into a million particles, then dissolved into the night as if the dragon had never been.
That was our cue. I chose to stick with implode. “Okay, Dez. You’re going to like this.”
Liked killing guard, Dez purred. Implode good spell. Kill war mages. No guilt.
A trio of war mages burst from the trees, and the two in the lead opened up with handheld mini-guns. They strafed our position at incredible speed, and their weapons converged on the hatchling who’d fired our only disintegrate.
The rounds forced him into cover, and the third mage took full advantage. I couldn’t see her species, but the armor had been molded to fit a female body. Her rifle came up, and an acid bolt almost lazily took my companion in the eye. He died without me ever learning his name.
Anu popped from cover, and sprayed an acid cone over the two war mages with the mini-guns. They dropped their conventional weapons, and both yanked spellblades from void pockets as dripping acid eroded their armor, and began burning through to the unprotected flesh underneath.
I raised my own weapon and hesitated. I could finish the two wounded war mages, but that left the very lethal sniper to take another kill shot. I swiveled and sighted down Dez’s barrel at the sniper’s chest. I pulled fire from my own chest and launched a low magnitude fire bolt to get her attention.
She dodged, as expected, and clearly anticipated my second shot. I used another implode, and summoned the spell inside her helmet. A feminine scream came from within, and she dropped to the ground, cradling her head…but she wasn’t dead.
Her companions descended on Anu, and the last nameless hatchling. Their blades were everywhere, whirring and slashing, and coated with acid that flung over their opponents even when blows didn’t connect.
Anu dove out of the way, and rolled behind an outcrop. Her companion wasn’t so lucky, and one war mage knocked him into the rock with a roundhouse, while the other impaled him. It all happened so quickly, and I had no time to intervene.
Again I needed a snap judgement. Finish off the war mage sniper, or go to Anu’s aid before the last two finished her off. I hate choices like that, so I chose to do something monumentally stupid. I attempted both.
I whipped Dez toward the two war mages, who were already bounding over to the outcrop where Anu hid, and launched a gravity sphere in their path. The little purple-black ball burst directly in front of them, and both were hurled into the air, suddenly weightless.
Rather than watch the results I spun to the sniper, who’d already begun climbing to her feet. Dez came up in a two-handed grip, and I sighted over her chest this time. Power flowed from me, and from the power Frit had given me, into Dez. The weapon further amplified it, and we flung another implode at my opponent.
This time there was no cry. The woman slumped to her knees, and toppled to the soft forest floor beside the boulder. She might
have been alive, but she was definitely out of the fight.
Under ordinary circumstances I would have followed up with another spell to make sure her armor didn’t administer a potion and get her back in the fight, but I spun to check on Anu.
One of the war mages floated in my gravity sphere, arms limp and spellblade slowly spinning away from his outstretched hand. The other had somehow gotten free, and engaged Anu in hand-to-hand.
I watched in awe as Anu’s hands and feet became weapons. She batted aside his spellblade, a broadsword, with the back of one palm, and then sketched three quick void sigils. The greater void bolt took the war mage in the face, and he spun away with a cry.
My pistol came up, and I whispered my weaken miracle, then cored the bastard with a high magnitude void bolt. The regular kind as I didn’t know the amped up version Anu had used.
“Thank you.” Her chest rose and fell with heaving breaths inside her armor. “We should go. Quickly. More will be coming.”
I could hear the sounds of pursuit in the distance, so I activated a camo spell and zoomed along the forest floor as fast as I dared. Trees whipped by me, and branches slapped my armor as we zigzagged down the mountain and deep into the forested valley.
“Speed is probably best,” I called as I twisted around the thick bole of a not-pine tree. “If we slow to cover our trail they may find us anyway.”
“Agreed!” Her bellow was nearly lost to the sound of the flame whooshing from the thruster on her armor, and I realized the light could probably be seen through the trees.
There was definitely no stopping.
We’d made it another several hundred meters when the forest exploded around us. Every tree, every rock, the topsoil, and the poor creatures that lived there were incinerated as a quartet of fighters screamed by above.
My armor was flung up and away, and I spun wildly before I was able to regain control. Yellow warnings sprang up on my paper doll, but I’d survived intact, mostly due to my fire resistance.
Anu’s armor had been cooked to a deeper flat black, but she righted her course and kept flying. We’d gotten damned lucky. They’d used fire to try to take us down, the one aspect we’d both been best insulated against.
I dropped to the ground, and remained motionless as the fighters circled overhead. They made three tight passes, low and slow as they sought any sign of our survival.
I don’t know how Anu hid herself, but my camo spell got the job done, and soon the fighters winged off and returned to the keep. Ghora had been right. Stealth had been the most vital part of this mission, and without it I’d be dead now.
Once the fighters were gone I rose silently, and began floating at top speed back toward the Kamiza. I feared a shot to the back, but no one accosted me. A hurried search revealed no sign of Anu, so I left her to her own devices and focused on getting back myself.
Before long I reached the edge of the blaze, and made it into the deep forest. The smoke cut visibility, but that worked two ways, and my armor insulated me from having to breathe it.
From there I flew mostly straight, and no one bothered me as I trudged back through the Kamiza’s open doors into a room where Ghora knelt alone, eyes closed and hands resting in her lap. She opened them as I landed, and I caught flames in both pupils, dancing.
I wasn’t familiar with the technique, and made a note to ask when the opportunity arose.
“You survived.” Ghora’s eyes closed again. “Anu has as well, and will be with us shortly. I must admit I would not have predicted this outcome. You came up with the plan that set you on the path to victory, and you executed it well. Had you not accompanied my students, the rest would have died, including Anu. You are a welcome addition, pup. Do not let it go to your head. Your lack of skill should embarrass you.”
I knelt across from her in silence, where the students had knelt before. Snarky replies seemed out of place, so I caught my breath and wondered at the effects of the spirit mushroom until Anu arrived several moments later.
She moved to kneel next to me, and said nothing to Ghora. Her armor had been badly damaged, and I noted a gap in one thigh where a rivulet of magma leaked from the wound.
Ghora’s eyes opened, and she focused on Anu. “You have disappointed me. You live, and will be granted the title Eradicator, but always know your victory came only because of the skills of an outsider. Tomorrow I will escort him to meet the Shade of Nebiat, and to receive her blessing. You will remain here and contemplate your failure to lead the battle and the deaths of your companions. Now get to your bunks before the mushroom overcomes you.”
I winced at the harsh words, but Anu bore it stoically.
And then I realized what she’d said. She was taking me to meet the shade of a goddess? A goddess known for backstabbing and betrayal? That in no way felt like a reward for surviving the trial.
12
The Shade of Nebiat
The mushroom overcame me almost the instant I lay down in my bunk, and I didn’t even need the noise dampeners to tune out the synth the hatchlings were blasting. A psychedelic coma overtook me, and I fell into terrible dreams.
A small but majestic Wyrm flapped skyward over the mountain range I slept in, and desperately defended herself against a malicious goddess who…wait, was that Voria? And Frit? I watched as the poor dragon was beset from both sides, and despite desperate pleas for mercy her opponents ruthlessly cut her down, watering the land below with her blood.
Nebiat, I realized it must be, plummeted from the sky, and crashed into the earth. Her soul fell away from the body, and landed atop a statue of an elder Wyrm, itself nearly as large as a mountain.
That statue was ringed by mountains…mountains unlike the one where my body slumbered. All the Kamizas clustered in this area, around the statue of Nebiat, which must have been the Tomb of Nebiat I’d heard so much about.
The dream continued to play out…Frit and Voria departed, and the heroic hatchlings crept out to cry at the tomb of their mother. Then the vision began to replay, in an endless loop.
I awakened with a great sadness at the injustice the Wyrm had suffered. It didn’t seem right. If the events had been depicted accurately, then Frit and Voria had struck down a more or less defenseless former ally, even when she pled for mercy. The holos definitely painted a different picture.
As I rose from the cot I glanced around. The hatchlings were already gone. Anu still slumbered in her bunk, though she’d begun to stir, and I suspected would wake soon. Ghora had let us sleep in, something I suspected didn’t happen very often.
“Get up.” The one-eyed hatchling strode through the door of the barracks as if my thought had summoned her, and Anu was on her feet in the time it took me to glance in her direction. She faced me. “You will come with me.” She faced Anu. “You will find somewhere else to be. The day is yours.”
Anu nodded, though her helmet prevented me from reading any sort of expression. She picked up her cannon, and strode from the room. That left Ghora and I alone, and as I’d already learned that witty one-liners weren’t wanted here I merely waited to see what she’d do.
“Walk with me.” She turned and ambled to the door, then waited just outside the Kamiza until I’d joined her. She continued onto the path that led down the mountain, and I realized we were winding to the southern slope, which I hadn’t yet been to.
“Where are we going?” I asked the question mostly to provoke conversation, as Ghora offered nothing.
“To view the Tomb.” Ghora hesitated on the trail, and picked up a discarded branch, which she used as a walking stick. “I invited you because you have the wisdom Anu lacks. You can see the truth, the injustice perpetrated upon the fallen mother.”
“You’re talking about Nebiat.” My mind flashed back to the dream. “She sent that vision, didn’t she?”
“Indeed.” Ghora started up the trail again with her new walking stick. “She came to me in a similar vision, and I was escorted to meet her, as you are being escorted now. You h
ave been found worthy. She will show you the truth of things, and offer power if you have the wisdom to accept it.”
That sounded like an awesome deal, with no strings attached. Did I have the option of refusing? I didn’t like where this was going.
“When you say power you mean spirit magic?” I wanted as many details as possible, and quickened my pace to walk alongside Ghora. She set a fast clip.
“Most likely.” Ghora shrugged as she ambled down the trail. “That is what I received, but there are other gifts she can bestow. There is great power in spirit. It is oft maligned, but people forget that the core of protection comes from the spirit. It does not need to be used to twist, nor to corrupt.”
That gave me pause, mentally at least, and I fell to silence as we continued down the trail, and around the mountain face. Had Nebiat been done dirty? Had she been killed and scapegoated? She’d clearly died a hero to many people on this world, as evidenced by the worship.
And it was true that spirit magic wasn’t inherently evil. Sure, binders sucked, but I liked wards. I liked wards a lot. Was accepting this power a bad idea? Probably. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t tempting.
Of course if I did take it, I’d probably end up with the ability to inflict insignificant and annoying curses on people or something, instead of magic. My track record of late on Catalyzations had definitely skewed away from magic and into random abilities.
It all came down to the catch.
About fifteen minutes later we finally came around the bend, and I had my first glimpse of the Tomb of Nebiat. The truly majestic statue from my dream loomed in the distance, carved from the bones of the Earthmother herself, the mighty dragon I’d glimpsed when I’d arrived.
I wished Briff had been with me, as the sun struck the statue perfectly and created a singular view. I suspected Ghora had timed our arrival to catch the light just so. Part of the sales pitch, no doubt.
