“Very nice,” said Ragnar.
“Indeed. We may have to go there and buy ourselves some,” I said.
“Oh, I doubt that would be wise. I barely got back with my life the last time I was there,” said Raquel.
“Not exactly the prettiest place, is it?” commented Shira, bringing us back to the situation at hand.
The region had once been a thick forest full of life, but now it mostly consisted of burnt-out husks of trees and rubble, permanently scarred from our battle with the necromancer. There was nothing green anywhere to be seen and no trace of animal life. I knew from the orbital view that there was healthy forest not far from our position, but you would never have guessed it from our immediate area. We were close enough to see the remains of the fortress, which was also mostly destroyed.
“I’ve always wondered why Narcion didn’t warn us about the aftermath of destroying the table,” I said. “Was he afraid we wouldn’t follow through?”
“No, nothing like that. We simply didn’t know this would happen,” said Raquel. “We assumed the power would have vented back into the Spirit Realm.”
“We’re being watched,” said Ragnar.
“By whom? Where?” I asked.
“By – ” he started to reply, but was cut off as a bolt hit him in the chest and knocked him down.
I grabbed him and dragged him behind cover while Raquel pulled Shira down behind some boulders. “You all right?”
“Yes,” said Ragnar. “The armor absorbed most of the energy.”
He was wheezing a little as he spoke, but there was no time to press him as another bolt slammed into the rocks near us.
“Where are they coming from?” I asked.
“I see him. He’s behind those logs to the north. I need a distraction,” sent Raquel.
“Go!” I sent and tossed a concussion grenade towards the logs. A thunderous rupture of energy shook the ground under us as the grenade went off. As soon as the shockwave had passed our position, I sprang up and was aiming my rifle when a human body went flying over the logs and hit the ground hard.
About to charge, I noticed something odd about the air above him, a sort of shimmer. Then a black hood appeared and pulled itself over the man’s head.
Fire rained down on the area, and the downed magus screamed in pain. I closed my eyes and used my Sight to see Raquel in her image-shifting armor running for cover as a second magus cast fire down from the sky.
I fired my rifle at the invisible magus, but the energy from the bolts seemed to explode around him. “Now what?”
“He’s shielded from energy-based attacks,” sent Raquel.
“Shira, watch for the explosion and gate me right above it,” I sent.
“Got it,” she sent back.
Shira and I had used this technique many times now and she needed no further instructions. This would be the first time we used it against an invisible floating target, but the principle should work the same; at least, I hoped so.
I opened fire and elongated balls of tightly-packed, highly-energized particles flew towards the magus in the sky at the speed of light. As each blast from my gun slammed into his shield bright flashes of light were released, clearly marking his position for Shira.
Shira cast a gate in front of me and I sprinted through. As I came out the other side I was directly above the magus. Keeping my eyes closed, which allowed me to see him clearly despite his invisibility, I used my telekinesis to push against the ground and slow my fall. As I passed him I kicked him hard. My foot connected squarely with his chest, doubling him over and breaking his concentration. He fell quickly and slammed hard into the ground.
My kick had sent me flying backwards from him. I teleported to the ground, rolling a few times to use up my momentum, and came to a stop next to the magus. I raised the stock of my gun to strike him.
“Wait,” called out Shira.
“Why?” I asked.
“I think he’s dead.”
Raquel appeared next to me and said, “They both are.”
“Anyone hurt?” I asked.
“Ragnar had the wind knocked out of him, but his armor held,” said Raquel. “Shira?”
“I’m fine. The fire magus was more concerned with you two than with me,” she said.
I wondered if that bothered her. I knew I might feel slighted if an enemy never bothered to target me. It would imply that I wasn’t enough of a threat to them. Shira’s gate had won the fight, though, proving her to be a worthy target. It was impossible to guess what she thought of it all.
After making sure Ragnar was okay, I walked over to the corpse of the other magus. “What’s with the hood?”
Raquel chuckled. “An old trick to keep a magus from teleporting away, or from using most of his spells.” I noticed she had also tied his hands.
“Cunning,” said Ragnar. “He can’t use his hands to cast, and you allowed him no line of sight for aiming any spell that didn’t need his hands.”
“Who is he?” I asked. It struck me forcefully how easily a magus was disabled. A simple hood and rope eliminated most of his power. From a distance a magus seemed unstoppable, yet I’d just kicked one out of the sky and Raquel had stopped another with only a hood. Seeing how easily these two had been defeated was a strong warning for me; I would have to be careful not to overestimate myself.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“He’s a Korshalemian sorcerer,” said Ragnar, “as was the other one. They must have been psionics, since one was levitating and the other teleported at least once.”
“Not true,” said Raquel.
“What isn’t true?” asked Ragnar.
“This persistent belief that the basic powers differ between realms. They are in fact the same,” she told him. By her tone it was apparent that she was fed up hearing that belief, but this was the first time I’d heard her address the issue.
“Look,” said Ragnar. “I lived in Korshalemia for most of my life. I think I should know.”
“The basic powers are a secret known only to the highest-ranking wizards. These abilities are deliberately suppressed and blocked because they’re seen as impure. The sorcerers never cared about that so they were all trained in these powers, while the wizards saw the powers used by the sorcerers as evil and passed on this belief.”
“But,” argued Ragnar, “that would mean I could teleport and use telepathy, and I can’t.”
“You can,” she said. “But we’ll have to get help to remove the magical block that’s preventing you.”
“I don’t understand why they would do this, and how would you know?” he said. “This theory of yours doesn’t make any sense.”
“This is very interesting,” I interrupted, “but we are standing out in the open in what’s becoming a battle zone. We should make for cover.”
“Agreed. We’re still being watched, but it’s from a distance,” said Ragnar with a sigh. I knew he wanted to continue the discussion, but we had to move before we were targeted again.
Raquel searched the bodies and recovered some wands and magic jewelry, leaving the bodies for scavengers. It didn’t seem right to leave them there, but we had already stood around in the open far too long for my taste. If any of their friends were still around, they could deal with the bodies.
“Shira, which way?” I asked.
Shira led us to a section of the ruins which I estimated to be near the back of the castle. A stone trapdoor was still partly intact, but she needed my assistance to get it open. Once opened, it revealed a set of stairs descending down into darkness.
“My gate markers are gone, so I don’t know whether the rooms are still there or whether they’ve collapsed,” said Shira.
“I’m sure that once you were rescued the necromancer removed them, so that you couldn’t gate people into his fortress,” said Raquel.
“That makes sense,” I agreed. As I took my first few steps down the stairs I fe
lt a chill run down my spine. It was a sense which Narcion had told me was part of my Sac’a’rith nature: a warning signal that alerted me when I was approaching an area controlled by the undead. “We’re not alone.”
Chapter Seventeen
After two excruciating weeks of rehab I was finally walking and no longer needed the hover chair. I had a long way to go yet before I’d be able to return to full-time work, but I hoped I’d be put back on light duty soon. I was going stir crazy, sitting around my room all day. Marcus came by every night, which helped break the monotony, but I was itching to get back to being productive.
The ship’s chief doctor had asked me to drop by and I was really hoping he intended to give me that clearance. “Purwryn, please sit down,” he said as I entered his office.
He wasn’t alone. There was a man with him whom I didn’t recognize. He was tall, dressed in dark clothes and wore dark glasses which obscured his eyes. He had a presence about him that indicated he was not to be trifled with.
“This is an agent from Resden,” said the doctor. “He is investigating the accident and would like to talk with you about what you remember.”
“I can take it from here,” said the agent, opening the door to show the doctor out.
The doctor wasn’t happy about being made to leave, but went quietly. Resden was one of the most powerful trade consortiums in the region, not known for being magnanimous. Their agents were on the Paradise to ensure that Resden interests were being served. I couldn’t think of a positive outcome from this situation.
I’d have to come across as completely loyal and useful in his eyes; anything else and I could easily disappear or have a ‘tragic accident’. Things were really heating up here and it looked like I’d have to abandon this post at the next stop.
“Now, Purwryn, I want to hear what you remember,” he said.
“The doctors here have informed me that all my memories are hallucinations, so I’ve done my best to forget and move on. I don’t see how that can help,” I replied.
“Let me show you something, then,” he said. He placed a datapad on the table in front of me and played a video. It showed me running out of my room and a bolt of energy slamming into my back. He stopped the playback there. “Now, tell me what you remember.”
“Well, okay. I can tell you the hallucinations and you can make of them what you will.” I was beginning to get worried that this was a mental fitness check. If I couldn’t show I was properly adjusted after the accident, I might be sent away for fixing.
“Yes, let’s start with that and see where it gets us,” he said.
“I was in my room getting ready to watch a movie,” I started and then told him as much as I could remember, leaving out any parts that would reveal me to be a magus. “The last thing I remember is falling in the corridor as I got hit by a blaster from behind.”
He sighed and restarted the video. “Watch and see.” I saw three men running down the corridor with weapons drawn. They each fired a shot from their blasters, but there was no one else in the corridor. The bolts hit something invisible and seemed to be reflected back onto the men. A moment later my body disappeared.
“Right after that, the pipe ruptured and filled the section with tricholophate.” He stood and walked around so that he was directly in front of me. “As you can imagine, everyone in that section started calling for help. Our teams were extracting people as fast as we could when this happened.”
He started a new video on the screen that that showed the corridor by my room. “We had already removed everyone and marked that sector clear earlier in the response. Fortunately for you, someone happened to look at this camera and saw what was happening.” My body suddenly reappeared right where I had fallen.
“But how?” I asked. It was clear that my actions in the corridor looked very suspicious to him, and I had to admit with good reason. He probably thought that I was either directly or indirectly the cause of the leak.
“You tell me. You were gone for hours. Where were you?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Tricholophate does funny things to the mind, and I can’t trust what I remember.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me. You disappeared before the tricholophate leak occurred,” he said.
I didn’t dare to resist him; that would just confirm his suspicions and land me in a whole lot of trouble. “I don’t know about that, but I’ve worked around a lot of chemicals in my time and I know what it feels like to be affected by them. After I was hit in the corridor I remember waking up on a couch, but my head was very fuzzy. I couldn’t think straight then, nor do I remember much of it now. I was definitely under the influence of something.”
“Fuzzy?” he asked.
“Yes. It was extremely hard to focus, or form any complex thoughts,” I said.
“You said you were on a couch? What else?” he asked.
“There was an old man there. He was asking me questions about my job, I think,” I said. “I tried to run, but I don’t remember why. Then I woke up here. That’s all I remember.”
“Would you say you were interrogated?” he asked.
“I can’t say,” I said, “because my mind at the time was clouded, and my memory of it is even less clear.”
“The doctors only report tricholophate in your system. No other drugs were found,” he said.
“Okay.” I didn’t like the direction things were turning.
“But again, you left the corridor before the tricholophate was released. You weren’t exposed until your return,” he said.
“I’m not sure where you’re going with this,” I said. Actually I was very sure, and I didn’t like it one bit.
I was sure I could feel his gaze piercing me even through the eyeshades. There was something about that gaze that was familiar, but the glasses made it difficult to place it.
He sat on the edge of the desk. “Let’s try this, then: describe the man you saw when you were on the couch.”
“Sure. He was – ” I began but a piercing pain interrupted my sentence. I couldn’t see the old man in my memory through the pain. It felt like someone had poured ice through my veins and stuck my head in a vice. The harder I tried to remember what the man looked like, the more it hurt. I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The door burst open and the doctor and some orderlies rushed in. I tried to steady myself, but the pain was too much. I was vaguely aware that the doctor and the agent were arguing. The agent turned to leave and in that brief moment something inside me broke free; rage took over and I was overcome by a desire to kill the agent as the pain continued to escalate.
“It was you!” I screamed and went for his throat. “Traitor!”
He spun to kick me away but orderlies jumped on both of us. I fought with all my might to get free. The pressure building in my head had destroyed all reason. I only knew one thing: that agent had to die. The orderlies managed to drive me to the floor, where I writhed and kicked for all I was worth until everything went black.
I awoke back in the hospital bed. Marcus was once again sitting by my side reading, and I was hooked up to all the machines just like before. “No, not again!” I moaned. At least this time I wasn’t in excruciating pain.
“Ah, you live,” said Marcus.
“What happened?” I asked.
He signaled for the doctor to come over. “I’d better let your doctor explain.”
“Hello, Purwryn,” said the doctor as he came over and examined the readouts on the terminals. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore and tired,” I said, “but overall much better than the last time I woke up here.”
“What do you remember?” he asked.
“I was in your office and some guy was asking me questions,” I said. “Something happened; we got in a fight and I woke up here.”
“That’s about right,” he said. “Do you remember why you attacked him?”
“No.” That was a lie
, but I didn’t dare share the truth. I shouldn’t have attacked at that time, but the pain prevented me from thinking clearly. I would have to wait and bide my time.
“Well, if you remember anything else, let me know,” he said.
“What happened?” asked Marcus.
The doctor looked at me questioningly.
“It’s okay, Doc. Speak freely,” I said, assuming he was concerned about revealing personal medical data in front of Marcus.
“You had a relapse,” he said. “This is very common with tricholophate exposure. I suspect it was brought on by the questions you were asked, so I suggest you avoid thinking about the events of the accident for a while.”
“Okay,” I said. “How long do I have to stay in here this time?”
“Overnight for observation. Tomorrow you can go back to your rehab and perhaps next week return to light duty,” he said.
“What are the chances of another relapse?” asked Marcus.
“Minimal, as long as he isn’t interrogated again,” said the doctor. “Now, you must excuse me to tend to my other patients.”
After he left, Marcus started to ask a question but I cut him off. “Not now. I’m too tired to talk,” I said, hoping he would get the message.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll stop by your place and get you a clean set of clothes later.”
“Thanks,” I replied.
The rest of the day passed without incident, and in the morning I was given the okay to head back to my quarters. Marcus, true to his word, had retrieved me a clean uniform to go home in. We walked back mostly in silence, but as we approached the door he stopped me.
“You might want to prepare yourself,” he said.
I punched open the door and looked inside: my place had been ransacked. All my drawers were out and cabinets emptied onto the floor. I sighed. “Did you call security?”
“No,” he said. We walked in and he pulled the door shut behind us.
“Probably wise.” I climbed over the mess and accessed a secret panel I had built into the wall my first day on board. In it was my sack full of money and the equipment I’d kept from my days as a special agent.
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