“All of you should be proud,” Durandas said, coming over. “We have struck a historical blow this day. A major instrument of Dark User intelligence gathering is now lost to anyone not wielding the Flow of Light.”
Lore Rayna wondered where the First Light found his energy to move, let alone calmly stroll about the room. After nearly a bell of nonstop using, followed by a risky sprint through Gray Dust and Grit Eye City, she had expected him to express a need for rest.
The First’s smooth face showed little trace of fatigue despite his words spoken to Sureen. Even now Lore Rayna felt the fatigue after calling upon the Great Mother to bless her with the living form for so long. Contact with the great falun tree had helped by gifting her with a slight boost of energy as soon as she set her bared foot upon it. Lore Rayna touched a branch in the wall, sending a quick feeling of gratitude and love. The tree responded with a gentle sway.
Sureen’s soft voice had softened more with sadness. “They hurt us as well, Durandas. I lost fully two-thirds of my warriors. Was their sacrifice worthwhile? Did you find her after we converted the Oracle?”
Though high already, Lore Rayna’s respect for Sureen rose. The warrior User had expended an amazing amount of the Flow protecting them and covering their retreat after performing the cleansing rite on the Oracle, which expended four of her Interrupters with Durandas and the Lore Mother’s aid. As Sureen said, it had come at great cost, though not only to the humans. Seven Valen warriors had fallen, a great loss for the Vale. Their numbers were too few as it was.
Durandas flashed a brief smile. “I did find her. As luck would have it, Crystalyn’s here. By here, I mean in the outskirts of the Vibrant Vale. At least, I believe so, judging from the quick view of her surroundings. Running from Dark Users, I suspect, she brushed off the Oracle contacting almost immediately, but it is enough to know she lives.”
Sureen smiled.
“Thank the One Mother!” the Lore Mother exclaimed with a smile. Then her face smoothed. “However, such news explains something. One of our commanders reported a disruption occurring within the Dark Users’ ranks, which scattered their left flank. I must act upon this,” she said, striding away.
Lore Rayna was ecstatic. “Then I shall go to Crystalyn!” Dashing ahead of the Lore Mother, Lore Rayna flung open the trap door the warriors had closed as they made their exit from the command view station, exposing it to the windy heights below. Speaking quickly, Durandas stopped her with her left foot poised above the top of the living ladder the Great Tree provided.
“I am not certain you can reach her, Rayna. I need to look at a map, perhaps I can figure out where Crystalyn attacked the Dark Users,” he said making his way to the table where the raised terrain map resided, painstakingly made over several seasons by the monks of Brown Recluse.
Lore Rayna put her full weight back on the smooth Four Bridges flooring; sanded boards making up the landing held snugly in place by the tree.
“Make room for the First Light,” Captain Wron commanded to those grouped at the table. Two men moved to one side leaving a wide opening.
Durandas froze as he neared the table, his right eye vanishing behind a brilliant white radiance, the left illuminated with a vivid black that flickered as a dark campfire would without sound. “What do you want?” he demanded of the empty air in front of him. “You know Dark Users have intercepted transmissions.”
“Someone contacts Durandas,” Sureen said, the tone of her voice urgent. “Lore Rayna, can you listen in on the conversation? Don’t press too hard, he’s weak after so much Using this day.”
Lore Rayna slipped her contact stone from her dress pocket. Tying the kell leather band to the back of her head, she centered the clear stone on her forehead.
Durandas drew a sharp breath. “So, he’s lost to us then,” he said.
Lore Rayna interrupted the Flow and dribbled a minute amount into her body infusing the white crystal on her headband. Energy filled her, giving her a vibrancy she accepted gratefully. A drain would come later, once the Flow’s pure energy had released into her system.
“Bring him to Surbo. I will see he gets the training needed to keep him from becoming a mindless shell,” Durandas commanded.
Lore Rayna focused on Durandas’ white eye, shying away from his black one. The Flow of Light was the only one she’d have a chance of joining. Whoever contacted Durandas had trained with both Dark and Light forms, which made Dark link beyond her. Gathering her will, she added her stream of the Flow to Durandas with as much delicacy as she could muster.
An image bloomed in her mind. Five men and a woman sat at a table; extensive handcrafted raised maps depicting much of the western White Lands covered a wall. Lore Rayna was familiar with only one at the table, though the two men dressed in the same livery beside Duke Durniss denoted the men as his own.
“Now I must go,” Durandas was saying. “The Vibrant Vale is under siege. Arelya, if your apprentice has sufficient training for short communications, leave her with the duke, I need you here. Your long-range talents will keep me in touch with Surbo. Durniss, prepare for the worst; the Black Wolf Valley shall not remain unscathed for long now that the darkness awoken has found it. It will not rest until—”
“Didn’t you say it was time to break off this transmission?” a handsome human man seated beside the woman Contactor, Arelya, interjected.
“Right you are, Laran, sometimes I get to barking orders and forget to keep track of the time, besides, we are draining Arel and—”
Suddenly the image wavered, the top and bottom corners began swiftly turning black. Lore Rayna glimpsed Arelya’s right eye bleeding bright red. Then, the Flow wrenched from her at a staggering rate. A supreme will, containing staggering power, brushed the edge of her awareness from deep beneath the Dark Citadel. Her mind shied from it, severing the contacting.
Lore Rayna fell to her knees. She fought the urge to heave the contents of her stomach; she was so close to closing her eyes and succumbing to blackness. Giving in may prove fatal. “Are you badly hurt?” someone asked, but she dared not reply.
Once her stomach calmed, Lore Rayna pushed herself to her feet.
Putting her shoulder under Durandas, Sureen helped him stand. Durandas looked up at her, gray shades of weariness evident in his blue eyes, though there was no fright from such a narrow escape. “You have my gratitude,” he said. “Without your strength to draw upon, I would have been overcome.”
“What was it?” Lore Rayna asked. “That was no Dark User attack. I sensed something else.”
Durandas looked around the room, urging the commanders back to their discussion with a long stare. Once they had their back to them, he met the Lore Mother’s and Sureen’s eyes, raising an eyebrow. Both nodded. “The Green Writhe has long believed as the Circle only recently suspects, something grows with power in the southeast,” Durandas confided, the tone of his voice low.
The Lore Mother laid an arm on her shoulder, gently drawing her close. “Something stealthy has awoken, daughter.”
Lore Rayna was puzzled. “Where did you say?”
Sureen spoke. “The Stair of Despair, southeast of here.” The tone of her voice was lower than the previous ones.
Lore Rayna shook her head. “No. This came from below the Dark Plateau, under the Citadel.” Though she whispered, the trio glanced quickly around.
Satisfied of their privacy, Durandas’ words were no louder than a breath of wind. “You are mistaken. The Green Writhe has had secret vigilance, passed on to each generation for ages. We suspect this is the very thing we have watched for, perhaps even akin to the mind worm that afflicted you in Surbo, though stronger. However, its existence is not something all here should know about, or a great panic would ensue, nor is it speculation. I now confirm it. This evil is the greatest threat our world has ever known.”
Though chilled by his grim words, Lore Rayna was puzzled too. Their geographic description was off; she knew what sh
e sensed. The arrogance and evilness came from under the Dark Citadel in the north, not to the south. Though the same great plateau within Virun, it was the wrong side.
Something resided under the Citadel, something big and bad, something she never wanted contact with again. The mind worm was a child compared to it. “No Durandas, First Light, we were attacked from the bowels of the Dark Citadel, somewhere so deep, I do not believe even the Dark Users know of its existence. Whatever it was, it knows how we contact now, and it shall be waiting. You have to believe me.”
A stillness filled the room broken only by the creak of living wood resisting a small errant gust of wind.
Sureen broke the silence. “I do not know if these two incidents are related, but there is a… presence looming in the southeast as Durandas has mentioned. I sensed its malice in the Dark Oracle during the conversion. Something best left slumbering has awoken, and it moves under the plateau there as well.”
Durandas’ light blue eyes were intent. “Did we awaken it by transforming the Dark Oracle to the Light?”
“No,” Sureen replied. “This darkness was already there when we began. Even now, it searches for the one who woke it, consuming all within its grasp, gaining power.”
The Lore Mother leaned one hand on the trap door. “Who woke this power or powers as the case may be?”
“I wish I knew,” Sureen admitted. “The key to the southern evil’s defeat may well lie within that knowledge. There, it searches ardently for the awakener, for it knows unease. Of what, I do not know. I do know it desires this one being above any other, though I could not discern the motive. I fear we now have to discover whom it seeks, get there before it does, and destroy that power before allowing the darkness to consume it. I do not believe our combined might on this world shall have a chance at destroying it otherwise.”
Sounding too loud in the silence that followed Sureen’s statement, a gasp escaped Lore Rayna’s throat as a frightening thought occurred to her.
The Lore Mother glanced at her sharply. “We both have the same thought, do we not?”
Lore Rayna nodded. “Crystalyn is the strongest person I know of with her symbol magic, though she may not be a match against the collective strength of the Light. If she is the one you think you have to destroy, then you shall find a Valen blocking the way. The only part in this for me is to protect her.”
The Lore Mother’s luminous eyes flared brighter. “Hold your tongue, daughter! No one has said that may happen, but you shall do everything necessary to protect Astura. That has always been our mission on this world.”
“I shall not do anything of the sort! Crystalyn saved my life and my mind, have you forgotten so quickly, Mother?”
“If the choice ever comes upon us, you shall do as the Lore Mother commands,” Durandas said, the tone of his voice low but strong.
Sureen raised a hand. “Please, everyone! There is time yet to make those hard decisions should it come to that. Our first priority is to send a scout to discover more about this threat so we can better combat it. Is there someone you trust to lead a small group on such a mission? That someone would have to have high skills of stealth and observation. Does anyone come to mind?”
Lore Rayna looked toward the Lore Mother. The wise one gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Yes, there is such a one here overseeing the defenses. The same tactician who suggested we convert the Oracle into something only those of the Light could control while much of the Dark Citadel was busy attacking the Vale.”
Sureen smiled. She looked as vibrant as when they had left for the Dark Citadel, giving credence to Lore Rayna’s belief that the warrior User thrived during adversity. “Then by all means, bring him here. We have to set goals and stratagem to attain them. Durandas, do you have a candidate?” Sureen asked next.
“Yes, I do. She will be a valuable asset to the group in many ways. There is a problem, however. To get her gated here from Surbo, I will need to attempt another contacting.”
Sureen rested her gold staff on the ground and straightened. For a human woman, she was tall. At least, Lore Rayna thought so. “I think we have to risk it. We need to know how to combat this great evil.
Leaving the trap door, the Lore Mother strode toward him. “I suppose you shall need an Interrupter, keep it short, Durandas. Give the command to gate here, but nothing else.”
Durandas’s jaw tightened. “As you advise,” he said. Tying his focus orb at the back, he made direct contact with the skin of his forehead where the neural Flow was strongest. “Blocked from communicating this way has us at a huge disadvantage for this war. I hope the other side is hampered with it also,” he said, clasping the Lore Mother’s hand, the white stone already illuminating.
While they were involved, Lore Rayna dropped through the open hatch and slid down the wooded rungs two at a time before anyone could command her otherwise.
Descending quickly, she almost missed the first landing. Pausing to regain her composure, she looked upon the writhing shapes dotting the landscape below. In tune with the tree, Lore Rayna swayed with the rail-less landing, studying the darkest spots, the highest concentration of fighting.
The far sight inherent to her people—when she called upon it—enabled her to view the scene below without too much trouble. The enemy’s right flank had collapsed back to the left to strengthen its failing line.
She was saddened to see two of the great falun trees burning closer to the front. The naturists’ fire protection shield was strong and repelled most of the fireballs thrown at it, but there was not enough of them to keep it maintained upon the huge trees.
Swinging over the side, Lore Rayna caught the guide rope to the next landing with one hand, bypassing the ladders. Once on the ground, she ran to the hillock where Camoe shouted orders to the generals directing the battle. He was not going be happy with the new turn of events, but he was the best druid for the task, or human for that matter, now that he appeared to have turned the tide of the battle in their favor.
Nor would the druid be happy she was not going with him on the mission. With Cudgel sent away by Durandas on Circle of Light affairs, she would find the friend she was proud to be indebted to, one who needed to know of the danger from several sources. Even some Crystalyn may have thought of as allies and friends.
ONE MIND
Cord was the designation the remnant of the humanoid mind considered itself. A weak title, one not befitting an entity of sublime intelligence. Nevertheless, it would do as long as it was predominant in this mass of flesh for others would refer to this species this way.
Having a host pleased the entity, the One Mind, for it would sow fear throughout the land thereby making the species easier to consume. Humans, as they thought of themselves, exuded emotion, which raised neural activity. Higher activity increased its power. Fear was a strong emotion, one of the strongest for producing the highest frequencies for it to feed upon.
In the distance, human minds with the greatest active frequency that was not fear caught at the One Mind’s, Cord’s sensors, beckoning at the host’s innate sense for such things, coming in as bright spots of motion moving about the land. Two areas in particular drew interest.
Of the two, one pulled at it as much as the molten core of the planet had drawn it in after making the only error ever made in the One Mind’s long existence. For, from the darkness of cold space, the great energy source underlying this planet with its unique connection to a massive store of neural activity of synaptic pulses had singled out this solar system from countless others.
The mistake the One Mind made came after landing on the planet with the first and only attempt to absorb the neural connectivity entwined with the river of power flowing through the land. Instead of absorbing flow of power, the river had almost erased the One Mind’s existence by siphoning much of its stored neural supremacy into its raging mass in an instant. The One Mind had fled to the planet’s depths, only there could it sever the connection before it was
completely consumed.
Weakened beyond the ability to travel, the One Mind was nurtured by the coldness underground and relative heat compared to space as it fought to retain a presence through an eon, while gaining the unexpected benefit of raising its frigid inner core. Now, direct dominion of life without the use of offspring was possible. Attempting dominions in the past had resulted with the fragile vessel’s life on the planet crystalizing instantly, forcing an abandonment of the host as soon as it had entered.
Now, Cord knew wariness, something it had never known throughout the billions of ages of its creation, and uncertainty. Travel through the galaxies after harvesting the neural pulses of the planet with its core temperature raised may not now be possible. Though it may.
With the Cord human, and many others powering it, the One Mind would then determine the truth of it. For its supreme intellect, gathered from a collective pool over the ages, had a theory. A notion it would test soon with little risk; the power of the river would affect it but little if the process failed.
The offspring it had created while still cocooned underground stored centuries of the planet’s neural waves. Once it consumed those and boosted the considerable power it already contained, the minds within the Over Mind would be absorbed into the One Mind. Nonhuman or human, it made only a small difference.
Cord issued a command into the One Mind and the Over Mind passed it through neural pathways, transferring it from mind to mind of its subjugations, the speed of the transmission near instantaneous. The Over Mind sent a query outward from all controlled, and the One Mind, Cord, searched until finding two compellable intelligences roaming near the bright spots of energy.
The One Mind, Cord, clamped the coercion upon the first immediately, an instinctive creature led by baser hungers, and one of its own. Even so, compelling some of the offspring took large amounts of its limited power and only sustained partial success with a quick frontal assault. Satisfied with having the creature, which humans called a flicker, controlled in the background, the Over Mind moved on.
Beyond the Dark Gate Page 5
