A terrible force wrenched her arms pulling her away from the tube, only to reverse, flinging her at the pedestal with enough force to ram her knees into it painfully.
Durandas was suddenly within easy speaking distance, his expression pained. “I must apologize,” he said, “You have never been instructed here. Most Light Users have been through rigorous trials to adapt themselves to the Flow. They know well what to expect when touching the Light Podium. Again, I must ask for your forgiveness. It is too easy for us to forget that we sometimes have…unusual guests. The Light Podium is unique, with many powerful uses. For now, think of it as a way to personalize your plea. The podium will travel to whoever wishes the floor, so to speak. Do you understand?”
Crystalyn refused to gasp. Standing straight sent a jolt of pain rocketing from her hip to her thigh. Clamping her jaw closed, she gripped the tube in silence. When the pain reduced to a dull throb, she took a moment to glare at the Circle’s First. “I think I comprehend how it moves. My plea hasn’t changed. All I’m asking is a Contacting to locate my sister’s whereabouts so that I can go to her. Or, give me a valid reason why you can’t do it. If payment is required, name your price so we can get the negotiation over and get on with it.”
Without warning, the Light Podium wrenched her in front of a middle-aged, white-robed man with shining gold hair similar to the User who had accosted her party at the Dome of Light’s main entrance. The whole moving platform thing was getting annoying. Now she was half a warehouse away from the First. Loping along the glass floor toward where she’d been a moment before, Broth switched direction, heading where she was now. Atoi stood watching near the center where they’d all begun. Please go to Atoi. Keep her away from the center in case this thing returns there.
Without slowing, Broth reversed direction. I do not like this situation, my Do’brieni; it is far faster.
I will be fine. Let’s get through this.
“Fourth Circle has the podium,” Durandas’ voice intoned, booming throughout the dome.
The golden-haired man regarded her in silence for a long moment. “State your plea,” he finally said, his tone annoyed.
Crystalyn started. “Oh! I’ve been told the Circle of Light could help me locate my sister.”
The golden-haired man frowned, “so it was spoken when the First had the podium. State your plea,” he repeated.
“What bloody plea?” Crystalyn’s annoyance with the entire blasted Circle was rising, “are you going to perform the Contacting or not?”
Another wrench deposited Crystalyn before a dark-haired woman in yellow robes, whom she’d never met.
“Ninth Circle has the podium.” Durandas’ voice echoed throughout the dome.
The woman’s blue eyes regarded Crystalyn shortly. “A Contacting has been attempted before, has it not?”
“Yes, but—” Crystalyn began.
“What resulted from this Contacting?”
“Resulted? I don’t understand. It wasn’t successful, if that’s what you asked.”
“I asked for results. Was contact made?” The woman’s voice boomed through the Dome like Durandas’ had.
“Oh, yes we did. With who, I cannot say, it was too short,” Crystalyn said. Her voice boomed, too. The acoustics of the dome were amazing…or enhanced with magic.
The woman leaned forward slightly. “Was a member of your party injured?”
Before Crystalyn could reply, the pedestal put her before another woman, a woman she had met.
“Third Circle has the podium,” Durandas’ voice boomed.
“Did you use your special…abilities, to heal a party member from the backlash of an improperly severed connection?” Kara Laurel asked. Garbed in white robes, her hood pulled flush with her beautiful, aristocratic face, the woman she’d met in in the aftermath of the Carnage Field battle looked as regal as ever.
The question didn’t help her plea, but she had no choice but to answer. “I suppose I did.”
Another bone-jarring wrench left her gelled and quivering beside her two companions. Thankfully, neither made any move to join her on the dais. It was all she could do to maintain her grip on the tube.
“The Circle of Light has the Light Podium,” several voices boomed in unison. “Show this healing to the Circle,” the voices commanded.
Not hesitating, Crystalyn set the symbol she’d used on Lore Rayna hovering in front of her on the dais, wary enough to keep her double grip firm on the tube.
Some voices gasped, several cried out in surprise.
A wrench brought her before Durandas.
“First Circle has the podium,” Kara Laurel’s voice intoned.
Durandas’ voice was low with excitement. “It is beautiful! Such an intricate pattern, yet I cannot fathom how it is used. I can detect no trace of the Flow anywhere in its constitution. Yet you have performed an advanced healing with it, as great as any Enhanced User could!”
“Enhanced?” Crystalyn asked.
“A User Enhanced. A powerful User augmented by another User and a strong Interrupter. Together they enhance the magic of the User. Yet, you seem to do it as a matter of course, without the Flow. You must show me how this was accomplished.”
“I do—”
Loud shouts broke out behind Durandas. A projectile shattered against his chair near his shoulder, peppering Crystalyn with sharp stings. Durandas’ hand flew to his shoulder, where a red stain blossomed. A transparent sphere of white sprang up around him. A second projectile ricocheted from it, spinning to the glass floor beside the dais. A barbed steel arrow clattered to the floor.
Curses joined the shouts, growing louder still, then quieting. The crowd behind Durandas scattered, making room for a writhing mass of white robes. The robes parted, shoving something large forward to face the First.
Wrapped from chest to knees with white luminescent cords, Lore Rayna snarled, pulling on the glowing ropes like a wild animal caught in a snare. Lore Rayna’s fury doubled upon seeing Durandas so close, her limbs shifting from tree bark to flesh every other second as she bit and pulled at the bonds binding her. Flung from their feet, two of the white thudded into her but the rest pulled tighter on the cords attached at the end of their arms, where their hands should’ve been. Lore Rayna tumbled to the glass with a crash, squirming and gnashing at her bonds.
Crystalyn was stunned. Lore Rayna was here in Surbo, and she’d tried to kill Durandas. What was going on?
Leaving the Light Podium, she got a closer look at the big woman’s bonds while staying out of range of Lore Rayna’s thrashing body. The Flow circulated inside her bonds grew denser as Lore Rayna fought, the ropes constricting tighter. If Lore Rayna didn’t stop resisting soon, the bindings would cinch tighter and tighter, enough to do serious damage, or cause a fatality. Crystalyn had to help her friend, somehow.
“I am a great fool!” Durandas exclaimed. He said it with a suddenness that made Crystalyn’s heart pause for a moment. “I should have caught the signs from the Lore Mother’s descriptions. Now that the vile thing has activated, she is beyond saving.”
“What’s been activated?” Crystalyn asked, alarmed.
Durandas regarded her, his blue eyes sorrowful. “A mind worm, I am truly sorry Crystalyn. I know she was a companion of yours. There are many of us that love her, too; she was headstrong, but valiant.”
Crystalyn frowned. “What do you mean, she was? You talk like she’s no longer alive.”
“You do not understand. A mind worm has infected your friend, likely during a Contacting. The worm will rip through her brain, eating away all that is good about her, molding her into its own evil image. None here has the skill to remove it, nor do I know of anyone else in the White Lands who can. It is too powerful, too fast. I should have caught the signs when the Lore Mother mentioned her erratic behavior.”
Crystalyn hated worms; their mindless wiggling was enough to make her cringe. Worse, Durandas sounded like he’d already given up on Lore Rayna before they’d asse
ssed the situation fully. “How do we get rid of it?”
“You truly do not understand, we might have had a chance had we caught it early enough, but it has triggered, and will consume her. There is no cure. I am sorry, Crystalyn. She only has minutes before she fades.”
But she does have minutes, Crystalyn thought. In an instant, her lovely white-gold symbol was sinking into her large friend with her awareness attached to it. Concentrating on Lore Rayna’s neural pathways, Crystalyn exulted in the power thrumming through the pattern.
She found the worm almost immediately, in her large friend’s frontal lobe. She should’ve expected that, since the cerebrum controls motor functions and reasoning, among others. The darkness invading Lore Rayna’s mind doubled in size, resembling a millipede. Thousands of writhing tendrils supported a lengthy oval shape that elongated as it moved. The millipede marched along the cerebellum pathway, changing gray matter black by attaching a tendril to a nerve ending in the cortex. Soon it would reach the back region, which controlled respiration, heart rate, and spinal functions.
Crystalyn couldn’t allow that. Halting the foul things growth then may destroy the big woman with it, once it tapped Lore Rayna’s spine.
Elongating the symbol to match the oval body, Crystalyn enfolded the worm within her healing pattern.
The dark body flattened. Tendrils snaked from under it, attacking the symbol with an inhuman frenzy. The white pattern in her symbol steamed, costing the worm a tendril as it blackened her white, touch-by-touch, and tendril-by-tendril. Her white pattern reduced to dwindling fragments in seconds.
Crystalyn would’ve been worried she’d conjured the wrong symbol, except the gold pattern was holding strong. Noticeably diminished, the tendrils worked on destroying the few ragged dots remaining of her white pattern. The tendrils froze as the last of the white vanished, a large tendril swinging toward her.
Crystalyn stretched the gold symbol around her awareness the second before the first tendrils broke apart on it: the worm was coming after the source of the symbol, after her.
The attack went on for many seconds, or milliseconds, it was hard to tell though it seemed like hours. Tendrils bombarded her golden cage. Unable or unwilling to quit, the worm destroyed a large part of itself flinging its feelers against her cage−even pulling back and attacking with the tendrils it had attached to Lore Rayna’s nerve endings. Drifting to the bottom of the neural path the last tendril faded away, the worm reverted to the size it had been earlier, her gold pattern tightening around it.
Now she was in a quandary. There wasn’t anything left of the white pattern to disinfect the worm, though she had it netted with the gold. She couldn’t trap it much longer; her body needed her awareness to function, to keep circulation flowing. Nor could she leave the worm in its present state. It would soon regenerate, continuing with its evil inside her friend’s mind. What could she do?
There was one thing she could try: taking the foul thing out with her. Lore Rayna’s nasal cavities made a plausible exit nearby. Gathering her will, Crystalyn dropped through Lore Rayna’s mucus walls, pushing the worm before her. Gaining momentum, she released her attachment to the symbol when she judged they’d broken free.
Her awareness restored, Crystalyn’s mind reeled as all her bodily functions requested attention at once. Dizziness assailed her as her mind tried to sort out her motor and neural functions faster than she was capable of assimilating. Not fighting the sensation, she let her brain handle the job until the dizziness cleared. A burst of energy rippled through her.
Kara Laurel kneeled beside her. The woman’s usual iron haughtiness was nowhere to be seen, concern mixed with awe shone in her eyes. “Are you well?”
She was so weak it was hard to speak. “Don’t let it get away,” she managed to say.
Kara Laurel’s quick smile was reassuring. “Durandas has it magically sealed in a white crystal. It is fascinating; no one has actually seen a mind worm before. We have a team of healers seeing to your friend. The preliminary word is, there is some possible scarring, but she should recover. How far remains to be seen.”
“No!” Crystalyn shouted, her voice coming out barely above a whisper. “You must destroy it!”
“I do not understand much of what you’re trying to say, but you must stop fighting sleep,” Kara Laurel said. “You have drained yourself dangerously. I have replenished what I can, but you must rest to recover.”
“But the worm is still active!”
“Durandas will take care of it,” Kara Laurel said.
Sure, he will. He’s taken care of all of us so far, Crystalyn thought just before unconsciousness claimed her.
THE PEEK
Somehow managing to look foppish in his plain, monkish robes, the little man droned on about ceremony etiquette then inventory consumption for the entire past week. Jade swallowed her irritation and kept silent. The Order of the Great Mother’s ruling council of monks had insisted they come to the meeting to ask their questions. But so far, no one at the long table facing them had acknowledged the two of them beyond a speculative glance. Camoe appeared unconcerned, slouched over on the bench beside her, but she heard his sharp intake of breath when the little man seemed to have finished, then began anew.
Caven’s blue eyes regarded them a short while later. Holding up a hand, he silenced the little man mid-sentence as he opened his mouth to begin another monologue. “The Council of the Great Mother’s Brethren will partake of a short recess at present.”
Surprised, the yellow-toothed monk snapped his jaw closed, a glower of disapproval flickering across his bushy brows. Executing a stiff bow, he spun on a heel and left the room. Jade almost applauded.
Caven locked eyes with Camoe and then glanced to the antechamber beyond the main entrance.
“Come,” Camoe said, springing to his feet. “We shall go while given the chance.”
Jade stayed on his heels, getting away from the stuffy room sounded wonderful to her. Camoe halted at the far end of the long foyer, waiting for the Brown Recluse’s Prominence to catch up. They did not have to wait long.
Caven strode through the council chamber doorway, making his way to them in a surprisingly short amount of time for a man his size. Several monks milled about, but no one ventured near. Jade was happy to keep it that way. So far, the monks had been a tiresome lot, asking the same old questions about the Dark Citadel’s layout, where she found Burl and why he followed her. No one seemed to want to answer any of her questions. Caven looked carefully around to ensure no one had wandered too close. “Accept my apologies for the wait. Brother Kern means well, but he can go on about simple mundane tasks while wording his ferreting reports so that only I may know what is happening beyond the monastery walls besides these infernal ceremonies. The man has a flair for tediousness to repel anyone accidentally catching on.”
Camoe’s eyes widened but then his face slackened, as if he battled a bad case of boredom to anyone watching. “Kern is your intelligence gatherer?” Camoe pursed his mouth to whistle, and then caught himself. His face smoothed to studied indifference.
Jade understood Camoe’s amazement. A small man, Kern hadn’t seemed capable of anything beyond taking exhaustive inventories or recounting each step of every ceremony performed in recent memory. “I don’t understand,” Jade said, “why do you worry about what is happening outside your monastery?”
Both men looked at her. “Brown Recluse is not the haven it has been in the past.” Caven took a quick glance around, then his blue eyes returned to her, his portly face serious. “The monastery still seems safe enough, tucked away up here on Brown Recluse Mountain, but the town of Brown Recluse has tripled in population over the last decade. In the beginning, the town housed mostly pious, hard-working farmers and tradesmen. Sadly, most have abandoned their homes or rebuilt along the outskirts, which holds its own dangers.
Jade hadn’t realized the town had such harsh problems. Everything had seemed so orderly when they had passed through,
except for the animosity towards Burl. Perhaps there was a reason for it. “Why? What could be so bad that they would leave their homes behind?”
Caven’s face grew solemn. “There is a Dark Lord setting up a base of power somewhere close. As of yet, we do not know where, only that it must be near. Many of the outlying provinces young men and women are missing during the night, the same here. The town and most of the surrounding countryside have grown a healthy hatred for all Users, with no regard to what power the User wields. They may have solid justification. I have witnessed much vileness in the name of the Light for the pursuit of power in my lifetime. Corruption wears many guises. Some magic should remain untouched.”
Jade was aghast. The Light was supposed to help them, the light was good, dad had always taught her and her sister so.
Caven turned to Camoe. “So far there is no word of anyone matching her sister’s description, and you could probably answer most every question the Order asked. Perhaps I should get one of the brethren to guide Jade around the monastery and recount its history. What do you say?”
Camoe looked at her, his blue-gray eyes unreadable. “Would you want to listen to a tiresome monk, or tour the monastery guided by an equally tiresome monk droning history at you?”
“Hey,” Caven said, “I resent that.”
Jade smiled briefly. “I would like to see some of the culture here.”
“Excellent,” Caven said. “Allow me to set someone to the task.” Striding off, he vanished beyond the entrance to the foyer.
“He shall not be long,” Camoe said. Jade turned to find his earnest blue eyes fixed on her. “Promise me you shall be watchful of your surroundings. Caven will have a trusted acolyte accompany you, but even here it is not as safe as it once was.”
“I will,” Jade said, quickly. She wasn’t too concerned. So far, the whole place had been the embodiment of delay. Besides, listening to Kern’s prattling the rest of the afternoon would make her want to throw the man at a patch of swamp sunflowers.
Beyond the Sapphire Gate: Epic Fantasy-Some Magic Should Remain Untouched (The Flow of Power Book 1) Page 36
