‘What have you been doing all this time?’ Lomar asked him.
‘I calmed myself and entered a deep state. It was the only way to survive. I knew you would come eventually and I supposed you would only want the ring, but I thought it would be better if you didn’t have to rummage around through my corpse to get it.’
‘Eric!’ Lomar called up and Eric’s face appeared way up at the top of the hole. ‘Fetch food and water. Go back to the last guard post, but be careful.’
Eric’s face disappeared.
‘You look terrible,’ Samuel stated to the man, who had now started rubbing his arms and moving his head as his blood begancirculatingwith more vigour.
‘It is not so bad. Discomfort can be enlightening. Suffering opens the window to discovery, Samuel. It is not something that can be enjoyed at the time, but the feeling afterwards is nothing short of rewarding. You should try it some time.’
‘I don’t think it sounds very enjoyable,’ was Samuel’s reply.
‘That’s the problem with you Order lot. Old Anthem has filled everyone’s heads with his vision of a perfect world, but it doesn’t exist, Samuel. Without anguish, people get bored. Without stimulation, people’s minds stagnate. A world without some form of chaos would only create a world of blandness. That’s what Anthem could never understand. A society without hardship is like a herd of sheep. They would be very easy to control. Do you think that’s what your teacher had in mind? Perhaps I wouldn’t dislike him so much if it were so.’
‘There’s no time for talk such as this,’ Samuel replied. ‘Come. If you are ready, we must hurry. Om-rah has gone to kill the Empress. We must stop him.’
‘Om-rah?’ Balten said, and the name seemed to rouse him fully. He rose to his feet and cracked his neck slowly from side to side. ‘Then I will come with you. I just need a moment to gather my strength. What else has happened? How long have I been down here?’
‘Quite some time,’ Lomar said. ‘We have had some delays in our plans, but the time is now right to forge ahead.’
Balten took a moment to digest the words. ‘Well,then. It’s good timing that you came and found me. I was thinking of breaking out of here eventually.’
‘Could you have done it?’ Samuel asked. ‘Magic cannot work in here.’
‘Magic works everywhere, Samuel. It is everywhere andineverything. It is a fire that cannot be quelled. This mountain merely seeks to quench our will and stop us from calling our magic to action. As a blacksmith’s forge harbours the air and fire, so too can we create a haven for our will and magic within ourselves. As with any fire, with too little air the flames will suffocate. With too much air, the fire will burn out of control, blundering about in the wind. Just the right balance will result in that sweet spot that all magicsmiths seek. In this state, the fire within us will shudder and roar. It will accelerate and begin to draw strength from within itself, burning white-hot while it consumes little of its fuel.’
‘Youhavebeen busy down here,’ Lomar noted, raising an eyebrow.
Eric whistled softly from above and he dropped some bread and a sealed water bag into their hands. Balten took a hesitant sip and then started pouring the water into his parched throat, until the entire bladder was emptied. Samuel was trying to slow him, but the man gulped it all down desperately. He then shoved as much bread as possible into his mouth and began munching on it,like a child with a gob full of sweets.
‘Right! That feels much better,’ he said,his wordsbarely intelligible. ‘We’d better hurry.’ He held the rest of the loaf in his mouth and grabbed hold of the rope, pulling himself up hand over hand.
‘Incredible,’ Lomar said, watching him ascend. ‘He has recovered much of his strength already.’
The two of them started up after him and,once they were at the top, the four of them began away with all haste.
‘There’s just one thing to be wary of, Samuel,’ Balten said as they hurried through the passageways.
‘What’s that?’
‘Do you remember that relic we used in the desert-the one that holds your Great Spell? Unfortunately, I had neglected to leave it behind. It was taken from me by the guards.’
‘What?’ Samuel said.
‘I forgot I had it and it was not so simple to hide as a little ring. It will only take a subtle twist at its middle for the spell to be released.’
‘What kind of spell was it?’ Lomar asked with concern.
‘A very bad one,’ Balten replied. ‘It was not one of Samuel’s better moments.’
Samuel spied a path he knew and led them along it, towards his hidden entrance in the palace. ‘This way!’
They emerged from the opening and the sensation of magic poured over each of them as they stepped out into the open. Again, the clamouring sound began as soon as they broke the magical skin that covered the hole, but they knew they would be away from there in moments. Samuel led them away, stealthily exiting the room and darting across the halls as guards ran in every direction.
He drew them out into a quiet courtyard, beneath the darkening sky. Day was now fading into twilight, with only a hint of brightness still marking the sky to the west.
‘Oh my!’ Balten said, closing his eyes. ‘This feels wonderful. I had forgotten what a cool breeze felt like.’
He cast a spell upon himself and his torn rags knitted themselves back whole,and the dirt and crud dropped away, leaving him standing in the neat Paatin clothesin whichhe had first surrendered. After a moment, he looked like a new man.
‘We need to hurry,’ Samuel said.
‘Where are they?’ Balten asked him in return.
‘To the north,’ Samuel said. ‘In Yi’sit.’
‘I should have known,’ Lomar said. ‘Taking the Empress from there will be no easy task. I will go for the others. Leaving them here once we have escaped isnothing more thana death sentence. With the alarm sounded, they may already be under guard.’
‘True,’ said Balten. ‘We will deal with Om-rah and meet you at the Temple of Shadows with the Empress in hand.’
‘So be it,’ Lomar said with a nod. ‘Samuel, be careful.’ And with that,hewalkedaway back into the palace.
As Balten and Ericeach called their power,Samuel slipped the grimy ring upon his finger. At once, its power filled him and he struggled to fight back the dizziness and force the world back into clarity as it warped and blurred before his eyes.
‘Let’s go,’ said Balten and he leaptaway with a great magical jump.
Eric followed in quick succession and Samuel came behind. They cleared the palace walls on their first leap and followed each other, leaping through the streets-to the alarm of the city folk beside whom they came bounding. In five more leaps,they were into the pastures and Samuel began to draw ahead. He filled his efforts with snippets of the Flying spell he had gleaned from the Paatin Queen, improving it with each attempt. It could not keep him completely airborne,as he had hoped, but he stayed aloft much longer than the others, surging ahead of them,with his cloak flapping wildly behind him. It tookonlymoments before they had left the rich lands beside the river and entered the simmering desert.
‘Samuel!’ Balten called out as he sprung upwards from the sandy dunes, leaving a puff and an indent behind. ‘We can’t keep up with you. Try to slow Om-rah down. We will not be far behind.’
Samuel nodded silently. He could feel the current burst of magic waning and, as he fell to earth, he reached into the ring for more magic. As he struck the desert sands, he released the next spell and the magic of the ring flared out, throwing him forward so that the air stung his face. Eric and Balten were quickly left far behind.
He judged that Om-rah would have easily reached the Well of Tears by now, but he could not give up. He drove himself desperately forward, the Argum Stone burning its magic into his marrow with each leap.
It had not been longbeforehe spied the lights of Yi’sit rising above the dunes. About halfway between him and the town, he noticed a magical glow upon the sa
nd and he knew well the corrupt look of the magic.
‘Om-rah!’
He looked behind, but Eric and Balten were now too far behind to be seen.
The Paatin arch-wizard seemed to notice him approaching.Longbefore Samuel coulddrawnear, Om-rah had taken flight and risen above the dunes on his flitting wings, making a beeline directly for the settlement.
Samuel landed where the arch-wizard had been waiting and he saw what had delayed the man for so long. A camel lay dead,with most of its head missing,and the remains of two Paatin nomads lay beside it, amidst a flurry of blood splattered all over the sand.Mostof thenomads’ bodies wasmissing. It seemed that Om-rah’s penchant for fresh meat was fortunate, as he had stopped for a snack along the way.
With barely a pause to take all this in, Samuel boundedaway, leaving a cloud of sand erupting in his wake.
He gained quickly on the Paatin arch-wizard, for Om-rah was reliant on the beetle-like wings that extended from beneath his dark cloak and they could only carry him so quickly. It would only take another leap to reach him, but Samuel was already gritting his teeth with pain.
At the apex of his next leap, he sentouta Holding spell. He had hoped to bring the hulking wizard to ground, but Om-rah sensed the spell’s approach and deflected it easily. In response, he made a great trilling call that carried far and wide. It was a sound that no human throat should be able to make, yet Samuel sensed no magic in its utterance.
Almost at once, the lights of other Paatin wizards came flooding out from Yi’sit-first a few,and then more and more, as wizards swarmed from the town like angry wasps.
The final orangestreaksof the sun had now drowned into the west and night itself had fallen. To the east, the pale scar of the Star of Osirah was just climbing out of the sands, looking like a fiery white serpent flying atop the dunes.
Samuel landed and yelled with pain as he released his final jump. His magic felt as if it was tearing at his insides, but he could not stop now, so close to stopping the infernal wizard.
He aimed himself towards Om-rah as well as he could and he flew swiftly, crashing into the giant in mid-air. It felt as if he had struck a wall of granite and both of them tumbled from the sky, careening down onto the desert sands. Samuel managed to soften his fall with spells, but Om-rah dropped like a stone, sending up an explosion of sand where he struck.
Samuel hoped the wizard was dead, but he was taking no chances. He ran up the softside of thedune as quickly as he could,shields firmly in place. He had just reached the crest of the dune when a great black form loomed up at him and a claw snapped out. If not for hislightningreactions,it would have taken his head off, but the impact still threw Samuel tumbling back down from where he had come.
Scrambling back to his feet halfway down the dune and spitting sand from his mouth, Samuel spied the Paatin arch-wizard hobbling away as fast as his legs would carry him. He seemed quite inefficient at running, but it was a boon for Samuel to have damaged the tyrant’s wings.
Samuel scrambled around the side of the dune and beganto scrambleup and after Om-rah on the next. When he climbed to the top, however, what met his eyes made him stop in his tracks. To his magician’ssight, it seemed as if a thousand burning torches were flowing up and over the sands towards him. He knew what it meant-the wizards were coming to theaidof their leader, and more continued to stream from Yi’sit by the second. Whencethey had all come, he could not guess, but their numbers were overwhelming.
Om-rah used his wings to clear the next gap in the dunes, but Samuel could see he was having difficulty carrying his weight, with his black cape torn and trailing behind him. Looking down, Samuel was aware that the footsteps of the arch-wizard trailed ahead-but they were not the marks of feet or boots. Rather, the sand was patterned with the strides of great claws.
Spells began to whizz past him and Samuel called again to the ring-first putting up some initial defences, then rallying himself for an assault of his own. He could not let the arch-wizard get away from him.
Om-rah met the first of his underlings and continued through the sea of wizards without a pause, intent on reaching the settlement. There were too many wizards to deal with individually and so Samuel would need to find a way to deal with them all quickly.
Wizard-spellstingedandwhizzedfrom Samuel’s shields. The attacks were steadily growing in number and strength,and would soon start taking their toll upon his defences. He needed to find a way to disable as many of the wizards as quickly as possible, and so, unfettering his poised and readied power, he set the sands to tremble.
The Paatin spells ceased at once as the wizards sensed his magic approach. They felt the threat of his spell looming, and they readied themselves to meet it.
The dunes shuddered and the sands began to shift. Some wizards ran, while the stronger ones set their defences in place. A hissing sound began as the sands swept over them and the dunes began to waver. Up and down,the hills of sand began to heave, rolling like waves in the sea,and wizards screamed and fell as they lost their footing or were swallowed from sight entirely. Many of the wizards were more skilled than Samuel had expected, and they remained balanced, protected in shells of magic and safe from harm.
In response, Samuel called for his ring to give him even more.
The pain buckled his legs and he fell to one knee, but he could not relent yet. The spell was doing its work and,moment by moment,the dunes raged higher, crashing down upon each other with a thundering roar,accompanied by thescreamsof Paatin men and women.
Around Samuel, the sand shimmered and danced as the vibrations rattled it,andwhen he could take no more of the magic burning in his bones, he quenchedthe flowand the tempest before him immediately fell flat.
Almost at once, a dozen spells flew in all around him, and Samuel was aghast to see so many blazing spots of wizards still speckling the flattened sands. He struggled to re-open his channel to the Argum Stone and re-establish his defences. His head throbbed and his temples felt skewered by needles.
Struggling to his feet, he began casting out streams of lightning to the nearest of the Paatin wizards. Some fell, but others withstood his blows and responded with savage spells of their own. Striding forward, he began to pick them off one by one, but his bodycould not lastat this rate. This was far more than he could manage alone.
Two blazing balls of magic seemed to heed his call and they came crashing down beside him: Eric and Balten-charged with power and readied.
Eric released his magic first and a jet of desert sand erupted from beneath a nearby wizard. The man went flying and the spell continued away, forming an arch of churning sand that then dived upon another hapless wizard. The wizard had prepared a shield of magic, but the unstoppable weight of the sand drove down upon him and he disappeared beneath it. Moments later, the torrent of sand sprang up beneath the next wizard-and it continued like that, leaping from the desert like a serpent, picking out its prey and thundering down upon them.
Balten clenched his fist and streams of sand flew up from beside them, glowing hot and raining downin the form ofspears of glass upon the wizards. Dozens of Paatin went down, pierced and shattered by the missiles, yet so many still remained to bar them from reaching Yi’sit.
‘Rest a moment, Samuel,’ Balten called beside him. ‘Calm your spells. You are overspent.’
‘Heisnearly to the city!’ Samuel said, desperately trying to recover his breath. He quelled his defences and,at once,the cool night air felt refreshing on his skin. ‘We must stop him.’
‘These wizards are proving stubborn,’ Eric said, continuing to wreak havoc with his sinuous spell of magic and sand. ‘There are too many of them.’
Balten continued his work, but raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Your spells have upset the elements,’ he said and Samuel followed his gaze a-high, for the stars had disappeared and the night sky had become impenetrable blackness.
‘What is it?’ Eric asked, but a shimmer of lightning answered his question.
‘Clouds? He
re?’ Samuel asked.
‘The balance is broken,’ Balten told them. He sniffed the air and looked surprised. ‘I smell rain upon the wind.’
‘Is that possible?’ Samuel asked.
‘It does rain sometimes, even here, although the season is not correct. Our magic has drawn the storm.’
‘Somehow, I don’t think the Paatin will thank us,’ Eric said.
‘Not when they are all dead,’ Samuel said.
They then noticed the sand swelling up far away-four rising hills that came sweeping directly towards them from beside the town.
‘Jidanti!’ Balten said and he cursed in the Old Tongue. ‘They’re slow, but difficult to deal with. We must move quickly. Samuel, go! As fast as you can! We will cover you.’
Samuel went to spring away, but Balten stopped him before he could move. ‘Don’t leap! They are ready for that. Save your magic. I will provide you with some shields that should last long enough for you to get through to the town. You will need all your strength when you get there. Don’t use your ring until you need it, or I fear you will not be able to defeat Om-rah. He is very strong.’ And he set a wall of spells around Samuel as he had said.
Samuel nodded andstartedaway on foot as the other magicians renewed their efforts to defeat the Paatin. Eric sent his sand-serpent writhing along on one side of him,throwingthe wizards sprawling in sprays of sand, while Balten picked others off with his precisely-aimed spears of glass.
Still more Paatin stepped in to take their place and Samuel found himself evading spells left and right, bouncing them off his shields with screeching flashes of magic. The sand under his feet fell away and Samuel leapt as a massive claw came reaching out after him, dripping sand behind it. It clacked shut just below his knee and the great beast, as big as a three-storey house, heaved itself out of the sand after him. It slowly turned to follow him as the dunes spilled down from its shelled back.
She Who Has No Name tlt-2 Page 45
