Trial of the Thaumaturge (Scions of Nexus Book 3)

by Gregory Mattix

  He had a tough time deciding which of his two friends looked wearier and more careworn. Probably Taren, he decided. The youth hadn’t seen even a score of summers yet already seemed an old soul with all he had experienced, hardship and loss chief among them. Creel, while physically as battered and bloodied as Kulnor had ever seen him, seemed almost spiritually renewed somehow, a man possessed by his drive to see the quest through to the very end.

  The group of surviving warriors gathered around Kulnor, as sorry-looking a band as he could imagine, wounded to a man, yet heroes all of them. Everyone—dwarf, human, or elf—who had stepped through that magical gate had performed their duty valiantly, buying Taren and Creel their chance to stop the infernal machine.

  Kulnor thought of his brother briefly. What do ye think, Kalder? Would our ancestors look on me name in the Book of Deeds with pride? What about future generations of the clan? I reckon we’ve done a good deed here, thwarting evil.

  He took a long drink of water then turned to the men gathered around. Eighteen of them in total remained besides himself: five dwarves, four elves, and nine humans. A pang of sorrow struck again at the loss of his friend Harbek and the majority of their nineteen warriors, many of whom had faithfully followed Kulnor since Torval’s Hold. All throughout his journeys, he had been supported by Harbek’s steady presence and worldly experience, not to mention his skill at arms. However, this time he had led his friend to his death, along with most of their fighters.

  Grant them a place by yer forge, Reiktir. If I get out of this, I’ll see all their names recorded in the Book.

  He gathered his thoughts then cleared his throat and addressed the battered survivors. “Let’s get the worst of ye sorted. I’ll do what little I can, but don’t expect much. I need a couple volunteers who can help stitch a wound and tie bandages.”

  A worrisome crack sounded as stone was rent asunder. Kulnor knew it boded ill—the integrity of the hall was compromised. As if in response to his fears, a section of ceiling collapsed about thirty paces away, an avalanche of tons of rock sending a billowing cloud of rock dust washing over them.

  “Hold yer breaths!” Kulnor shouted. He closed his eyes and held his breath as long as he could.

  When the worst of it was past, he hacked and spat to clear his mouth and lungs, joining the litany of coughing around him. He briefly consulted with the other dwarves, those three who were conscious. Had the Hall of the Artificers been of dwarven construction, he wouldn’t have been quite so concerned the whole bloody thing might collapse at any moment. The four dwarves studied the hall’s structure before agreeing on the spot least likely to give way.

  “Over there!” Kulnor pointed. “Let’s move under that archway there—it’s the strongest point.”

  They moved the wounded over against the wall at the base of a sturdy pillar, situating them as comfortably as possible.

  “We’ll be lucky to get out o’ here at all and not have the whole damn roof come down on top of us,” Kulnor muttered to one of the other dwarves, who only nodded grimly as they huddled together. He prayed the hall would hold up long enough for Taren and Creel to finish their business so they might all go home.

  ***

  The surge of power being drawn through the portal and channeled into Voshoth was tremendous. The entire hall trembled and shook violently, as though it might collapse completely at any moment. A rushing vortex sucked the magical essence from Easilon directly through the open portal into Voshoth, as if it were a simple door standing open to an adjoining room—a type of direct linkage portal Creel had never seen before, more like one of Taren’s magical gates, in fact. The portal’s circumference was alight with energy, lightning crackling and forking off to strike the chamber’s walls and floor. He could feel the energy in both the hairs standing up on his arms and a deeper resonance in his teeth and bones.

  The Tellurian Engine itself was dimly visible through the storm of energy and cloud of red dust stirred up in Voshoth. A generally spherical structure, not unlike the interjoined rings of the portal but on a much grander scale, whirled and churned in some mad clockwork design, concentric rings of Abyssal iron gyring and spinning. Lightning crackled around the device, and dust billowed in great clouds into the air. Creel felt as if he were peering into the heart of a hurricane, only one with mechanical innards.

  An unimaginable fortune of Abyssal iron was needed to build the Tellurian Engine. That must have been a boon born of the alliance between the Engineer and the forces of the Abyss during the Planar War.

  “This whole facility functions as a means to draw and amplify earth magic to power that device,” Taren said, clearly just as awed as Creel by the whole machine. “Would that such brilliant ingenuity had been used for good.”

  “Aye,” Creel replied. Gods, putting an end to that will be a bloody direful task if that bomb must be heaved into its maw.

  The two of them stood at the threshold of the portal chamber, surrounded by Taren’s protective sphere. Simply stepping inside the room would be inviting a lightning bolt up the arse.

  Creel studied the bomb Lenantos had given them, a heavy lozenge of black obsidian seemingly lit within by magma. The proximity to the Tellurian Engine appeared to awaken the bomb, for it roiled angrily, as if bright red-orange magma sought to erupt from its prison of ebon stone.

  Creel unbuckled his sword belt and set Final Strike beside the wall, for it would only hinder him now. The hole through his torso was still a dull ache, but it had stopped bleeding, fortunately. His leg had stopped burning from the poison as well, another good sign.

  Taren suddenly stumbled backward a step, his face pale and appearing as though he’d swoon. Their protective shield blinked out momentarily before stabilizing, and the bomb wobbled in the air but remained levitated. Creel steadied Taren with a hand on his back until the mage recovered after a moment. The effort of magically shielding them from the vortex was swiftly taking its toll, and Creel could see the magic being peeled off their protective sphere in the same manner as it was siphoned from everything else around.

  “I’m sorry I won’t be able to keep my word and return to you, my queen.” Taren’s words were said under his breath, but Creel could still make them out with his keen hearing.

  Taren clasped hands with Creel, his smile sickly, more of a grimace. “It has been an honor fighting beside you, my friend. Give my farewells to Sianna, Ferret, and the others.”

  “The honor is mine, lad. And I trust they shall be in good hands, indeed.” He took a deep breath, already knowing what must be done, his thoughts turning to the words of wisdom an old friend had once imparted: “You shall find your path yet, Dakarai Creel. Do not despair, for I am confident the gods have a prominent role for you yet to perform.”

  Taren steeled himself and moved toward the portal, the obsidian bomb floating before him. Lightning crackled and danced furiously across the surface of the magical globe as if angry at their intrusion, the shield sparking and diminishing under the continuous assault.

  Creel kept pace with Taren. “I reckon there must’ve been some good reason the gods gave me my resilience,” he said, “and after all these long years, I now know why. An old bastard like me can’t simply stand by while a good lad falls on the sword for us all. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, Taren.” He put a hand on his young friend’s shoulder. “Shield me as long as you can.”

  “Come again?” Taren looked over, confused for a moment, his attention obviously focused solely on the portal before him.

  Creel gave Taren a shove backward—not hard but enough to make him stumble backward a few steps though he remained on his feet. That was all the time Creel needed. He snatched the bomb and cradled it to his chest, grunting at the weight of the smooth stone, which was hot to the touch, as if it had been ringing a firepit.

  “Do right by Sianna,” he called over his shoulder, “and look after Ferret for me!” He turned his full attention forward and ran toward the portal.

  As soon
as he left Taren’s protective globe of magic, the vortex of energy bombarded him, sapping his strength and threatening to peel him apart bit by bit. He felt a jolt and smelled burning hair as a minor fork of lightning struck him, but it wasn’t as potent as he had feared—instead strangely numbing after the initial shock. He felt almost as if he were trying to push his way through a superheated flow of magma, feet moving sluggishly and skin afire as the Tellurian Engine tried to consume his essence. He gritted his teeth and continued, the angry energy of the portal just a few steps ahead, and beyond it the maelstrom surrounding the Tellurian Engine on Voshoth.

  “Creel!” Taren cried out. Then, a moment later, “May the gods watch over you!”

  He felt soothing relief as Taren formed a protective globe around him once more. Creel was able to breathe freely again, though his skin was still raw and tingling. Then he was plunging through the portal. The sensation of being pulled apart was absent with the direct linkage between planes here, and he was pleased that Taren’s magic remained with him on the other side, which would’ve been impossible had the portal been an ordinary one. His skin itched fiercely as his regenerative ability sought to repair the damage from the vitality drain he’d briefly experienced.

  A roiling hurricane of dust and grit swirled about him, kept at bay by the shield, but he knew it wouldn’t hold for long. The shield sparked and crackled as if bombarded by a constant stream of cinders at a forge. A long bowshot ahead, the pinnacles and rings of the Tellurian Engine gyrated in their maniacal pattern. The ground shook and trembled like a taut drumskin underfoot. Against his chest, the stone was a dead weight, and already he could feel the strain in his arms and back from carrying it, while his chest wound sharply protested the abuse.

  This damned thing is heavy… There won’t be any heaving it into that monstrosity from a distance. This’ll be a one-way trip.

  He lowered his head, bracing himself for the inevitable failure of the globe around him, and drove forward, legs propelling him for all he was worth. He could sense the power being greedily stripped from the globe even as Taren channeled more and more of his magic into the shield.

  Fifty paces, then a hundred came and went as Creel neared the Engine. The ground trembled violently, already rent apart into a myriad of chasms, both large and small. He paid careful attention not to step into one, for he would break an ankle at best, and he knew that fall would be his last.

  Halfway there. I might actually make it.

  But then the globe failed around him, the magic sucked away like the last bit of liquid poured down a funnel. Immediately, the vitality drain hit him, nearly stopping him in his tracks with the barrage of power assaulting him. He roared a wordless challenge, hurling his belligerence into the tempest before him. A quick glance back through the portal, a small ring of darkness illuminated by intermittent sparks of lightning upon the blasted red horizon of Voshoth’s wasteland, revealed Taren collapsed on the floor back in Easilon.

  Hurry, damn you! The lad won’t survive unprotected for long! But the magma flow was back, buffeting and slowing him, peeling him apart a scintilla at a time. He watched in sick fascination as curls of skin blackened and crisped, peeling away like so much ash from his arms. Every nerve was afire, the pain unbelievable as his life force was wrenched from him.

  He kept on until fifty paces separated him from the nearest gyring ring of the Engine. The machine was suspended in midair, halfway within a great crater, where it had rested for millennia.

  Glowing orange sparks formed along Creel’s arms, chunks of flesh and tissue stripped away, muscle and sinew soon to follow. He couldn’t feel his clenched hands any longer. Perhaps they had melted to the surface of the blistering stone that was vibrating eagerly against his sternum, sending palpitations through his innards.

  I’ve never asked for much before, but to any of you gods who will listen, grant me the strength to fulfill this one deed.

  Creel still managed to advance, his run reduced to a shambling lurch, his legs weakening as he was unmade. Orange sparks flared brighter on what was left of his flesh, angrily, as the metamorphosed substance in his bone marrow that granted his healing ability fought mightily to preserve his very existence—its ultimate battle.

  The red-brown maelstrom of grit and shards of rock scratched and tore at what was left of his face, but he could still see vague shapes through slitted eyelids. A harsh rattling sound filled his ears—a death rattle surely—as his own lungs and heart verged on giving out.

  Then the maelstrom abruptly cleared, and he saw her there, as he’d seen her all those years ago—fresh-faced and beautiful, standing over him in the mead hall, a challenge in her bright eyes. Red hair shorn short on one side of her head—green eyes sparkling with mischief and that fiery spirit he’d come to love so much. She gave him that crooked smile of hers.

  “Have strength, my love. You’re almost home.”

  “I’ve but a few more steps, Rada… Keep the hearth warm.” He didn’t know if his words were even audible, but it mattered not.

  “Fulfill your greatest deed, and then we shall be together again.” Her words and love filled him with that last crucial bit of strength and determination. He lurched onward with renewed resolve.

  Then Rada was gone, whether a hallucination of his dying mind or an actual vision, he couldn’t know. He stumbled over a chunk of rock, falling to his knees, bone shattering, the pain but another faint note amongst the symphony of his destruction. The roiling ground bucked beneath him, and he was perched on a peninsula of land with a deep chasm to either side, pebbles plummeting into an abyss. Just ahead, almost within reach, was the lip of the crater, and within, the Tellurian Engine.

  The gods must have heard his earlier plea, for although the bomb had fallen from his grasp, it hadn’t tumbled into the chasm, but lay a mere arm’s length away. Creel’s arms were blackened sticks, somehow still attached to his body, effulgent orange splotches of bone marrow now fading toward nothingness before his eyes. He scrabbled on the stony ground, gaining a few inches at a time, then the orb was within reach. He clutched it to himself as a drowning man with a rope, the stone now shuddering as violently as the entirety of Voshoth around him.

  “So, this is the end of the path.” Now that he’d discovered it, he felt a moment of fear, of hesitation. Standing upon the brink of his death, the thought of losing friends and comrades, both new and old, particularly Brom and his family, Taren and Sianna, and especially Ferret, he felt a moment of sorrow, the weight of things unsaid and undone, but he knew they’d get on without him as they always had.

  He was ready to set aside his burden and be at peace. Rada was awaiting him. As she had said, he just needed to fulfill this last deed—his greatest one. And the chance to spit in Shaol’s eye and save the multiverse in the process was too good to resist for an old warrior well past his time.

  With his final ounce of strength, Creel thrust with his ruined legs, throwing himself and the bomb forward, a clumsy tumble past the lip of the crater and into the churning maw of the Tellurian Engine. As he went over the edge, he suddenly turned weightless and was whipped into the air, sucked into the center of the seething machine. The bomb was torn from his grasp.

  Somewhere a door opened, delivering him from the white-hot agonizing inferno of the bomb’s explosion and into a cool fall evening. The explosion faded until it was only a distant star, the first one visible at dusk. He felt no more pain, instead only the warmth of familiar arms encircling him in a greatly yearned-for embrace.

  “Rest, my love,” Rada said. “You’ve reached the end of your road. You’re home now.”

  And Dakarai Creel smiled, for he was indeed home at last, where he belonged.

  Chapter 57

  A tremendous feedback of energy shook the walls and floor of the Hall of the Artificers, rousing Taren from his stupor. He briefly glimpsed the brilliant, prismatic detonation of the Tellurian Engine, fiery and beautiful in its intensity. Then the portal tore apart in a violent sh
rapnel-filled explosion, the gate to Voshoth shut forever.

  Taren groaned as he tried to pick himself up off the floor. His limbs trembled like a newborn calf’s, utterly drained of strength. The skin of his face and arms felt badly sunburned, riddled with a myriad of tiny red pits where skin had been peeled away.

  He was surprised to find that his body still seemed to function more or less as it should. Standing became a brief ordeal, during which he was forced to lean heavily against a wall while fighting off a bout of dizziness. He took in the destruction around himself and sighed, the memory of Creel surfacing, as his friend had heroically taken the burden upon himself and saved them all from destruction.

  I would have failed—I never would have had the strength to continue onward once my magic failed me.

  “May the gods bless your sacrifice, my friend. Ferret will have her grand tale to tell, and all shall know of your valor.”

  Slowly, he shuffled back down the corridor to the great hall where so many had fallen in their final battle.

  “Taren!” Kulnor sat on the ground with a group of survivors. His brief moment of happiness quickly faded when he saw Taren was alone. “I thought ye…”

  He shook his head sadly. “Creel made the sacrifice. I wouldn’t have had the strength once my magic was exhausted.” He slumped down beside his dwarven friend, weary beyond measure and feeling as if he’d aged a dozen years. Perhaps he had.

  Disturbing groans and cracks sounded from the walls and ceiling throughout the hall. He saw places where the ceiling had already collapsed, and the floor was riddled with numerous chasms. This place couldn’t have taken much more.

  “Mostly just settlin’ now that the damned machine is destroyed,” Kulnor said. “I still wouldn’t want to remain here too long… The build quality o’ this damnable hall is a bit dubious.”