Beyond the Dark Gate

by R. V. Johnson

  Jade stopped to lean on the thin branches that acted as support railings for the bigger outpost platforms. The railings were twig-like and snaked a great distance from branch to branch. Having pressed herself against it for hours without a crack or creak of protest, she knew their strength exceeded their fragile appearance far beyond something made of deadwood.

  Stretching away, the view was unmatched for any she’d beheld, including the Mountain back on her home world of Terra. Such an open view made her feel exposed though the ground was over thirty stories below. Nearly a bell had passed before they’d reached the Life Watch Landing as the Valens called the second highest platform on the great falun tree.

  The Weather Watch, another fifteen stories or so higher, was not much larger than an eagle’s roost or so she’d been told. Jade took Lore Rayna’s word on it. She had little desire to experience it firsthand.

  Though sunlight would soon fade outside the tree, the great forest of the Vale was darker under the thick fern-like branches, even though the northernmost outpost blazed alongside one of the great falun trees. The Valens and Light Users there were forced to expend precious energy extinguishing them with coats of ice and stored basins of water. Slowly the Users and Valens’ efforts gained momentum as darkness crawled toward them.

  Yet, Broth and the Valen scouts had reported the enemy waited in force in that darkness, moving stealthily toward them.

  Crystalyn joined her at the rail, clasping her hand with her own. Jade gained some small comfort from the touch. Her sister’s hand had grown soft, losing the many calluses she’d garnered from her former indenture at Ruena Day’s warehouse. Their only servitude lately consisted of three things it seemed: traveling, battling, and running for their lives. If not for the task of locating Dad, Jade would wonder if coming back to Astura was the best choice for them.

  Beside her, Crystalyn fidgeted. “Get ready, it shouldn’t be long now,” her sister said, her voice hushed though high with excitement. Or was it anxiety for what they were about to do? Jade hoped for the latter. Crystalyn seemed to rely on her magic symbols more frequently, and the Dark Users’ aggression toward the Vale gave her an almost unlimited number of excuses to use it.

  As high up as they were, the wind gusted with constant force, adding a shiver to her vertigo when the platform swayed. Strangely, there wasn’t a single creak from anywhere around no matter how hard it blew, this night. The tree must feel the need for quiet, as did they. A strong feeling of reverence permeated her senses with the revelation—coming from the tree, or the Valens who attended to it, Jade couldn’t say.

  A torrent of luminosity, brilliant with its whiteness, lit the shadows beyond the trees in the east. Throughout the area, rows of armored men and women halted with surprise. This time, huge canine forms as large as Broth stood beside each dark-armored warrior. Some rows back, many dark-robed figures’ hands bloomed with a red or black glow of their own.

  Crystalyn leaned forward. “Here we go!” she hissed, her voice rising with the last word.

  Jade reached for the frothing river of the Flow, sensing its powerful, raging essence through the vibrancy of the living wood at her feet. Even now, after so many interactions, she was afraid of the power it contained. The slightest overdraw could destroy them and everyone on the outpost. Jade offered a tiny conduit, no more than a sliver, of the flow to Crystalyn.

  Crystalyn drew immediately, pulling the Flow through their clasped hands at a high rate. The path of the Flow from her feet to her hands built friction quickly, pain rising along her arm. Jade slowed the Flow to a trickle and then closed the connection altogether. Crystalyn had drawn a great amount, even for her.

  Crystalyn had four symbols hovering in front of her, black on one side and white on the other. Each of the four patterns was circular on the outside. The front two had entwined doubled lines inside the circle that surrounded a vague shape of something in the center. Before Jade could get a better look at the shape and the final two, Crystalyn sent them streaking toward the battlefield one after another.

  Striking in rapid succession, the first two landed beside each other, enveloping the feet of nearly three rows of the dark forms. Briefly, the symbol’s blue radiance brightened with a golden light—the shape in the center now visible as a circle with a tree inside—and then the ground heaved, throwing dirt, debris, and bodies high into the air and then raining down upon the rows behind just as Crystalyn’s third and fourth symbols hit.

  Two narrow but tall vortexes of dark wind spinning ferociously followed, sucking all inside as they traveled through the ranks growing smaller as they went. Many a glowing sphere, along with the hand and body of the Dark User attached to them vanished into the cyclones.

  Arrows showered the dark shapes outside the cyclones and the already fading eruption symbols with chilling accuracy. Even at night, the Valen archers were masters with bow. Yet, even they needed light to locate a target. As the white light dimmed noticeably, the shapes took on shadows making the enemy appear to multiply. Looking like a string of security lights, a row of red spheres with random gaps between them bloomed behind the nearly gone cyclones, only large enough now to maim.

  Crystalyn squeezed her hand. “We have to go,” she said calmly, but her tight grip implied otherwise.

  Jade had no thought of disagreeing. The splinters were coming. With so many hands glowing red on the battlefield, a storm of them was on the way. “Go ahead. I’ll follow.”

  Crystalyn was having none of it; instead of releasing her hand so they could run faster, her sister tugged her to a trap door at the far side of the platform. The first of the splinters struck where they’d stood, lighting the railing and the platform behind it with a faint red glow. The pungent smell of smoldering, living wood filled the air.

  Crystalyn let go of her hand when a radiant white symbol, the size of an amulet, formed in the air in front of her. “The Valens seem to get by with the dim luminescence this tree emits, but I’m not going down this ladder without something brighter,” she said. “Stay close.”

  Grasping the wooden poles extending out of the hatch, Crystalyn started down. “Don’t lose your grip, you won’t survive the fall,” she said as her head vanished below the platform. Obediently, the symbol followed.

  Jade kept close and moved as fast as she dared. The symbol’s light was weak but made the climb doable. The ladder ended on a smaller platform a few stories down. Jade hurried over to Crystalyn at the next railing and clasped her hand as the amulet symbol dissolved. The shadowy twilight as dark fell and the full moon rose closed in again broken only by the dim, green radiance of the great falun tree’s living branches—enough to make out the railing in front of her. The rails were all newly cultivated for them, or so the Valens had claimed. They had no need for a barrier.

  At the rail, Crystalyn gazed below. “Where’s the blasted signal? I can’t tell how it’s going down there,” she said quietly. “The last time I spoke with Broth, he didn’t know how Atoi or Hastel were doing. Now he’s not answering my queries at all. I don’t like it.”

  Jade stared outward but up at the sky. The clear night sky dotted with countless stars and planets made her wonder if their struggles repeated on some other world. “I hope they’re okay,” she mumbled. This platform seemed so peaceful compared to their frantic climb a few moments ago.

  Crystalyn again clasped her hand and she knew the thought for the illusion it was. Their work of killing anything moving toward them was not complete. Sadly, not even close. Almost as soon as Jade finished thinking it, the fading light of the meadow below lit with a sparkling white light.

  A surge of the Flow racing through their clasped hands gave Jade small warning. Then a beautiful, but deadly, earth eruption symbol streaked toward the meadow below. Two more of the glowing black-and-white symbols with the tree shape in the center left the platform before the light began to fade.

  They sprinted to the next ladder down, repeating their frantic, dim-li
ghted flight to a small, four-person platform, at least for normal-sized persons. Jade doubted even two Valens would have room to move about on the perch together.

  When the valley lit below, Crystalyn fired off four of her symbols, three earth eruptions and a full black one that was hard to see clearly, even though it too had a translucent radiance.

  The black symbol halted a Valen’s height above a large group of the opposing force, settling into a spin as if it were a great pinwheel in the sky. Rolling from vertical to horizontal, the spinning symbol shot radiant droplets that steamed on contact with chilling accuracy. The entire front row and parts of the many behind thudded to the ground never to rise again.

  This time the light did not fade, getting brighter to the south of them and above.

  The symbol Crystalyn had out, a complex green and white one, vanished. “We have to go now,” her sister said. Her voice was soft with fatigue. Letting go of Jade’s hand, she looked up. “Broth has shown me much of the Vale is burning, including the top of this great tree. He is uncertain of any survivors.”

  Jade followed her sister’s gaze with her own. An orange glow grew brighter from where they’d been. Large, bare feet and legs appeared on the ladder. The Vale woman, Lore Rayna, slid down beside them, rocking the small perch precariously.

  Lore Rayna appeared not to notice the swaying though her expression was concerned, judging from the way her golden eyebrows fell close to her odd, glowing eyes. “We cannot save our ancient grove, an evacuation has been ordered. Durandas and those who use the Flow are holding the flames back for now, but we do not have much time.”

  “Yes, I was just informed by my Do’brieni. I’m so sorry, Lore Rayna,” Crystalyn said. “Broth and the other two will meet us at the base.”

  Climbing back on the ladder, Lore Rayna’s glowing eyes illuminated the small landing as she regarded them. “Go then, do not tarry. Make for the town of Brown Recluse. Hastel knows the way. The Lore Mother and I shall meet with you after we have saved as many as we can.” Her last few words echoed down to them as her feet vanished through the heights above.

  Crystalyn stared after her as the light of the battlefield faded around them. “I hope Lore Rayna knows what she’s doing. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to her.”

  “Do you want us to go after her?”

  Crystalyn mulled it over, worry furrowing her brow. “No,” she finally said, her voice unhappy. “I’ll have to trust she’s not going to do anything too heroic. I’m worried about Broth and the others too. The Dark Users have used the shadows in the east as cover to encircle us though they are as trapped down there as we are here. Ironic, isn’t it. I need to blow a hole for us to run through after all the trouble we had getting here. You go first; let’s get to the ground while we can.”

  Jade put a hand on the first palm-sized handhold the Valens had coaxed the tree to grow about an arm’s width apart. So much for the battle going as well as the Vale’s commanders had thought. Perhaps, they had been portraying an optimistic outlook all along. Then she had a thought. “Shouldn’t you climb down first? Your light will help.”

  The small light flashed into existence beside Crystalyn’s head. “Good thinking,” Crystalyn said. “The climb won’t be long. I don’t think we’re that far from the ground now,” she said, beginning her descent.

  Jade waited for her sister to move out of sight before putting her feet on the lower knots. The soft whir of flapping wings behind her was the only warning she had. Scaly, inhumanly strong arms enfolded her body, pressed her mouth against something rock hard preventing her from crying out, and swept her into open air.

  BONFIRES

  Camoe knocked a dark-armored soldier’s pike thrust to the side. He followed through with a flick of his sword, jabbing under the dark helm shaped as a spiderbee’s bug-eyed head, feeling the softer flesh of the throat. He nearly missed deflecting a crossbow bolt aimed for high on his side in the process, spinning with a back swing of his sword at the last moment to deflect it away.

  Several badly launched Dark User cones slammed into his personal barrier and then deflected outward. Two of them detonated near the bowman hiding behind a remnant of a sparkle fern bush. Man, bow, and bush exploded, clearing the area for the moment.

  The enemy did not seem to mind the loss of a few of their own from attacks originating from their side. Some of the human druids and Valen kind on the battlefield elected to have physical protection installed and not magical.

  In the past, he had thought as they. Having someone hacking at oneself with a sharp or blunt weapon seemed to trigger the instinct for protection. His solution was to learn how to defend and counterattack with his weapon of choice, whether long sword or spear with master skill, freeing his barrier for protection from long-ranged magical violence.

  Gauging the flow of battle, he was alarmed that the light Durandas created had faded fast in the Vale. His men were tiring. They could not hold the enemy back in the dark, there were too many of them out there.

  Camoe fought down a growing sense of panic; he had to sound the retreat now before the enemy swarmed out of the darkness. He opened his mouth to shout for his first in command to relay the order when light blazed in several spots around the Vale simultaneously. Many of the great trees had burst into flame, lit by a towering dark creation, which also burned from the waist up.

  Camoe’s view of the meadow melted into an image of Durandas in the war room of the southern outpost, cutting off the din of battle with stark abruptness. The head of the Circle of Light’s left eye glowed with the bright white of the contacting. Behind Durandas, the great flor’e’falun had pulled its branches wide, giving him a dizzying window of view to the conflicts below. A winged creature he knew too well highlighted by the blazing trees beyond it flew by carrying someone dear. “Durandas! A maimwright has Jade! Behind you!”

  Durandas whirled.

  Camoe gazed at the scene outside the outpost, his fear mounting. With wings wholly inadequate to carry weight beyond its own, the creature struggled to maintain altitude as Jade fought. Each of her kicks and squirms caused a noticeable decline in the thing’s altitude. Nevertheless, it did not have far to go; already it had flown over half the force assaulting the Vale, making for the rear as it banked. The army moving out of the darkness toward the great falun tree halted. A widened area opened in a wave toward the rear.

  A sense of hushed watchfulness descended on those below, and then another burning shape of a man, half the size of the tree, stepped upon the field. The image shook. Raising a giant foot high, the shape took a lurching step forward. The image shook again when the foot met the ground. Slowly, it raised its other foot.

  Durandas turned to him, his words already ringing in Camoe’s mind before he had faced him fully. “The Vale is lost beyond all hope. Send the bulk of your men here to the base of the southern outpost; I have a mission for them. I will pass the leadership onto someone else. I want you to take a few of your most trusted and go after the anomaly vessel.”

  “That burning dark creation is coming for you,” Camoe said aloud.

  “Yes. We have given it all we have without allies. We shall evacuate and make for Brown Recluse. Find the anomaly, make haste, my trusted friend, losing her may have far-reaching repercussions.”

  The image melted back into the war-torn meadows, the screams and cries of the wounded and dying loud in his ears after the silence of the contacting. Camoe looked around nearby, getting an assessment of the damage within the meadow’s eerie flickering light. Only a third of his company remained. He was heartened to find most were his best. The ground shook.

  “What is that thing, Master Druid?” Peers asked, pointing with his longbow toward the lumbering man-shape. The dark creation’s upper torso burned with a blazing fire, but it did not seem to have any effect on the thing’s navigating. Perhaps its yellow-orange eyes could see through flames and darkness.

  Briefly, Camoe wondered if Burl mi
ght have been able to see through flames with his like-colored eyes, he had been able to see in the dark, and then discarded the notion almost as soon as it formed in his mind. Such thinking was irrelevant now that Crystalyn had destroyed Jade’s companion. Blast it! Burl was his companion too, though he would not admit it to anyone. Someday he might confide in Jade, but for that to happen, he had to get her back from the rank clutches of evil by staying focused.

  The creation moved straight for the southern outpost. The ground shook.

  Camoe turned his back to the advancing giant. “That creation is something we shall not contend with right now. Go to the runners; tell them to sound the retreat to the outpost. Once there, all shall follow the Lore Mother.”

  “But not you,” Peers said.

  “No and neither are you. Once our brethren have begun moving, you and Kerna meet me at Fissure Rock. Circle wide and avoid running into the enemy.”

  Peers moved away at a fast trot. “As you command, Master Druid,” hung in the dim light of the rising moon after him.

  Camoe joined the fighting on the left side long enough for the enemy to shift to the right. “Long Draught, Tarn, Girth, you three come with me. The rest of you assist with moving the line back to the great falun, the Lore Mother shall lead you from there.” Camoe turned his back on the company of warriors. On the faces of those he could see, there were many questioning and worried looks, but no one spoke up. He was thankful for it. They were all good-trained men and women who likely knew he had no time for explanations. He wished he could take them all.

  Circling wide and making hardly a sound, they made their way through the thickest foliage still living in the dark, working their way through by familiarity and skill. No one spoke. Soon they came to a slight incline and was reassured he was going the right way. Moving uphill, they topped out with some effort. The flora growing on it had been nearly as dense as a bramble twister had, particularly in the dim light of the moon, growing brighter as it rose.