“No, no, no,” Juzo muttered, his eye rolling around the room with madness. “I need you. You need me, but you make me do bad things,” he groaned. “Bad, bad, bad things,” he whispered.
“Damn it! Where is Nyset?” he screamed at the sword, hoping it could reply. The sword pushed harder, inching out of the mortar and forcing his boots across the stone. Walter slowly inhaled, relaxing his heart rate, soothing the terror billowing from his trembling hands. He channeled the Phoenix, using it in tandem with his body to hold the sword in the stone. Help would come, wouldn’t it? Where was everyone?
“Help!” he screamed for the fifth time, doing his best to project his voice through the parted door at his back.
To his left was the healer, sprawled out on the floor and surrounded by a pool of scarlet. The poor man’s throat had been cut wide open, blood still trickling from the wounds. He had seemed like a nice man, not much older than him. Every man had to fail at some point, unfortunately his was fatal.
The sword tore through the small room like a cyclone after Nyset vanished. He wasn’t able to control it alone and using the Dragon wasn’t an option. The healer’s surgical box was inverted on the floor, metallic instruments everywhere. The handle of the scalpel was submerged in his blood, the blade sterile and bright like someone was using it the wrong way. Yellow powder had been spilled on Juzo’s arm, dotted with pink flowers. Jars filled with various liquids were sent crashing to the floor, sizzling in a corner and producing an odor of rotting eggs mixed with vanilla. He really hoped the resultant mixture wasn’t toxic. It was a producing a thick cloud of blue smoke that clung to the ceiling, hopefully it stayed there.
Something smashed him in the chest, blowing the air out of his lungs, crashing into the adjacent wall with a thud. His vision swam with black dots, his breath heaving, something glinting in the air. He let out a ragged cough and wrapped an arm over his chest, vision returning, back aching like it was stomped by Grimbald’s boots. Shards of black glass were falling like feathers to the floor, some gleaming in the shaft of light coming in through the window.
Panic lashed at his chest. Where was the sword? His eyes darted around the room, his hand clamping down on something firm. He looked down, the sword’s hilt was in his hand, broken splinters of Blackout jutting out like a porcupine from the top. He squeezed the hilt harder, eyes drawing down, jaw sore, but it didn’t resist an iota. He tentatively released the tension from his grip, slowly lowering the cursed thing. The handle wasn’t vibrating or pressing against him with the strength of a giant. It was motionless, like a sword should be. He released it from his hand and kicked it across the room, sliding with a hiss against thousands of tiny shards of glass.
“Let me out. Walter? Anyone?” Juzo groaned, his head craned over the side of the bed and finding him.
“Juzo,” Walter said, dragging himself up, coughing, still finding it hard to breathe right.
“Where am I?” Nyset moaned from across the room, where Walter had been fighting against the sword. She was strewn out on the ground, smiling like it was her day of birth, her face red as death.
“Walter? What’s going on?” Juzo asked.
“Wait—” Walter wheezed, stumbling over to Nyset’s crumpled body, kneeling next to her. Her arm was badly dislocated, an ugly looking compound fracture through her forearm. Where were those damn healers? It looked like she had gone through war and not on the winning side. Her face was swelling with trauma and her nose bubbling with blood. He traced his hands along her little body, searching for other critical trauma. The arm seemed to be the worst of it. She would survive this. The worst thing he had to worry about was infection. There had to be Ribwort oil around here somewhere.
“Help!” he tried to scream, but the sound wasn’t more than a whisper, his breath still not right.
“Walter? Is that you?” Nyset whispered, one brown eye regarding him, the other matted shut with blood.
“It’s me darling. Okay, okay. I’ll figure this out,” he said, pushing her hair back over her head.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. You were here, then you weren’t. Blackout killed the healer, almost got me,” he said quietly, wincing at that last thought.
“I—I think its dead,” she said, staring through him. Walter pressed his fingers to her neck, her pulse was weak and thready. It didn’t look like she he had lost too much blood, but she could be bleeding internally.
Walter pushed the calm of the Phoenix into his fingertips, willing it to close Nyset’s wounds. How had Baylan done it? It wasn’t working. His fingertips pulsed with a cool blue glow, useless as a chocolate elixir pot. He had to find help, getting up as footsteps scuffled from behind the door. He reached the door and it was shoved open, almost knocking him onto his back.
“Watch it!” he barked at the new healer, shouldering him out of the way with a scowl. The man’s face resumed the disconcerting calm most of the healers seemed to have as he strode over to his fallen brethren, glass crunching underfoot. The new healer gasped and used his fingers to close the dead healer’s eyes.
“Help her! She’s still alive, you idiot!” Walter yelled at him, pointing at Nyset.
Two other men, soft faced and in blue robes fanned into the room, one looking Walter over with concern and letting out a heavy sigh.
“What happened here?” the healer asked him.
“I don’t know,” Walter said, not feeling much like talking right now.
The healer’s brows drew together, waved his glowing blue hand over Walter’s chest and the last of the dull throbbing faded away, filling him with a sense of renewed energy. That felt amazing and was something he would need to learn.
The first one had moved over to Nyset, hands glowing with brilliance. Walter watched as the bone protruding from her arm slid back under the skin like a hiding mole. Her nose, formerly bent out of place, snapped back to its true shape. She moaned and some of the color returned to her face.
“What took you so long?” Walter asked the healer who had helped him.
“We were in another spire. We were needed for an experiment that had high potential to go awry,” the man said crisply.
“I see. Well, I’m glad you’re here now,” he said, his jaw relaxing and fists uncurling at Nyset’s healing. The other healer had brushed the powders off Juzo and was working on his straps.
They had survived another day, though Walter felt the three of them had been mighty lucky to have done that. Sometimes luck was on his side. Sometimes it wasn’t. Today it wasn’t on the side of the man who had given his life for them, may he find peace in the Shadow Realm and in the loving embrace of the Phoenix.
Chapter Fifteen
Warnings
“The gods have a plan for all of us. Do not fear, for it cannot be taken from you.” -The Diaries of Baylan Spear
The last week had been more trying than Walter had anticipated. He thought fighting Death Spawn was the most exhausting thing he could do. Life in Silver Tower was not for the weak minded. Those were paltry times compared to the stream Grozul and Baylan had been dragging him through. Without the Sid-Ho training Noah had instilled in his body to resist exhaustion, he didn’t know how he would have endured otherwise.
Grozul was driving him to the edges of his capacity with the Phoenix by the end of each class, always seeming to be picking on him and pushing him harder every day. Walter asked him one day why he always made him do the hardest tasks, and he just said he saw potential in him, whatever that meant. The old man probably had something against him for showing off on the first day. They say only a fool never learned from his mistakes, and Walter was sometimes left wondering if he was no better than a drunk to the bottle.
Sleep eluded him this night, like many others after training with Baylan after the sun set. Walter felt the exhaustion digging in his soul, competing with exhilaration of getting better with Phoenix portals. It was enough to push him out of bed again, wandering the sleepy halls of the Tower.
The moon flitted in through chinks in the closed shutters, razor thin shafts of light cutting through the dark hallway. Dust motes lined the edges of this hall, seeming to be less used than other parts of the Tower. It was unlike the Tower to leave dust lying around so long. He saw a stone, and grinned as he booted it across the hall, the stone skittering on the floor and echoing in the emptiness beyond.
Walter walked, lost in his thoughts, trying to process the torrent of information being crammed into his head every day. He visualized the tingling he felt when Baylan’s portal was opening, reminding himself of that sensation and imagining the tingling over and over. It had to be second nature, Baylan had said, something you can detect as easily as a scuffed footstep. He could almost feel the sensation on his back if he thought hard enough.
A blend of warm and icy air spilled around his shirt and through his pants as he turned a corner, head down and watching the mortared arteries pass underfoot. It was starting to seem like he and Juzo would get away with their theft after all. Juzo was right. The House Master of the Dragon ordered every woman’s rooms searched by the House of Arms for the stolen artifact. Theft was punishable by exile and not something they took lightly. They didn’t find what they were looking for and thankfully gave up searching.
He entered a corridor of statues dressed in glowing Milvorian steel and brandishing sharp looking weapons. Each seemed to have a unique bust, the faces chiseled in a permanent visage of martial seriousness. The statues had name plates below them, some famous warriors he supposed. Walter stopped, running his finger up the blade of a wickedly curved halberd clutched by a marbled fist, lips curled up at the corners in a scowl. It was sharp alright, easily cutting through his calloused finger.
He walked on, entering a corridor of torches glowing with blue fire. Nyset and Juzo were just about recovered, spending most of their time in the healer’s ward this week. Nyset probably could have returned to training earlier, but she wanted to help Juzo through the last of the curse. Juzo had spent the better half of the week wanting to search the Tower for Blackout, like a Fang Cress addict in a desert who would die of thirst before stopping to rest. She stayed with him while Walter trained, a loyal friend anyone would kill to have, he reckoned. They understood, knew had to train.
He thought about Nyset’s sleeping face, relaxed against his pillow in the tent a couple weeks ago. He missed her soft lilac oiled hair, smothering his face in her scent. He had to dash away the thought of her warm body pressed against his, not wanting to get himself too excited. He couldn’t sleep with her now though, not in the Silver Tower as apprentices. Once they graduated, they would be granted more freedom. For now, they had to focus on their practice, they were told.
Walter crossed a narrow bridge between hallways, opening to the Far Sea on one side, the other facing west to the grasslands. A mist was clearing over the harbor, parting like a gray blanket. The water looked treacherous tonight, white topped waves breaking on the deltas, the sting of salt in his nose. He continued over the arcing bridge, footfalls hollow in the gloom.
He turned down another twisting hall, passing a bountiful garden sending spiced air into his nose. Then he was down a set of stairs, and into a moist tunnel. The following entryway looked unnervingly familiar, but he walked through the gracefully curving archway anyway. Wasn’t it said that the suspect would always find their way back to the scene of the crime? Hopefully, the Tower didn’t think so. The hallway widened, opening to the room of artifacts, the glass reflecting the bright whitish fire of the torches.
He peered further down the hallway, scanning for the dark shapes of guards and listening for the scrape of boots. A cat screeched from the maze of halls. Walter felt his muscles tense up and heart thunder in his head. What was he doing here? Was he asking to be caught? Something brought him back here and there had to be a reason. True coincidence didn’t seem to play a strong role in his life.
He took a breath and let it out slowly and crept down the hall, his footsteps hardly a whisper. He looked from the corner of his eye at the spot where he had burned a gaping hole through the glass, somehow fearing that looking directly at it would proclaim his guilt. The glass had been replaced and the charred stone scrubbed clean. Judging by the damage he had caused, it probably wasn’t an easy job.
Something caught his eye on the shelves of strange figurines, pots, weapons, jars, and trinkets. It was a carving of a nude woman in jet black wood, swirling grain, a type he had never seen before. It seemed to call to him, beckoning for his touch. On its round belly was an intricately carved dragon surrounding a pin hole in the center.
He found his fingers involuntarily reaching out, almost touching the glass then catching himself, fingers retracting as if brushing coals. He was tired, sure, to be doing this again was madness.
“There are no coincidences,” he whispered.
He had an idea of what he could do, of what the figurine wanted. The thought felt wrong, but he was here and his curiosity would ultimately lead him back if he didn’t try.
“Shit,” he breathed, looking up and down the hall, bright in some places, others deep in shadow. He found Warrior’s Focus easily in the quiet, his old friend, a shell from the chaos of life. He drew on the Phoenix and a small portal the size of his hand opened in front of the glass, exiting just in front of the figurine behind it. He grinned at his own brilliance, rubbing his hands together.
He took a breath and held it deep, then reached his hand through the portal, his face angled near the glass and watching his fingers wiggle on the other side. He inched his arm forward, lips pressed together, fingers carefully working to grasp the figurine by the head.
“Could you believe she said that?” a gruff voice said, far too close for comfort. Boots hissed across the stone just around the corner.
“Women,” a high-pitched voice scoffed.
The black figure slipped from his fingers, clattering on the ground behind the glass, knocking a handful of artifacts over with it.
“Did you hear that?” the gruff voice said, the footsteps pausing.
“Thief!” the other voice squealed. Their sauntering steps became a run, armor clinking, seconds from the hallway.
Walter quickly extracted his arm, careful not to nick the portal’s lethal edges, eyes wide, heart pounding, armpits weeping with sweat. He opened another portal, digging deep at his energy wells, and jumped through. Shouts of armsmen echoed behind as he exited, rolling him onto the stairwell, the portal snapping shut behind him.
He let out his held breath, feeling the blood fill his face, his vision swimming. “Shit! Shit!” he breathed, pressing his back to the wall, listening. He could hear the guards yelling far below, their voices echoing through the moldy tunnel leading to the artifact’s room and up the stairwell.
He was at the top of the spiraled staircase he had used to get to the artifact room. His eyes traced the walls and floor, seeking the telltale damage of a portal, a razor thin line. He did well by opening it in the air, leaving no trace of its use. That was good. Baylan would have been proud. He rubbed his hands over his cheeks. “No cocks, also good,” he snickered.
He felt a little tension release from his chest with another deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. The image of the figurine jumped to the forefront of his mind—its eyeless face, hairless head, overdeveloped tits, legs fused together, tiny arm extended and beckoning for him to come. What was this thing? He could hear one of the armsmen calling for help while another clopped up the stairs.
He shook his head at his stupidity. He pressed further into the wall, waiting for the guard to draw closer. He was but a few corkscrews of stair away when Walter opened another portal, jumped through and entered the artifact hallway. Empty. He returned to the black woman, now laying on her back, little points of her nipples stabbing up at him. It seemed like it wasn’t art until a tit or two were shown.
He created another small portal over the top of the figurine, grabbed her, and pulled it out quick. He half ex
pected something to explode as he touched it, but it responded much like any other block of wood. More guards were clopping down from the other end of the hall. The soldiers of the House of Arms were vicious fighters, but clearly knew little about stealth. Another portal opened in front of him, dumping into a place he was intimately familiar with now, the practice yard.
He jumped through, his boots scuffing into the cool sand, the portal closing behind. The moon was shrouded in strings of fluffy clouds, dimly lighting the sands of the yard, deep furrows of shadow in the sparring pits. The air was warmer now. At least one thing had gone his way. He was here just a few hours ago, sparring with Baylan with telekinesis, an incredible drain on the mind. He really should be sleeping.
Baylan said the more frequently you visited a place, the easier it would be to open a portal there. He was finding that to be right, this place came quite easily to him, the stairs seemed to have sapped a lot more of his constitution.
Walter trudged through the sugary sand, some invariably making its way into his boots, and squatted down in an area along the wall lined in shadow. He ran his fingers over the curious figure, massaging its tits, thumbs tracing the inscription of the Dragon over its belly.
“This better have been worth it,” he whispered.
A tongue of fire sprouted from his fingertip, lingering in the air. He moved his finger to the figurine’s belly, at the center of the inscribed Dragon. He directed the flame into the tiny hole in the center of the Dragon and it sucked in the flame. Walter jerked his finger back with a start and narrowed his eyes. He released the Dragon and slipped from the Phoenix’s embrace, his body sagging with weakness without their support. He sighed, nothing but a tendril of smoke rising from the tiny hole.
“Fuck,” he groaned, fingers uselessly rubbing its belly.
“They come,” a voice said.
“Shit!” Walter jumped, smacking his head into the wall with a thud, dropping the figurine. Pain beat like a hammer at the back of his head and down his neck. He looked up to see the whitish-blue form of a man standing before him. He seized the Dragon and all of its fury, boiling in his veins. The man had been gutted, offal hanging out his stomach, hundreds of cuts on his legs, arms, chest, and face. The clouds parted from the moon, casting its light through the man who left no shadows.
The Silver Tower (The Age of Dawn Book 3) Page 19
