by Frank Morin
Connor couldn’t wait to try it, but he didn’t have time to play right now. He could reach out through limestone and try finding the light, try wrestling with Evander for control over it. He might manage to pierce the bubble of blackness.
That wasn’t epic enough for today. Connor grinned as he gripped Air’s hand in his mind and urged her to accelerate. The wind seemed subdued somehow as they shot higher. Evander had stolen his sight, but he could still hear. The problem was that the rushing wind made it extremely difficult to hear anything else. He could tap quartzite to enhance his hearing, but Evander could do the same thing. Connor needed an edge.
So he tapped serpentinite.
He might only have access to sounds, but with serpentinite Connor owned sound. He’d practiced with serpentinite a lot over the past few months and had noticed a peculiar property of it that had never seemed very useful until now. He shouted, emitting a burst of high frequency sound, too high for humans to hear. He doubted even Evander would hear it unless he was max-tapping quartzite to his ears. The sound erupted away in every direction, visible to him as a bright red expanding wave.
Part of the wave bounced back from a huge figure swooping toward him on an intercept path from the left. Another part bounced off a Swift-sized shape moving into position almost directly above him. The echoes formed a clear map of the area, reinforcing what he saw.
The idea was working even better than he’s hoped. Connor laughed, but caught that before Evander heard.
The giant was doing an admirable job of shielding his approach, and Connor wasn’t sure how Verena was targeting him, but it looked like she planned to drop a bomb on his head. So Connor took that laughter he’d just captured and tossed it in her direction, wrapping it around her Swift. That might make her hesitate.
For Evander, Connor tapped slate.
Earth appeared in his mind looking grumpy that he’d called upon him while flying with Air. She winked, making Earth scowl. Connor could sense that Earth secretly envied Air sometimes and he liked her flirtations more than he’d ever admit, but he didn’t like getting summoned into her domain.
Connor explained what he wanted with a thought and extended his mental hand. Earth approved of the plan, and the connection solidified.
The frozen ground beneath Evander erupted. So high above the ground, Connor couldn’t draw deep from the earth, but he only needed a couple of inches across the top. A mushroom cloud of fine earth particles blasted into the air directly into Evander’s path.
For perhaps the first time in Connor’s experience, Evander must not have been tapping earth because he reacted a critical second too slow. As he swept through that cloud of earth, it dissipated his wind current enough to make him falter. Air didn’t like flying through dirt.
In that second, Connor struck. He yanked Evander’s current, and fickle Air abandoned Evander. He dropped like a stone.
He’d recover before crashing into the earth. Probably. Not that it mattered. Evander enjoyed a close relationship with Earth so wouldn’t get damaged, no matter how hard he struck. But that still put him several seconds behind.
“The greatest warrior proves his skill in the moment of battle, but a cake removed too soon from the oven saddens an entire household.” He tossed the cryptic Sentry speak at Evander and set it spinning around the giant’s head, whispering the message over and over. Let him decipher that one while he tried to catch up.
Grinning, Connor gripped Air’s hand and accelerated into the sky. The impenetrable darkness didn’t leave, so every four seconds he emitted another burst of sound to map his position and close on Verena. Whatever she was planning hadn’t included Evander getting stumped. Maybe he’d promised to punch Connor out of the darkness cloud so she could strafe him with pink hornets.
Instead, Connor swept in close to the Swift. She was hovering and had dropped her window shielding while she peered vainly out into the darkness. With serpentinite he could see her profile in exquisite detail, like a softly glowing tracing of her on black paper. Her head was tilted slightly to one side as she tried to listen, but the sound of her own thrusters would drown out the sound of his wind current.
Even hovering close enough to touch the Swift, Connor couldn’t see anything with his natural eyes. The blackness was complete. He was enjoying it, but by the hunching of Verena’s shoulders, he sensed it was getting to her. Flying blind was a great way to crash again, and she had way too much first-hand experience with that.
Connor had planned to knock on her window shielding, but got a better idea. With another serpentinite mapping burst, he silently slipped through the window and as wind gusted through the cockpit, he kissed Verena on the cheek.
Dummy. Surprising Verena was never a good idea.
Verena yelped and instinctively punched him in the face. The blow knocked him right out of the Swift.
That could have gone better.
Air caught him and drew him back to Verena. Connor rubbed his cheek where she’d struck. He hadn’t been tapping granite, and she had an amazing right jab. Before she could restore the window shielding or trigger her hornets, Connor called, “Ow. I thought you liked it when I came to visit.”
“Connor, what were you thinking?” she demanded, clearly annoyed. He’d hoped to help her relax, but she seemed even more anxious than before. That was unusual. Usually she loved combat and flying above almost anything else.
He dared draw closer again. This time he leaned on the window. She couldn’t see him, but his weight pushed down the front of the Swift. She quickly adjusted, and the pressure would help her know where he was. “I figured a kiss would be a nicer way to tell you that you’re out than forcing you to crash another Swift.”
“Don’t you dare,” she warned.
In each of her crashes, she’d risked her life trying to save him or others. Connor loved her fierce spirit and sometimes-idiotic bravery, but she had nearly died. This latest model not only included many new weapons, but lots of improved defensive mechanicals. She would not go down easily again.
“I’m coming in. Don’t punch me again.”
This time when he slipped inside the tiny canopy, she reached toward his voice. He caught her warm hand, then touched her cheek.
“How can you see what you’re doing?” she asked.
“Magic,” he said with a grin.
She chuckled, pulled him closer, and planted a quick kiss. He made sure she found his lips. As always, he loved the smell of high mountain air that clung to her and the subtle, minty taste of her lips.
“How are you feeling today?” she asked casually, but there was something odd in her voice.
“Winning so far, but low on time.”
For some reason that seemed to help her relax. He felt her smile as she said, “If I’m out, you’ve got work to do.”
“Can I borrow one of your missiles?”
Her tone turned mischievous. “Take what you want, Connor. I know you’ll make it up to me over dinner.”
“Done.” That one was easy. Everyone would get a feast tomorrow.
He rolled back out of the Swift and caught the missile that she released from its rack under one of the stubby wings. Then he accelerated again. Within seconds he burst from the strange blackness bubble into bright sunlight that seemed blinding after that pit of darkness. Glancing back at it, he whistled softly. Evander had dropped darkness over a globe of space several hundred yards in diameter, stretching all the way down to the ground. Connor really needed to learn how to do that.
First, he had to win. He dove for the first pylon, slightly northwest of his position.
Evander broke out of the darkness, sliding across the ground and heading toward the pylon to intercept.
Connor didn’t have time to fight Evander again, and couldn’t hope to beat the giant with earth. So he tapped limestone. As beams of light became visible as streaming bands, he gave them a twist, creating a mirage of himself dropping straight toward the ground. He remained in the air current this
time, deflecting light around himself to make himself temporarily invisible as he swooped away at an angle to come at the first pylon from the east.
As Connor hoped, Evander took the bait, focusing on the mirage of Connor falling. When mirage-Connor was still thirty feet above the ground, earth erupted in a giant, grasping hand. It snatched the fake Connor out of the air, and only then did Evander realize his mistake.
He spun back around toward the air current, but Connor had already created a second mirage and let it take his place inside the current. He was dropping down toward the pylon, untethered to anything, still wrapped in a bubble of invisibility. Wind whistled past as he picked up speed, and he used serpentinite to squash the noise he made. Unless Evander had noticed him create the disguise, he’d never figure out the trick in time.
With instincts honed by centuries, Evander struck the second mirage with an air current that corkscrewed the fake Connor out of control back toward the ground. He again sent grasping fingers of earth to capture him, and a rare smile began forming on his huge face.
In that second, Connor landed atop the earthen pylon, tapping granite to not break his legs. Even though Connor tried to shield his landing, Evander immediately spun to face him. Just in time to catch Verena’s missile in the face.
It erupted in a very satisfying cloud of pink powder.
“Tag, you’re out.”
Connor didn’t wait for Evander to reply, but leaped off the pylon and tapped slate. Earth was grinning with approval as Connor accelerated in a slide across the ground toward the second pylon, situated a mile to the east.
“One down. Three to go,” he said to himself. He caught the sounds and set them running around his head, the words repeating like a mantra. He reminded himself to grab some music from one of the minstrels and preserve it in one of Aifric’s diamond sound recorders. Using it during a duel like this, filling the air with stirring music, would make his victory even sweeter.
Even though Connor was still tapping a little granite, he could have also tapped basalt and made a run for it. Since his second ascension he could tap two primary affinity stones simultaneously, and doing so offered unique benefits that he’d been practicing with. Even Kilian barely kept up with him in a fully fracked sprint any more. The amazing freedom of basalt speed always thrilled him, but he wasn’t sure who was going to attack him next, and a solid connection to slate gave him a better chance of sensing danger before it struck.
Without warning, Aifric erupted out of the ground about a hundred yards away and sprinted in his direction, a braided-steel meteor hammer in her hand. She moved so fast that Mariora or Rith were probably the personalities in control.
He should’ve gone with basalt.
4
The Unexpected Fruits of Chemical Weapons
Connor would love nothing more than to engage in a super-fracked running battle with Aifric and all of her personalities. She could shift control between the nineteen women living inside of that head in the blink of an eye, and each of them possessed a different set of affinities. That made her almost as versatile as him.
The only thing she lacked was the ability to combine multiple affinities at the same time. He had trained hard with her in the past couple of months, working to fine-tune his tap rate and absorption rate. She could keep up with him unless he really pushed the limits or started combining multiple affinities.
Getting into a fight like that with Aifric could take all day, and he’d already spent too much time. Besides, he’d consumed too much of his allocated power stones. A long battle could exhaust an important affinity he might need to defeat the next challenger. So Connor tapped basalt, but not to frack.
Instead, he hit Aifric with stilling.
He didn’t like using stilling on living things, not since he had stilled the entire city of Merkland. Forty thousand lives provided lots of motivation.
He’d felt every single death caused by his attempt to save the people of Merkland. They still haunted his dreams. If he hadn’t stilled them, thousands more would have died, driven to berserker rage by the quickened porphyry bomb that Harley had detonated over the city. Knowing that didn’t help as much as he wished it did. He had held those lives captive in his power, siphoned away their life forces, and sacrifice them for the greater good.
He’d hesitated to use stilling much since then, but today’s test was designed to prove his mastery over all of the weapons in his affinity arsenal. If he was fighting the queen, he couldn’t hesitate. So he grimaced with lingering unease, but unleashed it anyway.
Aifric was always pushing him to fight harder, seek for every possible advantage. She would understand why he had to do this, would congratulate him on using it even as she fought to defeat him. She was an assassin and a healer, so she was used to weird personal conflicts.
Stilling settled over Aifric like an invisible blanket. Her blurring strides slowed and she stumbled. Her life force glowed in his mind like a Solas, so much more vibrant than any he’d seen. He had never realized that having so many people sharing that head of hers resulted in such a noticeable effect. The rush of energy that he siphoned away from her and absorbed was delicious in a way that he hated to acknowledge.
Aifric shifted rapidly between multiple personalities, trying to find a way to beat the stilling. One of them, he wasn’t sure which, struck at him with earth, but the blow lacked power and he easily blocked it. He recognized the tilt of her head when she switched to Isabell, who tried to call forth fire, but the flames flickered, and he snatched them away.
As she stumbled to her knees, Connor slid across the remaining distance to her, snatched the powder-coated meteor hammer from her grasp, and touched it lightly to her temple.
“You touched steel to every kill location on my body and spared my life. Today I’m returning the favor.”
Then he released stilling. When he had stilled the city of Merkland, their energy had poured into him like a raging flood as forty thousand souls reinforced his own life force. Releasing stilling had been far more difficult than he’d ever admitted to anyone.
Although Aifric’s life force was as strong as any twenty other people, he found he could release stilling without that same hesitation. She was one of his dearest friends. Besides, if he actually did injure her, Student Eighteen would cut out his heart.
He loved having friends that helped him know proper boundaries.
As soon as he released her, Aifric drew in a sharp breath, gave him a disgusted look and said, “You are such a pebble brain, Connor. That little show means nothing compared to what I did for you that day.”
Connor grinned and extended a hand to haul her back to her feet. “I don’t mind still being indebted to you.”
She rolled her eyes, and Tresta took control. Her stance became wider, her shoulders somehow blockier. The rather grumpy Boulder scowled at him. “We had such a great plan for that duel. I hate missing out on a good bash fight.”
That was a sentiment shared by every Boulder Connor had ever known.
“I promise that as soon as we can find a little time, I’ll bash fight with you for twelve hours straight.”
She grinned, and Aifric’s face shivered as multiple other personalities took control long enough to add their smile. Connor would need twelve hours to bash fight all of Aifric’s Boulder or Rumbler personalities. He doubted any of them would feel fully satisfied, but he would do the best he could.
Then she shifted to Student Eighteen. “That stilling worries me. We even tried pumice, but couldn’t break out.”
“Do any of you have affinity with blind coal?”
“Not yet. We haven’t ever gotten our hands on enough to try.”
“I’ll get you some.”
She flashed a grateful smile.
“You’ve shared enough secrets with me, least I can do,” he added, then turned to leave.
Student Eighteen grabbed his arm. “My meteor hammer?”
Connor handed it over with a sigh. He’d wanted to g
et his hands on one of those for months, but seemed to always get distracted before he could get one and schedule some time with Dietmar, Ilse’s lead Wingrunner, to learn how to use it.
Aifric hefted it and said, “On loan from Ivor.”
He should have recognized it. “I’m surprised he loaned that to you. He loves that weapon.” Ivor had won it from a Grandurian noble in a card game while stuck in Altkalen as a prisoner of war.
She sighed. “He only loaned it because I promised I’d hit you with it.”
“What did you have to promise in return if you missed?”
Her only response was a scowl. Connor laughed, tapped basalt, and sprinted east toward the second pylon. Ivor was a champion negotiator. Aifric didn’t really need the weapon, so he doubted Ivor had leveraged much out of the deal, but he would have gotten something. With all of her personalities, there was almost no limit to what Aifric could do.
His musings were cut short by a diorite missile exploding just in front of him. He was moving so fast that he didn’t have time to swerve before running into the cloud of blinding dirt and fire.
Connor dove straight through, tapping both marble and soapstone. He grabbed the fires from the explosion, wrapped himself in them like a full-body shield, and rolled back to his feet.
Hamish roared overhead in his flying suit, barely ten feet off the ground. Behind the protection of his face mask, he was chewing on a bit of breadstick. He gave Connor a jaunty salute and dropped a tiny vial. It fell toward Connor’s feet.
Oh, no.
Connor was not about to let that vial hit the ground and break. Hamish absolutely loved the Althing chemical weapons. He had assigned himself the chief liaison from the Builder group to the Althing scientists. He regularly showed up after sampling the latest inventions with his skin tinged some weird color, or looking like he had just puked everything he’d eaten in the last month.
The Althing researchers considered Hamish something of a legend. Not only did no one else want to sample any of those chemicals, but they were convinced no one else would have survived so long.
