It was Milo’s voice. He hadn’t seen her fall, blind as he was, but he had felt it. He always knew when Emma was in pain. But why was this happening? What had triggered this vision—and why was it so bad this time around?
Her vision blackened. She was somewhere else now, plummeting toward a hellish place made of black rock and smoke and scarlet, burning lava that filled enormous cracks in the ground. The heat from that lava—blood-ether lava, she understood—felt like a living thing devouring her skin and feathers, as real and deadly as the ground rising to break her fall.
CHAPTER 51
I olus savored a breath of stagnant air that smelled like rocks.
He was grinning, picturing the frightened expression Kovax had worn moments before teleporting out of his lab. The emperor was no more. His reign was over, and the fate of the empire was uncertain. It was ripe for the picking.
Iolus and Basher were deep inside the recesses of the Nardgrillax Mountains, in an ancient place that pulsed with wicked possibilities. Iolus stood at the edge of a chasm he had visited before. Basher stood a few paces back, afraid despite his Berserker strength.
Iolus knew why. Only evil lived in that hole. It was an evil Iolus had been seeking for decades. Finally, he had the tools to get the job done.
“Pour them in,” he said.
Basher wiped sweat off his brow and went about tipping wagons full of charged crystals into the darkened pit. As red light grew in the depths, Iolus removed the bloodstones from a pouch and savored the tingling radiation.
A craving hit him. He wanted to draw that energy into his blood, experience the power of a god in a single, titanic rush. It would have destroyed him seconds later, but he still couldn’t resist imagining how good it would have felt.
Shaking his head as if to clear it of temptation, he tossed the stones into the pit.
“Say hello to a new world and a new god,” he said, watching them fall and disappear.
A powerful wash of red light erupted from the chasm, so bright he held up an arm to shield his eyes. When it finally dimmed, Iolus looked into the pit and saw the same swollen, vein-covered mound of bright flesh as the last time. Only this time, it kept pulsing and rising, filling the chasm almost to the top, accompanied by the loud, muffled roar of countless beasts clamoring on the other side—beasts from a place so ancient it made this old cave seem like a bubble on the oceans of time.
“What is that?” Basher shouted.
The flesh ruptured, flooding the cavern with intense, white light. A flock of skeletal creatures flew out. The combined beating of their black, leathery wings created a fierce wind that, combined with their screeches, made even Iolus stagger backward and shield himself with his arms.
The flying creatures banged into the walls and against each other, mad with fright. Iolus’s shock became amusement, and he laughed aloud as Basher flailed, caught in their midst.
“What are you laughing at?” Basher shouted.
Iolus ignored him. One of the monsters had stopped right in front of him. It bobbed up and down with each flap of its wings, studying him with burning red eyes. The teeth in its bony beak were like nail tips poking through at odd angles, dripping tendrils of oily spit.
“Pretty,” Iolus said.
It opened it mouth to shriek. Iolus had Aikon ready in the blink of an eye.
Before he could slice off its head, the creature lunged at him faster than he had expected. Angrier than he had prepared for. It grabbed hold of his coat and pulled him toward the edge, inviting him into the pit. Iolus willed Aikon to attack.
The blade bounced off the creature’s flesh.
“What the…”
He slammed his arms against the creature and felt burning pain as the jagged spikes along its neck cut into him.
“Wait. Master,” Iolus shouted.
A moment later, he was falling into the red-tinged darkness of the pit. Basher’s shout mixed with his own. They had managed to pull Basher in, too—an incredible feat. These creatures were strong, enraged, on a mission.
This had been a trap along.
Iolus screamed his rage into the darkness.
CHAPTER 52
K ovax sat against the wall of his brightly lit cell.
He had been in here for days now, his only human contact coming from his conversations with Kofi. By now, he was convinced the boy was a figment of his imagination and not some restless spirit. Still, it was a comfort having him around.
Imagination was all Kovax had now that he could no longer cast spells. His cell made sure of that. The entire facility, and the miles of ocean water resting on top of it, made sure of that a hundred times over.
He looked over at the boy. Kofi slept on the bed, which was no more than a plank of steel jutting from the wall, covered in a mattress as thick as three fingers, with a meager pillow and a blanket barely larger than a bath towel. The boy twitched and uttered a meaningless string of words. Kovax went over and rubbed his arm until he calmed down.
He took up his position against the wall again and studied the cell for the hundredth time that day. Or was it night? He couldn’t tell. Neither existed down here. He toyed with the idea of escape—how he would plan such an insurmountable task, and who of his former followers might meet him outside.
It seemed impossible. Of the four walls, one was a single sheet of impenetrable, magic-resistant glass. The others were stone slabs. Not even escape by death was possible. An impact-absorption spell ran along every surface, so a prisoner could not simply end his life by running headfirst into a wall or bashing his brains out against the toilet’s steel rim.
The prison was known as Inductus—probably because once a prisoner was inducted, he would never taste life as a free man again. It lay at the bottom of the ocean floor, miles from the coast of Theus, and miles below the surface. As rumor had it, even the water around Inductus was infused with energy that killed unregulated spells.
He kept his mind active by dreaming up ways to cripple the prison’s defenses and escape these walls. First, he would have to break free of his cell, which was a box suspended above a well of energy meant to paralyze anyone who fell into its depths. The guards who provided him with food did so by ejecting a platform from the surrounding chamber walls. The platform was set to retract in the blink of an eye should his cell be opened, even if it meant killing the guard walking its narrow path.
Inductus took no chances with maximum-security prisoners like him.
Kovax dreamed, and yet he knew he would spend the rest of his life here. He deserved it. He felt the shame of what he had done, the people he had killed, including his own son. This feeling was new to him. It haunted him.
He slid over to the corner and laid his head against the bed’s edge, just below Kofi’s. The lights were painfully bright even with his eyes closed. He used a non-magical mental technique to will himself to sleep. It was the closest thing to spellcasting he had now.
Sleep took him eventually. Dreams of being trapped in the Nether, of meeting his wife Samara there, and knowing for the rest of eternity that he had killed the only woman he had ever loved.
A chaotic shift woke him. It wasn’t a dream, and yet he couldn’t will himself awake. A darkness engulfed him. It was hot, humid, tinged with a growing reddish light in the distance. Air rushed up on all sides, encapsulating him. No, it wasn’t rising. He was falling. His lungs clawed for air laced with the unmistakable toxic tang of blood ether.
Through the rush, he heard the tiny shouts of a frightened girl.
Where am I?
She was somewhere in the distance. Down below. Closer to the ground, which is where Kovax was headed.
Emma Banks. It could only be her. Only she could have done this.
Someone, help!
Kovax closed his eyes and let himself fall. He would be with her soon, for better or worse.
CHAPTER 53
I s there a Hell, Mommy?
Her own voice, from the past. A memory she hadn’t recalled in
years.
Emma had asked this question at seven years old, after seeing on TV a cartoonish depiction of a fiery kingdom ruled by a towering, horned devil. Her mother had smiled at her while tucking Emma beneath her blankets.
Yes, but you’ll never go there, sweetie. It’s only for people who do terrible things to good people…
Emma opened her eyes with a sharp gasp.
The memory of her mother’s voice trailed away, like the fresh oxygen she suddenly craved. She raked in a series of deep, hot breaths and coughed. Where was she? And why hadn’t the ground crushed every bone in her body?
She cringed at the sight of a barren, broken surface that stretched infinitely in every direction. Hell existed, and this was it. Poisonous steam rose from the lava-like substance filling cracks all over the ground. The sky was a vast, empty black void, like a section of outer space in which the stars had been extinguished.
She took a few, hesitant steps toward the nearest crack and studied the burbling substance. Red as blood, it frothed gently, like gas halfway along the process of becoming a solid. It reminded her of the energy spewed by the healing fountains on Theus, only thick and red instead of frothy and blue. They had that same sparkle that said light was a very part of its matter, not just something that radiated from it.
Blood ether.
She was surrounded by poisonous, life-consuming blood ether.
Emma tipped her head back and shouted.
“Where am I? Someone, help!”
A wind current rose a few feet away, so searingly hot and bitter that Emma had to shield herself from it. Looking in the direction from which it had come, she witnessed a pale, blurry shape materializing low to the ground, crouched like a steam demon taking shape. The figure solidified finally, not into a demon, but something arguably worse.
Emma backed away in horror. It was the man who had killed her father.
Kovax whipped his head around to face her. He had known exactly where Emma was. He had come for her. She opened her mouth to scream.
“Quiet.” He extended a skeletal arm, knobby fingers reaching for her. “There’s no point.”
Emma recoiled at the sudden movement, bit back her scream, and yelled at him instead.
“Get away. Don’t touch me!”
“Please, calm yourself, Emma.”
She took a step back, watching him in case he moved toward her again. The man looked like a different person, dressed in the bland, featureless garb of a prisoner or a mental patient, or both. His hair was completely white and little more than clumps of fuzz on a head that teetered on a vulture’s neck.
“Why are you here?” Emma said. “Did you do this? Did you bring me to this place?”
“No, I did not.” The stern look in his eyes told her he had no intention of lying. “You brought yourself here, and you brought me.”
“Here?” she asked frantically. “But where? Where are we?”
“The Nether. It has been called by many names throughout the ages, a hundred that are long forgotten. Names that existed before we had the hands necessary to carve them in stone or scribble them on a page.”
He threw his head back and took in the enormous void where a sky should be. His fear had vanished; now he was fascinated.
“No, no, no,” Emma said, shaking her head as if the old man had just explained the terms of her death sentence. “Please, I don’t want to be here. I want to go back.”
Kovax closed his eyes, crinkling his nose at the acrid smoke rising around them. He had seemingly forgotten she was there. Emma wanted to lunge at him, push him into one of the cracks. Why wouldn’t he answer her?
“Talk to me.”
“We are in no hurry,” Kovax said dreamily, opening his eyes again. “No human has ever visited this place and lived to tell about it.” This brought a chill to Emma that touched the roots of her feathers. “The gods created this place to trap Xelios for the rest of time. Somehow, you managed to enter, but not fully. And—and somehow, you brought me along.”
“Why? What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure. You’re a powerful seer. Your Sight has joined us in some way. It might even leave me here, to punish me for what I’ve done to you.”
Emma held back tears at the memory of that moment, the one Kovax had so casually referred to. “You killed my father. Murdered him. And Milo’s blind because of you. And all those people you killed…” Her jaw trembled and went weak, tears threatening to spill. “I hope you do. I hope you stay down here and rot forever.”
Kovax bowed his head in what could only be shame. Good. He deserved to feel that way. He deserved much worse than that.
“Even as he gave up his remaining sight, your brother saw good in me,” Kovax said. “He changed me.”
“You’re a liar!”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, Emma.”
“Even if that’s true, I—I can’t forgive you.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
The words were like a punch to the gut. Emma suddenly felt ill. She took a few steps back, clutching her stomach and raking in each breath. If it were true—that her Sight had brought her here—then she wished she had never been born with the ability at all.
An earth-shattering crack sounded above them, accompanied by scarlet flashes like all the lightning in the world happening at once—red lightning of a sort Emma had never seen before. It fell around a bright white tear that suddenly appeared and remained in the sky. Against the glow, Emma saw the silhouettes of thousands of spindly creatures exploding from the ground like locusts evacuating a burning field. The sudden change in the sky had disturbed them.
“It’s a rift.” Kovax said, having to shout to be heard. “A path between our realm and this one.”
Emma could only cower in terror. The winged creatures clotted the sky, and they were flying toward her and Kovax. Her scream was no match for the ear-splitting sound of all of them shrieking at once.
Kovax cupped his hands around his mouth, the words directed at Emma.
“They cannot hurt us.”
Emma found that impossible to believe. The lava’s heat felt like it was burning off her feathers. The smoke was nearly choking her. This place was so real. The creatures were everywhere now, gnashing their sharp-toothed beaks, their curling bodies decorated with bony spikes. How could they not be a threat?
Then she understood how.
The creatures didn’t seem aware of her presence, as if she were invisible to them, maybe to everything in this realm. If that were true, it meant she wasn’t physically here, despite how uncomfortable it felt. She looked to Kovax for guidance and was startled by his sudden appearance at her side.
“We’re not really here,” he said, shouting in her ear. “Your gift is a potent one, Emma, but it would never allow you to be harmed. You were meant to see this. We both were.”
The rift made another, final crack. It was longer now, no longer white but a jagged, blood-red vein suspended against the heavens, with a midsection slightly thicker than the rest of it.
Emma was struck by a sudden fear—what if these creatures figured it out and flew into the rift? Would they appear on the other side and swarm Astros? Is that what she was meant to see?
“He finally did it,” Kovax said. “He’s coming.”
“Who is?”
The answer was worse than the thought of Astros being destroyed by these monstrosities.
“Iolus.”
CHAPTER 54
“…Where, I said.”
The booming voice was close enough, and familiar enough, to make every muscle in Emma’s body tense with the urge to get as far away as possible. She held fast, telling herself there was nowhere to go, and that she couldn’t be harmed in this place.
Still, the sound of his rumbling voice was terrifying.
“Basher,” she said.
“Remember what I said,” Kovax told her.
Emma nodded though she still didn’t trust the low mage. She couldn’
t see anyone else through the steam.
“I heard you,” Iolus scolded the other. “Just keep your mouth shut until I figure this out.”
A pained grunt came from the Berserker. Emma expected more arguing. Instead, Basher and Iolus came crashing through the wall of steam like two speeding cars, launching themselves toward her. Emma crouched and shielded herself.
They couldn’t see her. Though they were standing right in front of her, they couldn’t see her at all. The four of them—Iolus, Basher, Kovax, and Emma—now occupied the same island of stone, surrounding by flaming, steaming cracks full of blood ether.
“Incredible,” Kovax said. “We can see them perfectly fine.”
“Kill them,” Emma said without meaning to—though she felt murder coursing through her veins. “Please. If it’s possible.”
Kovax made a humph sound. “I’d like to. Believe me. But this isn’t the time or the place.”
More crackling noises came from the sky. This time, they were accompanied by a sharp whine, like that of wind speeding around the corner of a building. Iolus and Basher spun around to watch the rift.
“It’s closing in on itself,” Kovax said.
Emma saw that he was smiling.
“No.” Basher stomped a boot against the ground. “We’ll never get out now.”
“Quit being dramatic,” Iolus said. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?” Basher whirled on him.
Iolus only glared at the brute, his floating sword rising dangerously above his left shoulder. Basher backed down at the sight of it, and they went back to studying their surroundings.
“What does this mean?” Emma asked.
Kovax watched Basher and Iolus with his arms crossed, like a TV detective using a two-way mirror to watch suspects in a holding cell. He seemed to be enjoying their misery.
“We’re in luck,” he said. “Iolus is unsure of himself, which means he didn’t plan a trip into the Nether. It could mean he’s trapped down here.”
“So, he was betrayed. How did he not see that coming?”
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 108
