Adept tegw-1

by Michael Arnquist

  The ruins of Queln blazed with light and thunder as Amric and Xenoth fought. There was no longer any semblance of guile or strategy to their actions, and no more words were exchanged. None were necessary. Each man stood his ground, hurling his rage and determination at the other in the form of primal energies, seeking to hammer his foe into oblivion. The Essence Gate towered above them on its high platform of stone, a continual, roaring presence that made the very air shimmer with the power being drawn into it. It looked down upon the battle below with an uncaring eye.

  Amric gave himself over to the fury of battle, fighting on purest instinct, and his wilding magic was a fierce ally in tune with every fiber of his being. He became a melding of man and beast, of steel and magic, and he could not have begun to say where one left off and the other began. His sword flickered, slicing and deflecting too fast for the eye to follow, and he sent attack after attack lancing toward his foe.

  He drove forward.

  Without even knowing how he did it, he drew upon the rising tide of magic within him and all around him. He pulled it from the air that crackled and sang at the point of overload, and he reached deep into the ground beneath his feet to tap into the immense ley lines coursing there. He drew it in until his body burned and he thought he must surely burst into flame, and then he reached for still more.

  Amric pressed the attack, strike and counterstrike at lightning speed. Xenoth’s eyes grew wide. Perspiration ran freely down the hard lines of his face, and his dark hair hung damp and lank across his brow. Step by grudging step, the black-robed Adept was forced to give ground. Amric bared his teeth in a wordless snarl and pressed harder.

  He took another arduous step forward, and Xenoth took another back. He pummeled at Xenoth’s defenses in wave after wave. He felt the other’s shield crack before his onslaught and uttered a growl of triumph. Another slow step, like walking against a hurricane wind, and his foe’s heels were against the marble steps that led up to the Gate. Xenoth felt behind himself for the first step, and then the second. He stumbled and fell back against the cold marble, his motions frantic. Amric put another foot forward, pressing the advantage.

  His legs wobbled beneath him.

  The world tilted and dimmed for a sickening instant, and Amric shook himself with a curse. Not now. Not when victory was so close. He had been pushing too hard, running up against the mortal limits of endurance and punishment all night. Now it seemed that even Bellimar’s gift of borrowed vitality was waning at last. Even the darting presence of the wilding magic within him had grown sluggish and confused. His eyes fell on the crumpled form of Halthak, lying too still in the tangled grass at the base of the stairway by the Adept, and his jaw clenched. He thought of all that had been sacrificed for this moment. He would not succumb now.

  He brought the world back into focus with an effort, but the damage had been done. Xenoth was on his feet once again, and there was an exultant glint in his dark eyes. Both men sent blazes of light lashing at each other, and for long seconds they traded frenzied blows, neither giving ground. Then Amric’s defenses faltered, his exhausted reaction too slow by a bare instant, and a coil of energy snaked through, rocking him back on his heels. The next blows fell less than a heartbeat later, before he could recover his balance, and they slammed him to the ground with crushing force. His sword slid away into the grass, its flame extinguished.

  Abrupt silence fell over the ruins, except for the background hum of the forces being drawn to the gate and the labored breathing of the two combatants. Amric rolled to his side, dizzy and disoriented, his unfocused eyes rolling about in an attempt to determine from which direction the attack would come.

  “You are even stronger than I thought, wilding,” Xenoth panted after a moment, bracing his hands upon his knees as he gasped for breath. “You would be fearsome indeed, if you had even a modicum of skill. But I warned you before about overextending yourself. This battle ends now.” The man straightened with obvious effort and started toward Amric.

  “Damn right it does,” growled a voice from the ground.

  A gnarled hand of pebbled grey flesh lashed out from the grasses at Xenoth’s feet and wrapped around his ankle.

  “What the-” The Adept staggered, caught by surprise, and almost fell. He spun to find the fallen figure of Halthak looking up at him. The Half-Ork’s talons tightened, digging deep into the man’s flesh. Xenoth cried out in pain as his leg buckled beneath him.

  “Fear not, Adept,” Halthak said, baring crooked teeth in a broad, grim smile. “Nothing down here but us insects.”

  With a clap of impact, the healer released his magic into the Adept.

  It was just as he had done to the mad Wyrgen Grelthus in Stronghold, reversing the normal flow of his healing magic and sending his own injuries slamming into the other. By that point, the boiling mass of greenish energy had spread to cover Halthak’s entire torso. Sickly black tendrils wound into his extremities, climbing his neck to his jawline and threading along the flesh of his forearms that showed past the sleeves of his robes. All of this withdrew as if time itself had reversed to undo the damage. The corruption retreated from his limbs and crawled across his chest, contracting to a burning hole of seething energy that dwindled and vanished. Halthak let out a gasp of relief even as Xenoth cried out in new agony. The Half-Ork released his grip on the man’s leg and scrambled back from him.

  The Adept stumbled a few steps and stood with legs braced wide apart, swaying in place. A ravenous green glow lit his tunic from beneath, and blight crept up over his throat, darkening the skin there. His eyes bulged with disbelief as he clawed at his chest. His uncomprehending stare leapt from himself to the healer and back.

  “It feeds on magic, I believe you said.” Amric dragged himself to his feet, leveling an iron gaze at the Adept. “The more you pour into it, the faster it grows and consumes you.”

  Xenoth whirled to face him, fear flooding his features.

  “Earlier this night,” Amric continued in a pitiless tone, “you also told me that there is a time and place to hold nothing back.” He gave the Adept a wintry smile. “I could not agree more.”

  The warrior stepped forward in a lunge and thrust out both hands. He called up every last ounce of power he could muster and hurled it all at Xenoth. Light and flame roared at the Adept, hammering into him, driving him back against the marble stairs. The black-robed man howled and thrashed beneath the torrent, trying to deflect it or wriggle free, but it seized him and pinned him in place. Rather than incinerate him, however, the flood of energy was drawn into him, feeding the sinister affliction that consumed him. The blight spread at a fiery pace, green and black strands writhing across his limbs, gnawing and tightening with predatory swiftness. Xenoth’s cries rose to an inhuman shriek and then cut off abruptly. His tall form collapsed in on itself, then withered and burned. In mere moments it became unrecognizable as anything that had ever been human.

  When only black ash remained, scorched across the pale marble of the stairway, only then did Amric allow the torrent to cease. He fell forward to all fours, the breath searing in his chest. His wilding magic swirled and darted in weary jubilation, and he allowed himself a small smile in response. Well done, my friend, he thought. Surviving to this point was all part of my plan, but I did not much care for our chances.

  The magic pulsed back at him with a sensation very much like humor, and Amric blinked at the sly intelligence he sensed. It seemed there was more to this mysterious presence than he had realized.

  Such matters would have to wait, however. Their work was not yet done.

  He tried to stand, failed, tried again. Strong but gentle hands clutched at his arms and helped him on his third attempt. Faces swam before him: Halthak, his coarse features pinched with concern; Syth, bruised and battered but alive; Valkarr and Sariel, the visages of home. He mumbled something about the Gate and made for the platform.

  Amric remembered little of their ascension to the Essence Gate. At the time, it seemed an
eternity of climbing and stumbling, of lifting hands and distant, encouraging voices. The sounds rose in volume, became sharper, resolved into a single insistent voice, repeating his name over and over.

  “No time,” he insisted, his words slurred. “Have to reach the Gate.”

  “We are here, sword-brother,” Valkarr responded in the patient tone of repetition. “And we have found no way to shut it down.”

  The statement caused a chill within him and Amric sobered, felt the fog lift in grudging stages. He blinked and looked around. His friend’s statements were true. He sat on the raised platform, and the others were gathered around him.

  The Essence Gate loomed over him, and he was awestruck by its ancient majesty. The massive arch of stone towered sixty feet or more into the air, and each of the worn sigils carved into its broad surface was the height of a tall man as well. An aura of brilliant light surrounded the device, radiating from it in measured pulses as if the device drew long, ponderous breaths. The sigils pulsed with an orange-red glow to the same slow beat. Within the arch stretched a shining surface, almost too bright to look upon. Amric’s second sight showed rivers of energy running into that rippling aperture, flowing into as to a giant drain, never to return.

  “We have found no controls, on or around it,” Valkarr said, his jaw muscles tightening as he regarded the mammoth device. “It continues to empty our world of life.”

  “We thought you might be able to…” Sariel trailed off, ending with a vague gesture.

  Use magic, Amric thought with a bitter grimace. Of course.

  He studied the Gate, observing the movement of energies around it. His wilding magic stirred and quivered, though whether with trepidation or eagerness, he was not certain. Not knowing how to proceed, he reached out with his senses, seeking to touch it and better understand it.

  To his surprise, something touched back.

  An expansive presence followed that initial contact, flooding him with its awareness, and an eager murmuring pattered against his mind. Amric’s mouth fell open in shock. It was an ancient thing, timeless and patient. It was vast and powerful, but oddly compliant-and it was very much alive. It whispered to him, eager to yield its secrets, and there was a soft susurration at the back of his mind as it conversed with his wilding magic as well.

  Hardly daring to hope, he inquired after the information he sought, and the Gate responded to that encouragement with a surging desire to please. A score of voices babbled at him in cheerful cacophony, and he struggled to single out one at a time to follow. In moments he understood how to return the mighty Gate to a state of quiescence, and he knew how to travel through it to Aetheria, the master world on the other side. He also knew, beyond a shadow of uncertainty, that there was no way to destroy or permanently disable the Gate from this side. A cold pit opened in his stomach.

  The roar of the Essence Gate lessened, and its radiant corona diminished to a faint, clinging nimbus of light. The surface within the arch darkened until it no longer blazed like the sun, and instead resembled the moon-kissed ripple of the sea at night. The sigils dimmed until they burned low, like dying embers.

  Amric let out a slow breath and exchanged a weary glance with his companions.

  The Gate was dormant once more. Their world was safe, for the moment.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Silverwing carved through the waves. It was a squat and ungainly ship, wallowing in each trough and showing little of the grace its name implied as it carried its burden of refugees out into the Vellayen Sea. All the same, Borric decided as he stood on the aft deck and watched the docks of Keldrin’s Landing grow smaller in the distance, right at this moment the sturdy vessel was a thing of beauty to him.

  The Silverwing was the last ship to slip away from the land, and thus it had an unobstructed view of the trap that had closed its jaws just behind them all.

  In the half-light of the yielding night, the city teemed with motion. Dark, twisted shapes slithered through the streets and crawled over the buildings. Some moved together in seething masses, like great swarms of angry insects. Others, larger and heavier, stalked amid their smaller brethren, brushing them aside as they moved. Still others appeared as glimmers of cold light, wraiths that flickered here and there like whispered tales. The creatures tore at the structures and raised their voices in furious shrieks that carried across the water to those on the boat.

  Borric watched, mesmerized. His broken arm hung in its sling, seeming to throb in time with the rolling motions of the ship, and he gave a shudder that owed nothing to the salty breeze. The escape had been a close thing indeed. It would be quite some time before he closed his eyes without seeing the burning hatred in their bestial stares or hearing the rasp of their talons on the docks as the sailors threw the last of the ropes that bound the ship to shore. He hoped that no one had been foolish enough to remain behind, hoping to weather the invasion. If so, there was nothing to be done for them now. He forced his mind to other matters.

  What had happened to drive the magical creatures of the area, normally so reclusive, to such lengths of madness? It was a question that had been asked often over these many months since the troubles began, but he found himself no closer now to an answer.

  The worst of it had always emanated from the east, somewhere in or beyond that vast, terrible forest. The ominous storm brewing over it was only the latest evil to gather there. Borric glanced in that direction, squinting into the distance, and blinked in surprise. The sullen, reddish glow on the horizon had diminished, and the black mantle across the sky had broken into fragments. Even as he watched, the storm clouds clotted together in lesser groups and continued their grudging dispersal.

  The captain of the Silverwing stepped up beside Borric. The grizzled old sailor had a lean, pitted face that resembled a barnacle with a greying beard. One knobby hand extended to caress the ship’s rail in a familiar, unconscious gesture filled with pride. In all the chaos, Borric had not even caught the captain’s name, despite working shoulder to shoulder with the man for long, frantic minutes during their escape; somehow it seemed absurd to ask after it now.

  “Did well for a one-armed man,” the captain said in a rasping tone. “Pulled your load. You’d make a fair sailor, if you’ve a mind for it.”

  Borric chuckled. “Let us just say that I did not lack for motivation, especially there at the end.”

  The captain gave a dry chuckle. He jerked his chin toward the retreating city. “They are calming, now.”

  It was true. The frenzy of activity at the city was slowing. The creatures were no longer incensed and destructive, but rather were milling about. They appeared more restless and confused than angry.

  “What do you make of it?” the captain asked.

  Borric shrugged one shoulder and shook his head. “Perhaps they only wanted to see us gone,” he said. “Perhaps we were never meant to be there in the first place.”

  The captain gave a noncommittal grunt. They watched for a time in companionable silence as each plunge and rise of the Silverwing carried them further and further away. The heavens brightened steadily with the coming dawn, and at last the creatures, no more than tiny motes in the distance by then, melted away into the ravaged structures of the city to take cover from the day.

  “I am told that you are in command here,” the sea captain said. There was a question behind the words.

  Borric, erstwhile captain of the city guard for Keldrin’s Landing, rumbled a laugh that began in his belly. “No sir,” he said with a broad grin. “As of this very moment, I am just another soldier seeking safe return to my family and my home, having been away from them much too long. I am at your service for the duration of the journey, Captain.”

  The old sailor lifted his bearded chin in a nod, and ran another possessive stroke along the rail. Then he gave the weathered wood a pat and turned away, barking orders to his crew.

  Borric remained on the aft deck for quite some time. He stood there, unmoving, until the city was no more t
han a hint of shadow against the sweeping majesty of the coastline. He stood there until the ghostly fingers of dawn spread across the sky, and the new day began at last in a crown of gold on the eastern horizon.

  Only then did he turn away as well.

  Bellimar sat cross-legged on the huge expanse of ornate rug in the great hall of Morland’s estate. To his left, a pool of crimson seeped into the lavish material, casting a spreading shadow across the rich colors of its pattern. He did not spare it a glance. That work was done, and nothing remained there to hold his interest. To his right, a long, golden sliver of light stretched across the rug where the morning sun knifed its way between the heavy drapes that otherwise masked the towering window. His eyes traveled along that fiery line to where it passed within a hand’s breadth of him. His skin tingled and crawled beneath his robes, as if his very flesh sought greater distance from the killing light.

  It was strange to fear the sun’s light again. He recalled when, all those centuries ago, he had forsaken such mundane pleasures as admiring the splendor of a sunrise in favor of a darker path, the path to power. After the Adepts struck him down and twisted his nature with their magic, he had been able to bear its touch once more; there had been some pain, certainly, but no lasting damage. He had been far too consumed with regaining his power and solving the mystery of what they had done to him, however, to waste time on such trivial victories. He found it ironic that now, with the restraints imposed so long ago lifting at last and his power rapidly returning, he craved most what was forever lost to him.

  His hunger surged within, perhaps in response to his yearnings, and it railed against his inaction. It spoke to him, not with words but with inviting sensations. It was low and fierce and insistent, calling for him to follow the deaths he had dealt tonight with thousands more, and then a thousand times more after that. He was ancient and powerful, and only the blood of the masses could slake a thirst as mighty as his. He was fearsome and indomitable, and he would grind the trembling thrones of the world once more beneath his dark, remorseless heel.