Give it a moment. Sacha pressed her forehead against the cool surface of the wall in an attempt to gather her thoughts. She didn’t want to hurt Teacher any more than she had to, but this wall posed a problem. Whatever Vinnicus had done to her mentor was hidden behind this continuous slab of stone. She would have to get past it to make any of her recent hardships worthwhile.
Vinnicus! The thought came to her like a blow to the head. The pale creature had to have broken through these ramparts that night under the falls. Obey me. Those words haunted Sacha still, but that command had to have been the key Vinnicus used to pierce Teacher’s defenses. Surely it left some kind of damage, or a mark at least.
Sacha straightened and looked at the wall. It stretched in all directions as far as she could see, with no imperfections to be found. There must be something. Instinctively, she reached out along the wall with her arcane sense.
Deep within the wall, there was something. A tremulous vibration quavered against her mystic touch. It could be nothing, but it was all she had to go on, so she probed deeper, looking for the source. Sacha followed her senses along the wall, and the vibration increased as she went. When the ground actually began to shake, she slowed her pace, looking for any sign of where Vinnicus might have been. What came into view shocked her into stillness.
Actual cracks in the smooth surface radiated from a jagged hole just ahead. Plastered around the edges of the crater, clinging to the cracks and clustered in piles, was some sort of blackened residue. When Sacha was able to peer at the piles more closely, it had the look of congealed blood. Thick, pulsing veins of black and maroon trailed away from the piles, into the darkness of the hole and out along the wall, where they tapered to fine lines that lay on top of the cracks.
Sacha placed a hand on the wall near the opening, careful to touch only the stone of Teacher’s final barrier. She could feel the tremor crawl up to her shoulder, it shook so hard. There was still no sound, but she could imagine that if there were, it would have been tremendous.
This has to be it, Sacha thought as she stepped carefully closer to the gap and peered into the roughly man-sized hole. The gaping crater burrowed away into the stone barrier with no end in sight. The cracks and veins that had spread to the outside webbed the tunnel’s walls as far as she could see.
A sense of dread crept over Sacha. She was going to have to go in, and through if possible. She stepped into the jagged hole and brought her amber blade to bear. Its soft light showed her the webbing on the walls. An effort of concentration increased the light enough for her to see the bits of rubble she might have tripped on as she walked. The pulsing veins crisscrossed the floor as well. When she bent over to peer at one that was nearly the size of her arm, she could just make out a viscous red-black substance moving inside the translucent walls. She straightened away from it, disgusted. She had a goal, and whatever this might be was only a distraction.
The vibration increased in intensity as she moved deeper into the tunnel. Chunks of stone and broken, bleeding veins dropped from the ceiling with each shiver. It was as if the wall was trying to close itself back up, but the thick tendrils of black prevented it from doing so.
Sacha pressed on.
Days if not weeks appeared to pass as she stumbled through the dark tunnel. The structure of time had no place here, so how long Sacha had truly traveled was impossible to say. Eventually, a pinprick of light came into sight. Sacha almost wept at seeing a possible end to this horrid breach and ran despite the jagged terrain. The oppressive closeness and quaking of the rough walls eased as she approached the ever-growing portal of light.
Tears did come to Sacha’s eyes as she stepped to the edge of Teacher’s inner mind. From the precipice, a shifting cityscape that could rival the towering cliffs of Stone Mountain and the natural beauty of Terrandal sprawled out below. Buildings of wood and golden stone rose and mingled with every variety of tree found on Orundal. It was unlike anything Sacha had ever seen.
The minds of the Wildmen had been nothing like this. Their disjointed thoughts and memories had no such sense of organization or aesthetic. There had been structures, yes, but they were shanties and hovels by comparison. She remembered Teacher’s voice drilling at her what she should expect to find. “Cities of Memory,” he called these places. Given her experiences with the Wildmen, she wondered if the spectacle below was a reflection of the principle Teacher himself had learned, or if the name was a product of the way he had built his own mind. Either way, his lecture had continued: “You will find that the healthy mind is a very busy place, pupil. There is no lack of activity in even the slowest of minds. Each perception is measured against the chalkboard of experience to help the perceiver understand whether the thing they see or are experiencing is bigger, smaller, harder, softer, or the like to things that have come before it. In order to make the tens of thousands of judgments that happen every day, the minds of our kin have become complex and wondrous places.”
In defiance of that lecture, Teacher’s City of Memory was apparently empty. No milling crowds dotted the fields. No merchants plied their trade in the streets. No children darted from place to place, looking for adventure. Instead, the wondrous architecture stood in silent testimony to an absent populace, dignified, elegant, and uniform, with one exception. Directly below her vantage point, a massive crater scarred the infinite perfection, boring a hole deep within Teacher’s sanctuary.
Whatever had fallen had wrought much destruction. Around the edges, she could see buildings and pieces of buildings that teetered precariously on the edge of tumbling into the abyss. Trees lay everywhere, shattered, burned, and broken. The inner slopes of the crater were lined with an untold number of cages. Black and ugly cages made from a red iron that looked almost charred. Inside the cages was the missing populace.
It would seem that she had found the heart of Teacher’s inability to leave Riverside. Here is the jail, but where’s the jailor? She scanned the area again but was too far away to discern anything new. With a quick step, Sacha fell from the wall down toward the crater.
She couldn’t fly in the real world yet, but in the realm of the mind, certain physical realities—like gravity—posed a much smaller problem. Sacha simply willed herself to be lighter as she fell. By the time she was level with the red-iron cages, she had almost come to a complete stop. She wondered briefly if it could be as easy as willing oneself to be lighter, or if she would need to grow wings to be able to take flight outside the mind. Another lesson for another day.
Dirty, lean faces peered through the bars as she descended slowly. If there was hope on those faces, Sacha couldn’t see it. She pushed herself closer. The individual cells were not arranged in neat rows. Instead, the rough iron containers were shoved into the wall of the crater wherever space could be found to accommodate them and trailed down into the darkness below. Lengths of chain strapped the cages together in an endless web of iron. Even though these prisoners had no physical needs, the misery was easily apparent. Dull eyes watched her as she approached, but no voices beseeching mercy were raised.
“Who has done this to you?” she asked a man who looked like Teacher might have twenty years ago.
The man remained huddled in the far corner of his cage, either unable to answer or unwilling to.
Sacha suspected she already knew the answer to that particular question, so after some thought, she asked, “Is there something keeping you here?”
The prisoner looked at her for a long moment before nodding.
“What is it? Where is it?” Sacha asked.
The man simply lifted a ragged arm and pointed down toward the center of the crater.
Sacha looked into the darkness below. A sense of dread filled her as she thought of what or who might be waiting for her. You mustn’t stop now, she thought, steeling herself against what might come. You must press on. Grudgingly, she started her descent once more.
The red-iron cages continued to line the walls as she dropped, every one of them occupied w
ith dirty, cringing figures. The prison seemed to go on forever until the webbing of chains coiled into long lengths that gradually came together as they continued down into the darkness.
Sacha followed the glowing chains as they twisted together to create two giant cords, one on each side of the crater. The pair of looping iron bands eventually curved toward the center of the massive hole in Teacher’s mind until coming to a halt at what appeared to be the bottom of this dismal pit.
A dark, viscous fluid spanned the entirety of the crater’s base. Its surface was smooth as glass and reflected the dim glow of the massive chains flawlessly. At the very center of this madness stood a figure.
Teacher.
Sacha gasped at the sight of her mentor.
The two twisting cords of thick chain came down from the cages to twine around his outstretched arms so that his forearms could no longer be seen. Tendrils of smaller chains snaked out from the two bands, cutting into his pale flesh as they crisscrossed around his chest. His lower half was submerged in the blackened pool, trapped as if he had fallen into riverbed clay. The hair on his drooping head was gone, torn free, leaving bloody strips of exposed scalp.
“Teacher?!” Sacha flew over to him, careful not to touch the calm liquid. “Teacher, can you hear me?” She reached out and ever so gently raised his head.
His mouth was agape and his eyes stared, but what looked back at her were the solid black eyes of Vinnicus.
Sacha jerked her hand away in shock. Mother of Eos.
“You are looking for me, dear pupil,” Teacher said from behind her. “Not that poor soul.”
Sacha spun around, startled.
Iron bars, similar to those she had seen above, covered a portion of the crater wall. Behind the bars, a room had been cut out, its sides, floor, and ceiling finished in finely polished sandstone. Inside this oddly placed prison stood Teacher, dressed in white cotton robes. Not the Teacher she had come to know over the past year but the core self of the man she remembered from her training at the Monastery.
Unbidden tears came to Sacha’s eyes as she floated over to him. Her voice broke as she asked, “What has he done to you?”
Teacher gave her a sorrowful smile. “He has taken my freedom.”
“This is my fault,” Sacha cried. “He did this because of me.” She wanted nothing more than to crumple up on the ground and weep, but given the surrounds, hugging herself would have to do.
Teacher slowly shook his head. “No, child. He did this to fulfill his own ends. You are not to blame. In fact, you have helped me tremendously.”
She wiped the tears from her face with a sob. “What have I done but abuse the power you’ve unwillingly taught me?” Dozens of broken minds pounded down on her soul.
“Listen to me, pupil.” Teacher stepped closer to the bars of his cage. “In war, there are atrocities committed by both good and evil. The key to surviving it is that you must maintain a solid grip on who you are. You must not lose yourself to the evils around you.”
“But I have done so many terrible things...”
“We all have, my dear,” Teacher comforted. “It is a part of life, unfortunately. But you are forgetting about redemption. One day it will be offered to you. When it comes, you have to remember to take it.”
Sacha slumped with exhaustion. The emotional burden she carried was as heavy and real as any physical weight. Teacher’s words helped lighten the load, but there was just so much. She was ready to be rid of it all. “How have I helped you?” She then gestured to the bars. “How can I help you?”
He smiled tiredly. It was a genuine smile Sacha had not seen in over a year. “Your very presence here is a testament to your tenacity and skill and more than a relief for these weary eyes. I had hoped you would come.”
Sacha’s mouth sagged open. He had hoped... “What do you mean?” The tireless lectures she had endured about the potential evil and damage inherent in this power had made her believe a tongue lashing would be the least of her reward if she was successful. “You wanted me to come?”
“Perhaps ‘needed’ is the more appropriate word.” He waved a hand at the surrounding cage. “You see, in here I am just a normal man, devoid of my power—”
“But the lectures, and your anger every time I pushed you to teach me.” Sacha persisted, interrupting him. “What I did was against your will...”
Teacher nodded in understanding. “Had I been able, I would have protected you from the temptations and pitfalls that come with learning to the power of the mind. It is no small danger to you and it tears at my soul that I failed you in that. I pray that you will one day forgive me.”
“Forgive you?!” Sacha asked in shock. “I should be the one asking for forgiveness.”
“No, my pupil,” Teacher said. The firm authority earned by years of guiding others gave his voice an edge of finality. “You are not responsible for the position in which you find yourself. If I had been more able, or perhaps more diligent, you could have been shielded from this path. I hold no ill will toward you.”
Sacha remained dubious but made no further objections.
The crease in Teacher’s brow easied. “As it stands, I cannot escape without your assistance.” He pointed at the bound figure behind her. “All of my power resides with him.”
Sacha glanced back at the chained figure but shuddered and turned away. “Who is he?”
“He is me, and I am him,” Teacher answered. “We are one and the same.”
She thought she might understand the truth of his words. Within the cages above, Sacha had seen many variations of Teacher mingled in with countless other people that must have been from his past. It wasn’t a difficult stretch to believe Vinnicus had somehow separated Teacher’s mortal self from his magical one, or that this was simply the way Teacher had processed what Vinnicus had done to him. Either way, Sacha could clearly see why her mentor was unable to break free.
Sacha gestured toward the chained version of Teacher. “That’s what has been training me this past year?”
Teacher nodded from behind the red-iron bars. “For the most part, yes.” Another grin from old touched his pristine features. “Though I’ve gotten a few words in on occasion.”
Sacha smiled. “Yes, I finally figured that out.”
“As I knew you would,” he said with pride.
Her cheeks flushed at his praise, as they always had. As silly as it might have seemed, considering how far she’d come and what she’d been through, Sacha still needed the reassurance of this man that she was doing the right thing and doing it with some degree of success. She sobered, shaping her building confidence into purpose. “What needs to be done?”
Teacher’s gaze shifted to the tortured soul in the pit. “He must be set free. As must I.”
Sacha looked again at the bound figure. His drooping head had risen just enough so that those horrid black eyes stared at the two of them.
“What will he do when I free him?” she asked with concern.
Teacher crossed his arms over his chest. “Honestly, I do not know.”
“That’s comforting.”
Her mentor sighed. “What I do know, pupil, is that he and I must become one again.”
The prospect tightened the knots that had already formed in Sacha’s stomach. The Teacher in chains had begun a slow shift in form since she had locked eyes with the black and soulless gaze. It had been subtle, but the thing that hung suspended was now only a parody of human form with twisted limbs and hugely disfigured features. She dreaded to think what might happen when the Teacher she had come to respect and care for merged with such an abomination. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Teacher gave her a knowing smile. “It is what must be done, no matter how dreadful it might seem.” He stepped back from the bars. “Break us free.”
Sacha took a deep breath and summoned her amber sword. She still had her doubts about this being the right thing to do, but she had faith in Teacher, and that was enough for now. She took hold o
f the sword with both hands, even though it wasn’t necessary. She found that grasping the weapon gave her an extra feeling of control and power. After taking aim at the bars to Teacher’s cage, she swung the sword as hard as she was able.
The sword trailed a fiery arc as it glided through the air. The blade struck the red-iron bars and sliced through them without so much as a screech of resistance.
When the bars began to melt away, the thing hanging in the pit began to shriek in agony. Her mentor rushed forward to the sagging bars, speaking urgently. “Quickly, you must free him!”
Sacha spun to face the bellowing abomination.
His bleeding head was tilted back as he screamed. Veins, tendons, and cords of muscle rolled under his skin as he strained against the chains. All around them, the crater shook from his pain and anger. The once-quiet pool lurched and rippled with his thrashing.
Sword still in hand, Sacha sped through the air toward the screaming man. Again, her blade struck home, severing one of the restraining cables as she darted by. The chains unraveled, whipping about like striking vipers as they disappeared into the darkness above.
Sacha circled back with lightning speed and severed the second rope of chain, setting Teacher’s tortured self free. She turned to fly back to the cage at the shore but was struck with a wave of force as she flew. She cried out as she tumbled through the air. Her sword was flung from her grip and disappeared in glowing motes. Her body crashed into the sandstone room where the other Teacher had been kept. She tried to get to her feet, but the room spun, sending her back to the floor.
“Teacher?” she asked, dazed.
His only reply was a shout as her mentor joined battle with the thing his other self had become.
Sacha crawled to the opening. She reached out to take hold of a melted bar and pull herself up. Searing pain shot through her palm and up into her arm when she touched the blackened iron.
She yanked her injured hand away with a cry. The pain was all consuming, blotting away even the fierce battle between Teacher and the unbound incarnation of his power.
Book of Sacha: Dark Fate (The Dark Fate Chronicles 3) Page 20
