I’d read about rifts in my studies and knew the fundamentals about how to produce one, but my studies had gone in another direction and I knew without a doubt that this was beyond my knowledge to produce safely. Rifts were used to force two positions in space together. Once the connection had been made, matter could pass from one point to another in seconds. This explained the Russian heavy ordinance we had found - someone was moving troops using rifts. I had long suspected something like this; enemy troops had been vanishing into the wild too quickly and appearing too regularly for regular logistics to account for it.
Only a master mage could have constructed this; they were inherently unstable and a disruption at either end of the rift would cause untold damage to both ends. As I got closer to the rift, my skin prickled with caution as the Mana sought to reinforce my shield.
I glanced down carefully at the construct and saw how it had been built, and which Mana frequency had been linked to the weave. I felt the heat at the edge of the ring as the Mana particles burned the air around them. The sizzling grew louder and flared in response to my presence. A small shiver passed over me as I realised the Mana from my shield was reacting to the rift field. It was a small distortion and easily within the construct’s ability to withstand, but any more serious Mana used in its presence could very well prove fatal.
I backed away carefully from the rift; if my shield was going to cause a distortion at this range, I didn’t particularly want to see what would happen if I moved any closer. From the state of the equipment in the warehouse it was clear they were being prepped for movement, and I could only assume they were pulling out. The only question was – where were they going?
As I moved around the rift it took me several minutes until I found the Mana trail that would lead to the other end of the rift. It was so delicate and very faint. It made scry threads positively easy to spot. This left me with an unfortunate choice: if I wanted to find out where the rift went I really only had two options. I could attempt to follow the Mana thread trail and hope I didn’t lose it, or I could attempt to pass through the rift, which might be dangerous to someone using Mana. I would have to take my shield down, which would make me vulnerable to whoever was on the other side. I didn’t much like that option, but I didn’t think it was going to be possible to follow the Mana trail accurately. There was simply too much of a chance that I’d lose it. This wasn’t much of a choice.
I glanced around the complex one more time to figure out if I was going to be shot the moment my shield went down. With a shiver I lowered my shield and moved closer to the rift. The Mana I was using to keep myself mobile was far less potent than my shield, but even so I saw slight ripples of distortion, but I was reasonably confident it wouldn’t disrupt the rift structure.
The warmth from the rift was almost tangible as I got close enough to touch the structure. The surface was bathed in a yellow/red hue and was highly reflective. I could see myself in the rift, but every couple of seconds my reflection was washed over as a pulse of Mana rippled across the surface. The end effect was like looking at a mirage of water on a road during a hot day. The warmth from the rift was uncomfortable, but hardly painful. If I had a shield around me I would barely have registered it.
I tried to place my hand against the surface of the rift, but that was impossible, like trying to do the same against a waterfall. The surface offered no resistance and my hand simply passed into the rift. I could see the surface of the rift pulsate out in waves as my hand disturbed the surface, but felt nothing. The nausea common with teleportation wasn’t present. This was because a teleport spell had broken me down to a molecular level, converted me into Mana, travelled the required distance, and then rebuilt me. However, the rift simply messed with the spatial distance between two points, and as far as the molecules in my body were concerned it was no different than waving my hand in front of my face. I grinned as I watched the Mana flare up in reaction to the foreign object that was my hand within the rift. There wasn’t any difference to the Mana trail - it was simply bridging the connection between two points in space. But the Mana field in front of me flared brightly and I could feel the Mana pass through me like a live wire reacting with the construct that was keeping me mobile. Small shivers of distortion swept across me.
It was time to move. Someone on the other side would surely notice the change to the rift indicating someone was passing through it. Or maybe not - I didn’t really understand how rifts worked - but this wasn’t exactly the best time to conduct experiments. I took a deep breath and entered the rift. I had expected some kind of visual distortion as I passed through, but there was nothing. One minute I was standing in a warehouse complex and the next I was standing somewhere else. It now looked like I was standing in another equally boring warehouse complex. I was making slow progress here.
Actually, judging from the soldiers now pointing their weapons against my unshielded ass, this wasn’t likely to be as boring as the previous warehouse. I was still far too close to the rift to contemplate throwing up a shield. This was going to be interesting.
I placed my hands up in the air and called out loudly, “I surrender!”
I don’t think they had expected me to say that. It looked for a second as if they were going to simply shoot me and be done with it. They probably should have - they didn’t live long enough to regret their decision.
* * * * * *
I waited as the soldiers moved in behind me and cuffed my arms behind my back. They roughly pushed me forward away from the rift, possibly thinking I was some form of advanced scout. I suspect surrendering had convinced them I wasn’t a mage. That ploy would obviously fail once they removed the sunglasses from my face and saw my Mana-soaked irises. But I would be long gone before they could do that. If I did nothing, I would have a long and possibly terminal interrogation session ahead as they sought to get troop movements and locations from me. It would almost be amusing to let them try; unfortunately I didn’t have the time.
They were shouting at me in Russian. I had no idea what they were saying, but it was obvious they wanted me to kneel on the ground. Had I misjudged them? Was this simply an execution? In any event I wasn’t worried - I was now far enough away from the rift that a shield was now an acceptable risk.
I took a step forward as if to kneel and raised my shield. This action must have been recognised because the moment the shield raised, a gunshot went off. But by that stage, of course, it was too late. With a flick of my wrist I tore the handcuffs into small chunks of metal that fell from my wrists. Several more shots bounced from my shield as the soldiers increased their rate of fire, all the while backing away. These soldiers weren’t stupid – they knew they weren’t able to take me out without seriously heavy weaponry. I watched with amusement as a grenade was lobbed at me. I simply walked through the explosion, absorbing the impact against my shield and killing the soldier who had thrown it.
With a sweep of my hand I dragged several more soldiers down, but most of them had scattered deeper into the complex. I could still feel scattered shots against my shield, but they were few and far between. I had a choice here: I could seek them out one by one and end them, or figure out where I was and where to find the mage who had created the rift. I knew from my studies that rifts required careful maintenance and reconfiguring to keep them locked into place. The mage wouldn’t be far away while the rift was still active.
As for me, I assumed I was somewhere in Russia, perhaps Moscow, but my assumption was wrong. My journeys had never taken me that far north before, but from what I had heard it was a cold country, not the balmy temperature it appeared to be here. However if I wasn’t in Russia, then where the hell was I? There was a simple way to find out. I sent a scry thread out. It didn’t take me too long to determine my location. I’d seen this city a million times on TV shows and in movies. I was in Los Angeles. The distinctive Hollywood sign, which had survived relatively intact from the fall of the city, was a big giveaway. This just raised further questions.
Why the hell were Russian troops congregating in Los Angeles? Now that I had seen both sides of the rift, it was obvious they were moving resources into this city. Perhaps they planned on making a final stand here.
I was returning my scry thread when I saw the familiar spark of a mage’s Mana signature not far from me. I couldn’t tell at this range who it was, but they kept their distance. This was probably wise on their part – a full-fledged Mana fight that close to the rift was probably a bad idea.
I wasn’t going to let this opportunity get away from me. I ended the scry thread and launched myself into the air through a window on the far side of the warehouse, sending several threads out ahead of me, tearing holes in the buildings ahead to get to my target. It wasn’t the most subtle of attacks, but it was the quickest way to get to the mage before they teleported away. Assuming, of course, that they were going to teleport away. Judging from my opponent’s Mana signature, it didn’t look like it. They appeared to be waiting for me. I crashed through an apartment block and found out who was waiting for me.
Gregory Tibus.
I grinned as I clenched my hands into fists and launched several threads at him, hoping to take him unawares. With a casual flick of his wrist he deflected my attacks, but he didn’t follow up with an attack of his own. That was strange.
“You are who has been killing us?” he called with his strange Greek accent. “You are not what we expected.”
I didn’t answer him; instead I used the opportunity to draw my powers together into a single spear-like thread. There was a loud thump as the thread impacted against his shield and sent him barrelling into the building behind him.
I followed up immediately with several more strikes. I hadn’t heard the tell-tale sound of a shield cracking and knew my opponent was still a threat. My assumption was confirmed as enemy threads lanced out at me. Had I remained standing where I was, I would not have been able to avoid them. I launched myself backwards on top of the building I had crashed through earlier. With a hammer fisted motion, I slammed a thread down onto the top of the building Tibus was hiding in. With a loud cracking noise, concrete dust and debris was thrown up into the air. The brick building fell in upon itself and onto my opponent.
I knew that, like my attack before, this wouldn’t seriously inconvenience him, but I was just getting started. Looping a thread around a gas cylinder on the far side of the complex, I ripped it from its mountings and sent it flying into the ruins. With a flex of my fingers I sent a sheet of flame lancing from my hands into the ruins. The resulting explosion tore the remains of the building into shrapnel, but again I knew my opponent had probably survived. I would have been able to survive such an explosion. This had been a mere distraction until I could finish the job. I launched myself into the explosion to finish him off, while he was avoiding all the flying debris and explosions surrounding him.
We had the same idea. Unfortunately for me, he got in the first shot. As I launched myself forward, a thread launched itself from the inferno and caught me mid-leap. The resulting strike smashed against my shield and sent me spiralling into the wall of my building. The shield impacted the wall, destroying it and sending me sliding across the top floor, incidentally falling into the hole I had made on my way in. I didn’t have much time to get my bearings as Tibus then brought the building down upon me using a similar strike to the one I had used earlier. I had prepared for just such a move and used an explosion of telekinetic power to send the debris flying away from me. I noted with satisfaction that several large chunks of concrete hit Tibus as he attempted to bring his strength upon me. It was nothing more than a mere distraction, but it was enough for me to go back onto the offensive. I swatted Tibus from the air with a well-placed thread and launched myself after him to continue the fight as our threads collided once again. With a crackling sizzle, our threads squealed in protest as we applied more power in an attempt to overpower the other’s thread.
“You will find I will not fall as easily as the others!” Tibus snarled. He was surprisingly strong and if I had continued on with this test of strength I probably would have lost. Due to my injuries I just couldn’t compete in displays of raw strength like this. But I had other methods. I allowed Tibus to get the upper hand, slowly looking like he was beating me back as I gathered my strength. I took a deep breath - what I did next would have been the unthinkable in combat. I teleported.
It was a safe enough jump, simply from in front of him to behind him. I didn’t need to scry as the landing site was well within my vision. I knew Tibus had thrown everything he had into that thread and therefore wouldn’t be able to disrupt me as I jumped. My gambit paid off. Tibus’s thread decimated the wall behind me as I blinked out of existence.
As soon as I reappeared, I launched everything I had at Tibus’s exposed flank. I hadn’t even raised a shield yet. I watched with glee as the strike smashed against Tibus’s ribs and I heard the tell-tale sound of a shield crumbling. I hadn’t broken his shield completely, but I’d certainly managed to break through it. I’d probably broken most of his ribs on his left side too. Tibus howled with anger and pain and turned in fury to face me, but by then it was too late for him. I’d already raised my shield and continued my offensive. Several threads lashed out against him, causing him to stagger backwards. This was over.
Unfortunately my overconfidence had undone me. With strength born of desperation and impending death, Tibus managed to launch a thread back that latched around my waist and brought me into the air. Tremors immediately rocked down my left side, as the breath was sucked from my body through my shield. The last time I had been in this position had been against my old master, and Victor had broken me. He had literally crushed me until my shield had broken and my bones were shattered. With the tremors I couldn’t raise a thread to protect myself and I was at risk of losing my shield.
I saw my end coming and the panic almost overcame me. As the tremors took me I felt my shield wavering and I thought it would fall. For a brief few seconds the panic subsided as I began to accept my fate. The calm that came with accepting my death brought clarity back to my focus and I could reinforce my shield before it fell.
Had Tibus been able to sustain his attack, he would have broken through my shield. Fortunately, Tibus wasn’t anywhere near as strong as my former master. Either that, or his injuries were preventing him from using his full strength. He wasn’t going to be able to break through my shield. He had obviously come to the same conclusion.
“Why won’t you die?” he snarled as he hurled me against the wall, sending me barrelling through yet another wall and landing in the warehouse where the rift had been constructed. I ploughed through the wall and slid across the warehouse floor, finishing just metres before the rift. I watched as it flared yellow in response to a high level of Mana being deployed so close. This must have been Tibus’s plan - before I could do anything, Tibus struck me again and sent me barrelling into the eye of the rift.
I passed through in fury and landed hard on the concrete floor on the other side. I watched in desperation as the act of a shielded mage passing through the rift caused a cascade in the structure of the Mana construct. The rift flared red with fury as the edges began to decay. It took me several seconds before I realised I needed to do something or I would be ground zero in a very large explosion. I could possibly teleport away in time, but my soldiers who were still en route would possibly be caught in the blast. I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice them a second time.
I could see the degradation of the Mana structure of the rift and see the threads that held it together breaking down. I’d never worked with this frequency of Mana before, but none of that really mattered. I could hardly make it any worse – the structure was already in a critical state. The rift collapsed in on itself fairly quickly as the link between the two ends failed. The portal at this end began to expand outwards at an exponential rate. The threads holding it in place collapsed as the power from the thread overwhelmed their integrity and one by one they broke
down. If I had known the theory behind the thread, I could probably have replaced the threads and stabilised the rift, but I’d never worked with rift theory before. No, all I could do was attempt to stabilise the structure and hope that it would be enough to contain the rift as it failed.
With shaking fingers I began to work. I closed my eyes as I reached out and poured more strength into each thread. I could feel the pressure the rift was exerting against them as its full brunt was turned against my threads. It was overwhelming, but somehow I managed to sustain one thread that should have failed and then another and then a third. It became a race against time as to which processes would achieve control over the most threads. Already due to my meddling I could see the rift doing some odd things. Its surface twisted in two directions as two conflicting powers vied for control. I let the power flow from my fingers, stabilising the next thread in line until I had completed a full circle around the rift. Once that occurred, the process of degradation lessened noticeably to the point that if I had wanted to I could probably have stabilised the rift and brought it back to functionality. I had no wish to do that; I didn’t need the rift. At this point it was more of a liability than an asset. I still wasn’t one hundred per cent sure of what I was doing, only that the rise of Mana within the construct was lessening, which could only be a good thing. I continued working until I felt a strange thing - another thread snaking into the rift. I glanced up and saw Tibus through the rift attempting to do the same thing I was. He looked focused on his Mana, and it would be easy to strike him down. There were two problems with that. One, he appeared to be trying to remove the rift safely; and two. the rift itself was in the way. Neither of us could strike through that field. I shrugged with resignation. Tibus could wait. I had no intention of being at the centre of a rift explosion. As powerful as I was, I knew I would not be able to withstand that. With Tibus working on the other side, we appeared to be making headway on the rift. I could now see how Tibus was controlling the thread, and I altered my tactics to match his.
Mage Emergence Page 8
