by M. S. Dobing
‘Skelwith.’
‘Skelwith,’ Caleb frowned as he scanned the Drain. ‘Although it’s a little more run down than I recall.’
‘So you don’t remember anything about the attack? About Marek?’
‘No, I’m guessing it didn’t go too well. Tell me what happened.’
Seb told him the whole story from the moment Cade put a bullet in his head. The assault by Marek and the sheol. The deaths of Cian and the Magister. The destruction of the Spoke Stone that activated the sentinels. Caleb listened intently throughout, his eyes widening and jaw dropping until they reached their limits. When it was over Caleb sat back, drained.
‘You did well, boy, so very well,’ he said quietly.
‘Yeah, that’s what people say,’ Seb shrugged.
Silence fell. Seb sat back, the cup nearly spilling into his lap. He couldn’t believe this. Every time he thought he was getting the hang of this twisted world, another curve ball came and shook it up again. Most of the time it was for the worse, but now, for once, something had happened that allowed a little bit of joy back into his life.
‘So how does it feel? Do you have your powers?’ he said after a pause.
Caleb shook himself from his silent meanderings. ‘No. Nothing. I can’t sense. I can’t interact with the Weave. I’m basically Unaware, although sometimes I feel as if there’s something there, trying to get through.’
‘I can’t imagine how that feels, not anymore.’
‘It’s not all bad. It’s good just to be me, just have my mind and nothing else. Of course,’ he raised his hands, gnarled by time, ‘there are some things that I could do without. The aches this guy goes through nearly all the time. I never realised.’
‘Perhaps that’s a problem with the magi, they’ve been this way for so long they no longer know what it means to be human.’
Caleb frowned and tilted his head. ‘That chip on your shoulder hasn’t gone away I see.’
‘If anything it’s a full blown forest.’
‘Well there were plenty of seeds to begin with if I remember correctly.’
‘Thanks, old man,’ Seb replied, giving him a mock smile for his efforts.
A howl came from somewhere in the grounds. Seb sensed but for some reason he couldn’t get a clear echo back. He looked at Caleb, puzzled.
‘What is it?’ Caleb said.
‘The sheol are out there but I can’t feel them.’
Caleb shrugged. I suspect it’s to do with what happened here. You know, with Marek. I’ve seen it before. A mage dies, a powerful one, and they leave an imprint on the area. I moved some of the old wards to around the Drain. They come near, but they never enter the ruins. At least those around here.’
‘Amen for small mercies. I’m not sure I could go another round today. Or ever.’
Caleb sat forward, his eyes drawn to the raw-looking arm that Seb clenched against his chest. ‘Yeah, I meant to ask you about that. What the hell has happened?’
Seb whistled. ‘Where do you want me to start?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It was the same vision as always. The tower. Emerging from the fog. Always there. Eternal. Waiting.
But now broken.
Seb knew even before he alighted on the platform that much had changed since his last visit. The lip of the open plane had crumbled off, and cracks a man wide ran throughout its length, ending at the archway where a rusted door now lay broken on its side.
Upstairs, in the study where he’d met the serpentine creature, the strange study was equally barren. The hearth was empty, a chill filling the room that even Seb’s astral self could feel.
‘I did not think you would show.’
Seb spun about. The serpentine creature stood before him, but it seemed smaller, diminished even. Its red armour, formerly so burnished and whole, now stood cracked and damaged. Dents covered the breastplate, and green blood seeped from cleaved holes in the arms and legs. The creature was breathing heavily, resting on a giant spear that was soaked through with black blood.
‘You are injured,’ Seb said.
‘My time is nearly at an end. I cannot hold for much longer.’
‘Hold? Against what?’
The creature tipped its head towards the open balcony. ‘See,’ it wheezed.
Seb vanished and reappeared by the balcony. What was it referring to? Aside from the tower and the mountains from which the tower was carved, there was just an endless cloud of black that extended as far as the eye can see. There was nothing--
Wait. He looked down.
No. Dear God, no.
With eyes amplified with Avatari, he saw it then. He saw the reality of what the creature was referring to.
Sheol. Millions of them. A mass of fiend and daemon that expanded in all directions. They marched as one. Thousands of ferals, snarling and barking. They rolled across the landscape like a tidal wave, moving forwards at a great pace.
‘How many are there?’ he whispered, feeling the creature appear by his side.
‘There is no number I know that can describe their magnitude. All I know is that they are coming. For the first time in millennia they are as one. Something calls them. They gather now, spewing forth from their cracks and their dens, joining into the mass you see before us. They march together with only one direction in mind.’
Seb swallowed, knowing the answer before he’d even asked the question. ‘Where are they heading?’
The creature looked at him and gave a weary smile. ‘Of course you know. They seek the last sanctuary. The only place where the power exists to free them from their prison.’
‘Earth. My realm.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Sedaris,’ Seb said, suddenly remembering the incident at Domus. ‘He must be behind this. I saw him. I saw him as he was, underneath his human skin.’
The serpentine warrior gave him a curious look.
‘You felt you recognised him, yes?’
‘Yes. I did. What does that mean?’
‘It means, mageling, that you are almost ready.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You do. At least, part of you does.’
A massive crash echoed up the tower. At once the room was full of snarls and growls that echoed out of the stairwell. From somewhere far below Seb heard the clatter and scrape of claw and steeled boot on the stone steps. He shot back into the room.
‘They’re in here!’
‘It was a matter of time. This tower is just one of several along the route they must take. Others have fallen. More will fall still. I must go. I must make them pay for every inch of this place they soil with their foul stench.’
The serpentine warrior marched towards the stairwell. Its aura blazed and the wounds on its arms and legs knitted together. The armour unbent and reformed.
‘Wait!’ Seb appeared by the creature’s side. ‘What can I do? I’m a part of this. This whole thing, aren’t I?’
The creature stopped and looked at him. A scaled hand reached up and lifted up its visor. ‘Indeed you are, although a “part” does not do your role justice.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Go now. This is not your battle. Yours is still to come. But you need to find me. You cannot complete the final stage of your re-emergence until you make it here.’
‘Emergence? What the hell is that? I don’t know where here is!’
‘Then you are not ready. When you are, you will know. I only hope we still have time.’
‘Time for what?’
But the room was already vanishing from view. The cracked and moss-covered walls of the room faded away, slowly being replaced by the shadowed, slimy bricks of the Drain. Seb’s last image was that of the creature as it vanished into the stairwell.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Caleb was already up by the time Seb finally returned to the Drain’s living area. Strangely, the old man had managed to drape some old blankets over the rubble, and balance half-shattered wooden
cabinets against what walls remained. Candles burned in various alcoves.
All in all, it made for quite a cosy scene.
‘Ah, it lives,’ Caleb said. He rose from the table where he’d left a pile of assorted documents strewn in a pile and went to the kettle. He poured a mugful of coffee and held it out for Seb, who took it gratefully.
‘Thanks,’ he said, sitting at the table and casually looking at the documents. None of them seemed familiar. He took a sip, the strong coffee sending a jolt of wakefulness through his system.
‘Good?’
‘We have Novo. We have Avatari. But nothing beats the power of a strong coffee in the morning.’
‘Amen to that,’ Caleb said. ‘How’s the arm?’
Seb flexed the muscle. It still ached, but only a little. The pinkness had faded also.
‘Almost as good as new,’ he said.
‘Looking a lot better,’ Caleb said, hobbling over to the table.
Something about the old man didn’t ring right. He kept looking at Seb’s arm, an almost disbelieving look on his face.
‘What’s the matter, Caleb?’
Caleb sat, letting out a long sigh. ‘I couldn’t heal that wound. Nothing I know could’ve healed that wound. The black algae bought you some time, but your own Avatari destroyed whatever toxin had made it into your system.’ Caleb let the sentence hang in the air, as if there was a follow-on question he’d decided not to ask.
‘What is it, Caleb?’
‘What is it? You survived that, and you ask me what the problem is?’
‘I don’t understand. What’s your problem?’
Caleb shoved a document under Seb’s nose. Seb couldn’t understand the text written upon it. Certainly it was nothing he’d read previously. But he recognised the thing in the hand-scrawled picture in the centre of the writing straight away. For he’d seen it before.
When it broke his ankle and nearly melted his arm.
‘This. This is the thing that I fought.’
‘I know it is. Now.’
‘So?’
‘You know what that is? You know who that is?’
‘Caleb, don’t go cryptic on me and just spit it out. It’s some kind of sheol obviously.’
‘Saying this is some kind of sheol is like describing Cian as some kind of human.’ Caleb pressed one finger down on the document. ‘This, Seb, is one of the balsheol. Powerful magi, ancient, taken by Nazgath. He captured their souls and corrupted them. Now they serve him, and are rumoured to be amongst his most powerful servants.’
‘Rumoured to be?’
‘No one living has ever seen one. They were thought destroyed or banished. The document there tells of powerful creatures, almost immune to magic, capable of destroying armies as if they were nothing more than an afterthought.’
Seb nodded, flexing his arm. ‘Seems about right. He was more powerful than anything I’ve seen before.’
Caleb shook his head, a disbelieving grin on his face. ‘The master of the understatement speaks again.’
‘How so?’
‘Seb. These things are living nightmares. They have powers beyond even Novo that we can’t claim to understand. Touching one, like you did, results in instant disintegration for the unprepared, and I’ve heard of archmagi that could only survive hours after being wounded.’
‘I’m guessing luck doesn’t come into it?’ Seb said, suddenly feeling very self-conscious.
‘You should know by now there is no such thing as luck in this world, Seb. What happened to you. This. By all accounts you should be dead. You should’ve been dead long ago. What is it that’s different about you?’
An image came to mind unbidden. The ruined tower. The parathi warrior.
Brother.
‘What is it?’ Caleb said, picking up on the sudden distraction.
‘What?’
‘I may not have Sentio, but I can tell when you’re hiding something. Spit it out, Seb. This is no time to be coy.’
For a minute a flicker of doubt flashed across Seb’s mind. Was it really Caleb? Or was this simply another ruse? Another sheol ploy to make him spill some hidden knowledge? Caleb seemed sincere. He didn’t have any kind of power now, none that Seb could detect. What threat could he actually pose? There was no sign of nervousness, or that strange intensity that had filled him when he’d been possessed. In the end, the desire to simply tell all won out over any remaining reservations. He’d carried this for too long and had pondered it for many hours without getting anywhere.
So he told Caleb everything. He told him of the tower that he’d first encountered on his astral walk. He spoke of the Parathi, the one who had addressed him as brother. He told him of the sea of sheol that marched across a land far away. Marching towards Earth. Of the voice, the one who spoke to him at times of crisis. It took perhaps thirty minutes but as he spoke the last words he felt like no time had passed at all. Caleb simply stared back at him, unblinking.
‘Well?’ Seb said, when the pause became too much.
‘I’m stunned, Seb. I really don’t know what to say.’
‘You can start by telling me you can make sense of what I’ve been experiencing?’
Caleb frowned, his eyes narrowing to slits. His lips pursed as he raised a gnarled hand. ‘The Parathi. The name rings a bell, but without Avatari my memory is screwed.’
‘The library?’ Seb offered.
‘We can look. But the wards are broken there. You would be unprotected from the sheol.’
‘It’s worth it. They’re only ferals after all.’ Seb jumped from the table, a renewed sense of purpose pushing him forwards.
‘Okay, okay.’ Caleb rose and shuffled over to his rucksack. He produced a cloth sack wrapped in leather straps. He handed it to Seb.
‘What’s this?’ Seb weighed it in his hands.
‘I found it in the ruins. How the Families failed to detect it, I have no idea. But one thing I’m sure of is that he would’ve wanted you to have it.
Seb placed the sack on the table and began untying the straps. ‘Who would’ve --’
The words died in his throat as he pulled the cloth away. Revealing a shortened mage’s staff, covered in various runes. As the cloth fell to one side, the staff seemed to shimmer, before growing to full size on the table. A ripple of purple electricity rippled up its length.
‘Is this what I think it is?’ Seb whispered.
‘Cian’s staff. It is indeed. There is no other like it.’
Seb picked it up. Despite its obvious power it felt amazingly light in weight. He twirled it round with both hands.
‘Doesn’t this belong somewhere? Some kind of vault for powerful magic items?’
Caleb scoffed. ‘You think Cian would’ve wanted that? A staff is a weapon, Seb. A mage’s weapon. One, especially one of such pedigree, does not belong in a museum.’
‘It feels so light.’ Seb placed it back into the cloth sack, the weapon shrinking to fit inside. ‘That’s amazing.’
‘It is bound to you now. It binds to the last mage that wielded it.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Call it.’
‘What?’
‘Trust me. Sense it. Call it.’
‘Okaaaaay.’
Seb sensed out towards the weapon. It had its own aura that rippled back instantly. Without knowing how, he just knew what Caleb meant. He raised his hand.
The staff materialised in his hand.
‘Wow.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Don’t say anything. Just do Cian proud, okay?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
Seb took the weapon and strapped it into his pants. He jogged to the stairwell and looked up into the darkness. ‘So what is it I’m looking for, exactly?’
‘There’s one book I can think of. It was in the protected section, not one you could borrow. Its English name is Origin: Before the Forge.’ Caleb scratched his beard, his eyes going
up and to the left. ‘At least I think it is.’
‘It’s a start. Thanks, Caleb!’
‘Just be back before sunset, the sheol get braver then.’
‘Understood.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It was a strange mix of emotions that Seb felt as he emerged from the Drain. Even though Skelwith was in ruins, the core structure still remained. Alongside piles of rubble and rotten wood glimpses of the old mansion came through. A painting here, ripped and torn but just about discernible, some old ornaments there. All reminders of what Skelwith used to be.
But as he crept through the corridor that followed the exterior of the mansion, it wasn’t the material items that got to him. It was the memories he’d forged in this place. Before Marek. Before the betrayal. It seemed before his encounter with Sarah, before he nearly died in that church, his life before was a meandering mess of places and journeys. He’d never made friends. He’d never made firm roots either. Sure, he could get on with people, he’d always had that ability, but he never felt close. Not really.
Not until the Magistry. Okay, a select number of the Magistry. Caleb. Cade. Even Cian. Now Sylph. It was only when he got drawn into this world did he finally feel that he’d found somewhere he could belong.
Until Marek had taken it all away.
He reached the end of the corridor and sensed. Nothing came back. The sheol, if they were active, were too far away at the moment to be a concern. With the sun up they wouldn’t risk coming unless they had to. He just hoped it stayed that way.
Seb moved across the damp carpet inside the main reception hall. He lingered for a moment at the wide passageway that had once led to the Magister’s inner sanctum. It’d been there where he’d smashed the Spoke Stone that broke the Consensus forever, awakening the sentinels that had saved the magi from almost complete annihilation.
Now though the passageway lay blocked, filled with rubble. The Sentinels were dormant once again. Their power remained, that much Seb could feel, but they slept again, perhaps knowing that there was nothing left to defend.
Moving on, Seb found the double door that led into the library. The door lay in fragments on the floor now, covered in moss and darkened by water. The frame was split, with lethal edges pointed inward for the unwary entrant. He edged in sideways, the stake-like points only inches from his face.
