Bannor felt his wife-to-be’s heart skip a beat. She sniffed.
Wren glanced to Sarai.
A greenish light flickered along the surface of the blade.
Wren swallowed. Her glowing blue eyes were wide as she accepted the weapon from Sarai.
Wren knelt on the misty floor.
A golden illumination flooded around the blonde ascendant and she jerked as the powerful energies of eternity licked through her in a storm of transformation.
It looked painful, and from Bannor’s memory, it was. It was an ecstasy so savage that you felt ready to be torn apart. The Kel’varan shuddered and shook as she and Eternity became one.
After long moments, she collapsed to the floor.
At the same time the three Kriar returned and indicated the guards had been secured. Sarai looked back and saw no evidence of them anywhere.
“Gaea,” Wren breathed aloud. She pushed herself back up. She looked at her hands, opening a closing them. The glow of the ascendant’s eyes had become like burning flames.
Corim transformed the blade for her and put it on her wrist as an armband.
The dark elder nodded, she turned and walked away from them, her body going translucent and fading from view. Vera straightened. She glanced up at Wren briefly and moved to follow.
The blonde woman started to reach out for her but stopped. Vera too faded from view as she moved into the corridor.
Daena looked around with glowing green eyes. She shook her head obviously feeling uncomfortable.
The heavy hum of the portal chamber faded behind them after only a few steps, as if some property of the passage itself dulled the sound. In here, the caustic smell gave way to a heavy oily odor and the chilling cold was replaced by a sticky humid warmth. The corridor had a hexagonal shape to it and behind grills of silvery metal, arrays of what looked like pipes and filaments ran through the walls like networks of veins in living flesh. Globes overhead cast a muted blue radiance over everything, making the reflective surfaces appear to glow.
Bhaal brought up the rear, stalking along, her gaze tracking to everything.
Wren nodded.
Bannor focused away from Wren and concentrated on learning more about their surroundings. Through his links to Eternity he could tell they were immeasurably closer to Gaea, Damay, and the rest of the Kergathas. They weren’t anywhere near in the physical sense. He guessed their allies were still hundreds of lifetimes away by foot or horse.
he told Sarai.
Corim raised a fist to indicate a halt, the group pausing where the corridor intersected another. The Kriar faded from view and slipped into the side passages.
Bannor kept probing around them and a disturbing nails on slate sensation raked through his entire being. Could it be? He pushed his senses again through that point, and felt that terrible rasp that made his whole spirit tremble. This could be very good or very bad.
Corim who was monitoring the scouting turned back to them.
Kalindinai put a hand on Sarai’s shoulder. Nobody could look at Bannor, he was just a tao in the shaladen, so they could only stare at Sarai. She gripped the band.
The three Kriar soldiers faded into view, the one that went right, pointed off into the left passage. They turned the corner, the Kriar eying the doorways on either side of hall as they crept passed. Vulcindra and Vera shimmered into visibility as they entered from a chamber at the end.
The red glimmers in Vulcindra’s hood became burning orbs.
The dark elder let him go and folded her arms.
The elder glanced toward the portal chamber even though it wasn’t visible from their current vantage.
Vulcindra said. She focused on Corim.
Damn that woman had brass. Charity? To show such cavalier arrogance with so much at stake. It occurred to Bannor that there might not really be twenty guards ahead. They only had Vulcindra’s word for it. The fact that Vera was standing there like a lump with her head down didn’t help. He knew how much Vera cared about Wren. All Vulcindra would have to do would be to threaten Wren, and Vera would go along. Vera didn’t know about the soulbiter that Wren had planted in the dark elder.
He wished he could gauge the others. Sarai was only staring at Vulcindra, body hot and heart pounding with anger. She wanted to say something but was holding back.
It was Kalindinai whose composure cracked.
Vulcindra’s eyes widened.
Kalindinai glanced into the chamber and back down the hall.
Vulcindra stared at Wren who only stared back.
Daena stepped behind Kel’Varan and folded her arms.
The dark elder curled her lip and focused on the two Kriar warriors.
The male Kriar glanced at his female companion. His night dark eyes narrowed and he gripped the weapon on his side.
Bhaal who had moved up to stand between Vulcindra and Sarai flicked out a single claw and waved good-bye.
Vera stiffened. She pulled the weapons from her sash that Vulcindra had loaned her, and threw them back. The elder caught them with a sour expression. Vera cast her eyes down and put her hand in Wren’s.
Vulcindra sniffed and stalked off into the darkness and disappeared.
Kalindinai let out a breath and shook her head.
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* * *
Chapter Thirty
Is it courage to not fear death? People
have told me that I am brave, and I
disagree. I do what I have always done—
what I must to protect that which I cherish.
That’s not nobility, it’s selfishness. Without
the ones I love, I am nothing—so I might as
well be dead…
—Bannor Nalthane Starfist,
Prince Conjugal of Malan
The eight of them stood there in that strange hallway that looked like the glowing innards of some bizarre metallic beast, the hum of alien machinery making the stifling humid air quiver and pulse. He felt Sarai’s heart beating fast, and the perspiration running down her face, she knew they needed to move. The guards they incapacitated on the way in would miss their check-in if they hadn’t already. In fact, Bannor wasn’t certain why the alarm hadn’t been sounded immediately. The Kriar artifices were so efficient that the slightest change in a warrior’s condition could be tracked instant-to-instant. The moment Vulcindra or Vera brought down one of those guards the place should have been alerted.
Wren looked back the way they had come and toward where Vulcindra had vanished. She focused on the dark chamber and the unknown enemies lying somewhere within. She brushed back her hair.
Sarai turned to the two Kriar warriors.
The male Kriar narrowed his black eyes, he looked back the way they had come. He pulled a black device off his belt and examined something on it.
The little G’Yakki whose head was down, stiffened as she realized the question had been directed at her. She shook her head.
the male Kriar mused, still working on his device.
Wren’s glowing blue eyes were wide.
The male Kriar rubbed the jewel on his brow.
Kalindinai’s eyes widened.
Reality's Plaything 5: The Infinity Annihilator Page 46
