by M. S. Dobing
No.
The end point was incorrect. He focused, drawing on his own knowledge of the shards. He sensed out, feeling the subtle changes in the portal as he moved the endpoint from location to location. The Manyway could in theory open up at any one of a trillion places, but he needed only one.
There.
He saw beyond, the black-sand desert, the skies of ash. The burning plumes rising into the sky.
Home.
Sedaris stepped into the portal. At once the ruined chamber vanished, replaced by the countless lines of the Way, arching forwards, vanishing into the distance. Within seconds the lines began to recede, a new atmosphere forming, the air chillier and thinner than the one he’d left behind.
Sedaris stepped out onto the other side of the portal, onto a burnished black platform in the middle of a sea of black sand, surrounded by a wall of darkness.
‘You have been a long time.’ The voice, a hiss on the wind, spoke out from the gloom.
‘This form is clumsy. Weak. I had to adjust myself so that I did not burn it out.’
A form lunged out from the shadow, a pulsing mass of scale and smoke. A massive eye, slitted and yellow, glared at Sedaris, who stood his ground.
‘Are you up this to task, sheol-lord?’ the voice pulsed from all around this time. ‘We invest much of our power in sending you to this shard. It would be a shame if we had to sever the connection.’
Sedaris smiled, hiding the alien sensation of fear that suddenly fluttered inside him. ‘The plan is sound. You will have your release as promised. The children of the Parathi will burn for what they did to all of us.’
Silence. The entities swarmed about him, out of sight, the sheer weight of their combined powers almost overwhelming. When no further words came, Sedaris spoke into the wind, his voice amplified by Avatari:
‘I come seeking the support you promised me in exchange for securing a foothold in this realm.’
The eye appeared again, as wide as he was tall. The creatures head turned to face him straight on, revealing a massive, lizard-like maw. A blue tongue forked across a jaw devoid of teeth. Not that it needed them. This particular entity had abilities far more powerful than simple physical devices. It stared at him now, eyes narrowed on either side of its reptilian head.
‘Speak.’
‘My influence is growing amongst the Aware. Enough now I can compel the weakest amongst them. However, I will need assistance if I am to purge the remainder.’
‘You are not strong enough on your own?’ the voice, feminine, new to this gathering, hissed over his shoulder. Sedaris managed to suppress the flinch, letting the coldness of the entity wash over him.
‘The Consensus still limits us. It is broken, but like a cracked vase, many areas are still strong. If we do this incorrectly we run the risk of wiping the minds of all the Unaware, and the power they command.’
That got their attention. The presence behind him retreated. He stood firmer, chest puffed out. They had no choice but to support him now.
‘What do you need?’
‘The Horde. Send them there. All of them. The Manyway is now open.’
‘The Consensus will crush them; they are too vulgar for that world.’
‘It would yes. As it stands.’
‘Do not be coy, Nazgath. Tell us of your plans.’
Behind him the portal flickered and shrank for a moment, before returning to its former size. His Weave connection fluctuated but returned.
‘When it’s time. But now I must go. The portal is not stable. Will you send the Horde?’
‘It is moving now. They have been waiting for a long, long time.’
‘Good. And the Parathi?’
That female voice again: ‘There is but one. He will not slow us.’
‘Do not let him fool you. He is old, but cunning. I should know that more than anyone.’
The lizard creature retreated into shadow, leaving just one eye staring from the gloom. ‘Let us worry about the Parathi, Nazgath. You simply deliver your side of the bargain.’
Sedaris nodded. ‘Very well.’
‘Is there anything else?’
‘The magi are strong, some stronger than others,’ he said. ‘I have secured the alliance of the Ninth but it would be beneficial to have some extra insurance.’
‘What is it you want?’
‘Kranor.’
The yellow eye blinked and retreated slightly.
‘A balsheol is not a power to be used lightly, Nazgath.’
‘I am aware of this. Was it not I who created them in the first place?’
A few moments of silence passed.
‘Very well.’
By Sedaris’ feet a vortex of energy spiralled into existence. A figurine formed in its centre, no larger than an inch in height. Sedaris squatted and picked it up. The ornament resembled an armoured figure, bowed on one knee, helm dipped, facing the ground.
It was dense with Weave energy.
Sedaris pocketed the figurine and looked up.
‘Thank you,’ he said, with as little sincerity as he could muster.
Sedaris closed his eyes. A second later he was stood back in the Manyway chamber, the portal closing behind him. He stood for a moment, allowing the power of the realm to fill his vessel. When he was fully energised he waved his hands and the massive door began to open.
Tarmyr and his men stood to attention as he marched outside.
‘The Ninth. You have engineers? Scientists?’
Tarmyr nodded. ‘Some, yes.’
‘Get them there. The portal is unstable. It needs to be kept open to allow them to come here.’
Sedaris pushed past. Tarmyr turned to follow.
‘To allow who to follow, my lord?’
‘The Horde.’
Tarmyr slowed. ‘The Horde? Here? Is that even possible?’
‘It will be. If the Ninth play their part as required.’
‘Anything, my lord, anything we can do.’
‘Good. Then let us get somewhere more comfortable. There is much we need to discuss, and there isn’t much time.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘You know, if I’d known you were going to be like this I would’ve asked Anna to send someone else with me,’ Grim said.
They were trudging across a field of wheat, their feet sinking deep into ground soaked from two weeks of continuous rain.
It did not make for happy travelling arrangements.
‘The mission is to cleanse, not to talk,’ Seb said. Every step was an effort, the cloying mud trying to pull the shoes off his feet. ‘Who the hell gave us this route anyway? We’re bloody miles away.’
‘Don’t ask. Kev had a funny turn, so we’re using some new informants.’
‘What kind of turn?’
‘His Sentio started playing up, he was starting to get himself noticed by the Unaware. Anna got him taken out of harm’s way before it became our problem.’
‘Lucky him, having the magi to protect him.’
Grim stopped and stared at him. ‘What the hell is wrong with you, Seb? You’ve had an attitude since you just after you joined us. But in the past few weeks you’ve reached new levels of pain-in-the-ass. What gives?’
Seb swallowed down the retort and stared at the ground, stomping past the stunned Grim.
It was true, ever since, well, at least as far back as when they’d joined the Families, he’d had this anger inside him. At first he’d thought it was just a reaction to the way the magi worked, and that it would go away, or at least turn into something he could manage.
But instead it had got worse. Every day he woke up with a pain in his head, a throbbing that would only go away with a training session that involved pulverising a score of sheol. There was a tense energy he could never shake off, and every time he talked to the magi it just seemed to get worse. That, coupled with the way he’d parted ways with Cade months before, only meant he was perpetually pissed off.
‘Oi, I’m talking to you!’ Gri
m shouted.
‘Shut the hell up! Let’s get this over with. I thought you said there was some kind of commune we had to get back for?’
‘That’s right. All of us are required.’
‘Then let’s stop talking and get this over with.’
They marched in silence, getting slowly more sodden with every step. Eventually the fields gave way to twinkling lights and dwellings as the edges of suburbia came into view. They reached a small fence that ran parallel to a stream that was on the brink of overflowing, and vaulted over it.
The street on the other side was eerily quiet as the pair emptied their boots of water on the pavement. Lines of lampposts cast pools of bright amber light on the pavement, illuminating it at regular intervals. Family estates, saloons and four-by-fours lined up back to back along both sides of the road, where wide driveways led upwards to large detached houses.
Suburban bliss.
‘Where are they?’
Seb sensed out. It took a second for the echoes to come back.
It wasn’t good.
‘Fourth on the right. The one with the lights out,’ he said.
‘You up for this?’ Grim said.
‘Let’s just hurry. The wife and kid are terrified. They’ve locked themselves in the upstairs bathroom. The dad is going berserk downstairs.’
A window smashed up ahead. A chair came flying out, but it was imbued with the Weave, and flew an unnatural length across the road, crashing into a silver BMW parked on a drive at the house opposite.
‘Shit!’ Grim was already running towards the house. The BMW’s alarm began blaring into the night.
Seb ran at full pelt behind the other mage. Already lights were coming on in the neighbourhood, attention drawn to the commotion that had now made it outside.
They didn’t have long.
The man was at the window when they arrived. He was young, barely older than Seb himself. His shirt was drenched with sweat, the sleeves caked in blood where he’d raked his own arms. His hair was wild, and a mad grin split his face. His eyes widened when he saw the two magi on his lawn.
‘They’ve come…’ he mumbled, coming to the window. ‘Marie, they’ve come! I told you they’d come for me!’
‘What do we do?’ Seb said as he joined Grim on the lawn. The older man had adopted a combat-ready position, knees bent, arms angled ready for a quick entry.
‘He’s mad. I can’t calm him. The Weave is burning him up.’
‘So what does that mean?’
‘There’s only one option.’
Grim took a step forward. The man’s grin vanished. His sense was firing all over the place, his energy weak and uncontrolled. Seb raised his shields to cancel out the clumsy effects.
‘Grim, you can’t…’
‘I can and I must.’
Grim launched himself forwards, he flew like a bullet in through the window. The man, his sense providing some kind of precognition, alerted him to the move. He was already away and running up the stairs inside the house.
Towards the bathroom.
Seb was in after Grim a second later. The mage took the stairs in three steps, Seb only just behind. They emerged onto the landing, just in time to see the man start kicking at the bathroom door. The screams of his wife and child echoed down the hall.
‘They’ve come for us, Marie! They want to take us. They want to take Lisa!’ he said, kicking against the door. ‘I won’t let them! I’ll save us don’t worry!’
‘We end this now.’
Grim blurred as the door gave way. The man tumbled in, both magi appearing at the door behind him. He scrambled inside, pulling his terrified wife against him. The woman faced the magi, and the young girl clung to her legs, her head turned inward.
‘You won’t take us. I know what you want!’
The man’s eyes burned with purple energy. He couldn’t have been far from burn out, his mind was simply too raw, too exposed to the Weave.
‘Let them go,’ Grim said, taking a slow measured step closer, ‘we don’t want to hurt anyone.’
‘I know what you want! I saw! I saw! You’re going to rip my mind. I was told. I’ve heard! I’ve read about your kind! He said you could come! The voice in my head warned me, but they said it would go away!’
‘Grim, we can’t just -’
‘If you haven’t got the stomach for this I suggest you get out.’
Grim was channelling. The Consensus groaned as he pulled on the Weave. The man sensed it too, he pulled his wife closer. What was Grim doing? The girl was looking away, and her observer effect was minimum, but the wife was Unaware, her consciousness actively fighting against what Grim was doing. There was no way he could do anything. Unless…
Unless he killed her too.
‘No!’
Seb didn’t think. He just blurred into Grim as the mage unleashed a bolt of energy that would’ve seared the minds of all three of the family. Grim grunted as he struck the sink, stunning him, the Weave-effect fizzling into nothing. Seb staggered to his feet.
‘I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you, but you need to listen to me.’
The man looked between Grim and Seb. He didn’t speak, but the grip on his wife didn’t lessen. Outside, at the end of the road, tyres screeched as the police arrived, sirens blaring.
‘Listen!’ Seb said. The man looked at him. His aura calmed, just slightly.
‘He called to me. He said you would come…’ he muttered.
‘Who did?’
Grim was starting to stir. Outside car doors slammed. Footsteps clattered on the drive. Someone talked into a radio.
‘The one who sensed my pain. He asked me to come to him. He said he could help me. He said his -’
The man froze mid-sentence. His mouth dropped open as his eyes rolled up in his head. The Weave evaporated from him, his mind burned out from overexposure. He slumped down against the tiled wall, his arm dropping loose from his wife, who turned on instinct, knowing what had happened before she saw it.
‘Chris!’ she screamed. ‘Chris!’ She gripped him by the arms and shook him hard, but it was obvious he was already gone.
‘Seb, we need to go,’ Grim said, pulling himself to his feet.
‘But --’
‘Fuck them!’ Grim took Seb by the arm and fixed him with eyes that burned with anger. ‘Focus on me. I need your strength to take both of us.’
Seb channelled. No words were required now. He closed his eyes.
***
The attending officer burst into the bathroom a second later, the taser gun held in both hands. He took a quick scan of the bathroom, noting the man dead in the bathtub, covered by his hysterical wife and daughter.
Nothing else.
He put the weapon away and told the rest of the responders to stand down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The world spun. A web of lines wrapped around him like a cocoon. Hot air rushed by his ears. His stomach clenched, and he closed his eyes, focusing inward, not on the chaos around him.
They popped into existence a foot off the ground. They crashed to the earth, Seb taking the brunt of the impact, Avatari not quick enough to hide it, and rolled onto his knees. Grim followed behind, but he just dropped to the ground on both feet.
‘You’ll have to show me that trick,’ Seb said.
The next thing he knew he was being hoisted off his feet and slammed against a wall, Grim’s crimson face pressing up against his nose.
‘What the he --’
‘What were you thinking?’ Grim shouted.
‘What was I thinking? Are you serious? You were going to kill them. All of them!’ The rage was returning now, a warm fire filling his belly.
The anger in Grim dissipated. He dropped Seb down and stepped back. Seb held his position. Weave-energy filled his limbs. His fists were balled, his muscles tensed, yearning for a release.
Grim wasn’t going to give it.
‘I had no choice,’ the mage said, turning away
, his voice trailing into a mutter.
‘Had no choice?’ Seb followed him, further into the car park where they’d appeared. ‘Yeah, the gun that girl held to your head must’ve been really terrifying for you!’
‘You saw him, Seb, there was no saving him. And they’d seen too much. They would’ve been corrupted by the Weave, nothing was so certain.’
Seb caught up with him. He gripped the mage by the arm and pulled him back.
‘Who’re you to decide that?’ he said. The two were nose to nose now.
‘They cannot handle it, this truth. What do you think would’ve happened, eh? Would you have been there to save the girl when she became Aware? Where would you take her? And what if the sheol came, eh? Would you wait until she was possessed before you took her life?’
Seb pushed Grim. The other mage staggered back a step, disbelief in his eyes. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I’m tired of this, Grim! I tire of your holier than thou attitude. You pretend you’re doing them a favour, but you’re not. I know what it is. What you’re really doing.’
‘Oh really, what?’
‘Control. It’s simple. You’re afraid. All of you. You’re afraid.’
Grim scoffed. ‘Afraid? Nonsense.’
‘Touch a nerve did I?’ Seb said, the anger in full flow now. ‘You’re scared. Scared of what the newly awoken mean for your world, for your control. You thought yourselves kings, but in reality you’re just dictators. And today just proved it. You’re nothing but cowards.’
Seb’s sense flared as Grim struck out, palm open. Seb raised his shield but it was too late, and he slammed into a concrete pillar, the air blasted from his lungs.
‘Seb, you need to calm down.’ Grim came towards him, arms out, concern on his face.
‘I’ll give you that one,’ Seb replied, rising to his feet. Grim opened his mouth to speak, but words were blasted from him as Seb blurred into him. Grim soared through the air, crashing into the windscreen of a parked car. The vehicle’s indicators blinked to life as an alarm began to sound.
Grim stood up on the bonnet of the car. He shook off shards of glass from his clothes. Thin red cuts covered his arms where glass had cut flesh. ‘You just made a grave mistake.’
