Not an alchemy shop.
There was one other option for him.
Then he found the alley. Sam pulled Daven along it. It wasn’t much further. All he had to do was reach the section of the wall with the barrier…
There was another buildup of light. Sam pressed against where he thought the transition to be and felt resistance. He held the device against it, pushing, wondering whether it would work, and then they fell forward into the room.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam didn’t stay there for long. It was still possible that Ferand and the others would have seen what he’d done. If they had, then they would know there was a barrier here. He’d seen the way Ferand could work with barriers and even work around them, with enough power. The man had destroyed a section of the Academy as he’d breached it, so there was always the possibility he would do something similar now.
Sam dragged Daven to the wall leading to the other room. He didn’t know if the key would grant him access to the room, but he had to try. He pressed his hand against it and soon felt the resistance fade. The vrandal pulsed, and with each one, he could sense the power flowing from him and toward the wall, but they couldn’t go through.
“Daven, we need to get through here.”
Daven moaned. Sam moved him and tried to lean him against the wall, but that didn’t seem to make any difference either. What was it going to take? He didn’t like the idea of remaining so much in the open. If Ferand discovered this place, he would only need to pass through the barrier to see them. They had to get another layer of separation.
What had Daven done? It had been the vrandal, but Daven had lost his. Could Sam use his with Daven? He grabbed the man’s hand and pressed his against it, using the two of them to push against the barrier. The same sense of resistance was there, but he continued to push, letting that power flow into the barrier.
Then they fell through.
Sam dragged Daven toward the center of the room, holding onto him and trying to find a place where he could rest comfortably. The room was empty other than the single table with the strange lantern.
Daven needed help, and the only way Sam could come up with it was by using the very thing that Daven had used to communicate with other alchemists.
The lantern. Using that, he could communicate with Daven’s allies and call for help. He would have to do it before the device stopped pulsing. For now, it remained active, but he didn’t know how much longer that would be the case.
He held his hand near the lantern, and then it had started to glow with the deep greenish light.
Sam thought of the same sort of power when working with the almanac. He held his hand over the lantern out. He twisted his hand, following the pattern that he used to activate the vrandal, and there came a burst of energy out of it. It was the greenish light of alchemy, and as it flowed from Sam’s hand, striking the lantern, he felt something change. There was a sense of power that came from the lantern, power that flowed outward, that Sam thought he might be able to utilize.
There was a hint of color shifting. It happened slowly—almost too slowly at first. He tried to force it by focusing on the light, focusing on what he wanted from it. The color continued to shift. Then greenish light surged.
That was what he needed. What would happen? Maybe nothing. With what he’d done, it was possible nothing would change and that whomever he tried to reach wouldn’t even be accessible, but he had to keep trying.
“Hello?” Sam felt ridiculous talking to the lantern like this, but wasn’t that what Daven had done? “Is there anyone there?”
There came no answer. The light remained a deep green, though, so he had to think that, if nothing else, the change in the light was how it needed to be for him to find some answers.
Sam looked down at Daven. “What did you do differently?”
The man moaned again but didn’t make any other sound. If this didn’t work, then he’d have to go to Havash. Even if it did work, he’d have to tell the alchemist what he’d seen and that Ferand remained in the city, apparently more powerful than he had been before.
“Daven?”
The voice came from the lantern. Sam tensed and turned to look at the lantern. Was that a face that started to appear in the light? It seemed as if it was, but it could’ve been his imagination.
“It’s not Daven. He’s hurt. Ferand attacked him and took his vrandal. I got to him and brought him back here but—”
“Who is this?”
“I’m the one who was with him the last time he spoke to you.”
Unless that wasn’t right. What if Sam had connected to someone else? He didn’t know if the lantern required a certain focus to reach the right person. When he’d triggered it, he hadn’t even given thought to the possibility that he might reach someone else.
“The last time?”
The greenish light started to change, shifting a little. The face he thought he might be imagining began to take on a more distinct form. There was something familiar to it, though he wasn’t sure why that would be.
He backed away. It seemed better for him to stand at a distance, though he didn’t know if the face would be able to identify him through the lantern.
“Who are you?” Sam asked.
If it was Bardall, then it was the same person as before. If it was someone else…
Then he would have to find a way to cut the connection.
“This is Bardall Yolach.”
Sam let out a relieved sigh. At least it was the same person, though he didn’t know anything about Bardall to make him feel much better about this.
“I have Daven here,” Sam said. “As I told you, there was an attack. Ferand took his vrandal.”
“He wouldn’t have been able to take his vrandal. Ferand is strong, but he isn’t skilled enough to do that.”
“I don’t know how he learned, but he did. I distracted the other two attackers and then managed to get Daven away.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s with me. Like I said, he’s injured. Ferand was doing something to him. I don’t know what it was, other than it seemed to hurt.”
The memory of that would stick with him, he was sure. The way Ferand had pressed that strange sense of power into Daven’s head and tortured him, along with the shriek…
“We will send assistance.”
The light started to fade, and Sam hurried forward. “What kind of assistance? Do you even know where to find him?”
The light from the lantern disappeared completely. Sam looked over at Daven, who hadn’t moved. Help was going to come, but would it be fast enough? He didn’t know how badly Daven was hurt, only that he hadn’t moved in the time they’d been here. The injury Ferand had caused was significant. Maybe Bardall would send someone with the ability to use traditional arcane magic. They could heal him. Sam had seen it himself. It might even be Havash. They had mentioned him enough that Sam had to think they trusted the Alchemist.
Sam crouched down beside Daven. He squeezed his hand around the vrandal, feeling a trembling of power within it.
Every so often, he thought he heard sounds or thought he saw some greenish coloration that suggested somebody using alchemy, but that was all in his imagination. He kept worrying that Ferand was close, somehow having tracked Sam.
Daven stirred a little. Maybe he was aware of what was out there as well.
“Daven?” Sam whispered.
The man started to open his eyes. “Where are we?”
“Your place.” He helped Daven to sit up and worried the noise would be noticeable to someone on the other side of the barrier. If the barrier was secure enough, they wouldn’t be aware of them, but if not… he had to be careful.
“How did we…” Daven looked at his surroundings. “You?”
Sam nodded. “I don’t know whether we stayed ahead of Ferand.”
“He has the vrandal.”
“Can he use it to track us?”
The other man sighed. “I would
have said no, but I no longer know what he’s capable of. He shouldn’t have been able to take the vrandal from me so easily.”
“Because it is linked to you like the key is linked to mine?” Sam held his hand up. “I can’t even take it off.”
“It bonded to you,” Daven said. He wiped his arm across his nose, and when he looked at the blood, a disgusted expression crossed his face. “What a terrible use of that power,” he muttered.
“If it bonded to me, how was he able to use it? Why would I have been able to take it off him?”
“The vrandal is an ancient work of alchemy,” Daven said. “I told you. The one you have is the oldest, at least, we think it is. The Academy stored it, kept it safe. Or they were supposed to. Damn, but Ferand wasn’t supposed to have access to it. No one but one of the alchemists should have been.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Daven shuffled as he sat up further, furrowing his brow as he looked toward the door. “You said you detected something?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything to it or not. There was a sense from the other side of the wall. It made my hand hurt.”
“It’s possible he’s using it to track. That’s what I was drawn to, after all.”
“That’s why you left?” Sam asked.
“I detected a sense in the city.”
“Are there others out here?”
Daven sighed heavily. “There were supposed to be. The problem is that we haven’t had any word from them lately. If they’re out there, they’ve been attacked as well.”
“What’s this about?”
The man shook his head. “It doesn’t pertain to you.”
“I think it does. If Ferand is going to keep attacking in the city, and if I’m somehow going to keep encountering him, I think it very much does pertain to me.”
“And I heard you on the lantern talking to wherever that was. If they aren’t after the almanac, what are they after?”
“Oh, they might be after the almanac, but it’s mostly about the kind of power they think they can learn. Nighlan don’t know anything about alchemy. Not yet. If they can learn, they might be able to counter it. That’s the real danger. But there’s more than that. They believe the Academy has something of power. That’s the kind of thing the Nighlan would give an arm for.”
Sam frowned, looking at the vrandal. When he looked up to Daven, he saw his face twisted. Daven opened his mouth to say something more but then clamped it shut. He nodded toward the wall. “Be ready,” he mouthed.
Sam didn’t feel any sense of constriction from the vrandal. Nothing that would suggest there was anything out there.
“I guess that wasn’t anything to be concerned about,” Daven said with relief.
“Would he be able to get in here?”
“You were.”
“I had you,” said Sam.
Daven sighed. “Perhaps. The barriers along this place should have been enough to keep him out, but with his new understanding of the vrandals, I don’t know if he’ll now be able to break through the barriers or not. Normally, I would’ve said no, but now I’m not so sure.”
He leaned back. He seemed to be coming around, but the effort of speaking was taking quite a bit out of him. The injury he’d sustained had been significant, and he needed healing.
Waiting here was going to be dangerous, and that was if there was even help coming. Sam didn’t know if help was on its way. Regardless of what Bardall had claimed, it might not be possible for others to find them, and even if they did, they might not reach them in time.
All of that suggested to Sam that he would have to get moving. “Do you think you can walk?” he asked.
“Walking isn’t safe.”
“Because you’re too injured? If we can reach the Academy—”
“There’s no way for us to reach the Academy before he gets to us. He will have it blocked off, especially as he now knows you’re a part of this.”
“Is there another way into the Academy?”
“There was, but it’s been lost.”
“Lost?”
“There was another way, but those who protected it have hidden it.”
Without knowing where to look, he wouldn’t even be able to find a way past it. That meant they were going to have to make a run for the Academy. Or he could wait here. If Bardall sent help, then they could stay put, but he didn’t know if anyone was coming.
“Can you use my vrandal?” Sam asked.
Daven looked up at him, meeting his eyes. “I’ve told you. You’ve bonded to it. You are the only one who will be able to use it. It’s not common for the key to bond like that. That’s why it was so valuable. Could be taken off and used by another alchemist. The real secret had come when we learned how to create the bonding with other vrandals. Of course, that sort of happened through the alchemy used on them. Not that we had to do a whole lot for that. It’s powerful like I said. An old item and an old construct. Kind of thing that we wouldn’t have learned on our own.”
Why would it have bonded him?
“Why me?”
“Can’t say.”
“How were you able to use it when we were heading here?”
“I triggered it through you. It’s complicated, and it doesn’t always work.”
Sam lifted Daven. “Then we have to be prepared for you to try to do that again. If it works, then we have it. If not…” If not, they’d better hope they could run quickly.
He held his hand out, detecting whether there was anything on the other side of the door. There was no additional pulsing in the device, nothing that suggested anyone was there. He had to think they were safe. For now.
“Ready?” he asked.
“You said someone was coming to help.”
“And you said there wasn’t anyone in the city.”
Daven nodded. “Ready.”
Sam pressed his hand against the barrier. When they stepped through to the other room, they weren’t alone. A dark-cloaked man turned to them. A pale yellowish light surrounded him, and he held up his hand.
Sam reacted. He quickly formed the pattern that he knew, triggering the vrandal as he had when he fought with Ferand. The device pulsed for a moment, almost as if it would react for him, but then it faded.
“Daven!” he shouted.
The injured man squeezed his wrist, and a strange sensation washed over Sam. It was a powerful twisting sensation, one where he wasn’t fully in control, but he was aware he wasn’t in control.
When power burst from the vrandal and struck the cloaked man, Sam didn’t even know if it would work. This was different than what Sam had triggered before. Light blossomed in an incredible explosion of light; a surge so powerful that Sam could scarcely follow it. Then it was gone. When it faded, the cloaked man lay in a heap along the wall.
“What was that?” he asked, turning to Daven.
“That was a little stronger than I expected.” He let go of Sam and headed over to the fallen man and rolled him over. He reached for the vrandal on the man’s hand and tried to pry it free, but it wouldn’t budge. “They found a way to bond them,” he whispered.
“Why does that matter?”
“They weren’t able to use them before. They could use other items of power and had enough skill to be dangerous, but the vrandals were safe. Or had been. Now I can’t even take it off.”
“Is that why the light coming from them is different?”
Daven nodded. “The power they use through the vrandal is twisted. It’s different. They don’t use it the way I do. Or you, for that matter.” He rose to his feet and looked toward the stairs. They were nothing but an illusion, but it was an effective one. “I don’t know that I can come back here. If they’ve discovered it, then it’s no longer safe.”
“Do you need to grab the lantern?”
If that allowed Daven to reach his companions and communicate with them, then Sam thought he’d want it. If he didn’t, Sam
did. Having something that allowed for a connection over a distance would be incredibly valuable.
“They shouldn’t be able to find it. I don’t want to carry it through the street on the chance that we’re caught.” The tone of Daven’s voice suggested that he thought they would almost certainly be caught. “We should keep moving if we’re going to do this.”
The thought that one attacker was down should’ve reassured Sam, but he didn’t know how many remained. There might have been quite a few more. If any of them rivaled Ferand in power, then they might not be strong enough to withstand them. As it was, they couldn’t keep attacking like this. He didn’t know if they’d have enough power to knock the others out. It would be better to stay hidden.
Reaching the wall, Sam pressed his hand against it. This barrier wasn’t nearly as secure as the last, or he could pass through more easily. When they reached the alley, he prepared for another attacker, but there was none.
Sam guided Daven, and they moved as quickly as Daven was able. He didn’t move terribly fast, though he was able to keep going. With each step, he seemed to gain strength. The Academy stood in the distance, the glowing stone white against the night. As they neared it, Sam felt something behind him. He didn’t want to turn, but he also didn’t want to be caught from behind. He glanced over his shoulder and wished he hadn’t.
A looming figure appeared behind them, making Sam’s heart hammer.
Luthian. He was certain of it. The Grandam had warned him about Luthian. A dangerous Nighlan.
What was he after here?
Could it be the key, or was he after the almanac?
“We need to keep going,” he said.
Daven nodded. As they approached the Academy, he started to sag. Though his strength had been seemingly returning, it began to fade—and rapidly. Everything he’d been able to hold onto failed.
Sam was forced to drag him more and more. He slipped his arm around Daven’s waist, trying to prop him up and run at the same time. All they needed was to reach the garden. From there…
Daven slipped. It happened before Sam was even aware of it. He was so exhausted from the events of the night that he staggered a few steps before realizing that he no longer had Daven. When he did, he turned to see Luthian. The man was enormous. He had to be nearly seven feet tall, muscular and had a bald head. Everything about him screamed power. Only his eyes didn’t strike Sam the way that Ferand’s eyes did. There was almost a gentleness to them. It gave him pause.
Alchemist Assault (The Alchemist Book 2) Page 15
