The Oblivion Trials (The Astral Wanderer Book 3)

by D'Artagnan Rey

  She stepped forward, her claws up and at the ready, but when she saw her arms, a gasp escaped. Two new dark marks had appeared on her left arm and one on her right. While her anima might have protected her from the immediate effects, she was not safe as long as she remained this close. She looked at the censer from which the smoke continued to pour.

  “Why so worried, kitten?” the man asked as he picked the smoke-billowing object up. “Are you worried about the poison my dear Chantarelle is pushing out?” He knelt and patted the floor with one hand. “Come here. Don’t be shy. Maybe if you and I play a while, I’ll reverse the effects for you.”

  Her anima flared as she began to stalk forward angrily. “Oh, aren’t you in the mood? Maybe I should be more polite.” He scratched his chest and a bandage fell away to reveal graying skin beneath it. “My name is Hem. What’s yours, my little kitten?”

  The wildkin growled as she leapt at him. Hem was caught by surprise by her speed but spun quickly as a large puff of smoke from the malefic obscured him. She barely missed with her first attack but landed on one foot as he raised the censer to hit her with it. Immediately, she bounded back and slashed her claws at him, and while he was able to pull his arm away, her majestic increased the reach of her strike and three large gashes appeared on his arm. Hem uttered a pained yelp and scurried back.

  “Gah, that stings like—” He stopped himself and fumbled in the satchel on his waist to produce more bandages before he placed the malefic on the floor again. “Well, you certainly have an excess of energy. I’m not much of a fighter myself but I wonder if you can keep that up, kitty. After all, it takes considerable mana to maintain your anima and use your majestic. One surely has to give.”

  Asla glanced at her arms. The spots had darkened and more had appeared. She felt weary now and like the blood in her body was turning to thick sludge. Her breathing had thinned and she felt hot. Without a doubt, this was affecting her. She needed to kill this assassin soon or her death would be slow and she would be at his mercy until she finally passed.

  Hem twirled his hands and the smoke passed through his fingers and began to dance in his hands. “Do you care to trade stories?” he asked and formed the smoke into a small orb in his hands. “Would you believe that I used to be a healer? Exactly like Merri, which is probably why we hit it off at first.”

  He began to circle her as she stalked in the opposite direction. “I was accompanying an archaeological expedition team in Osira, which is where I found my dear Chantarelle.” He looked endearingly at the malefic for a moment as it released another burst of poison gas to thicken the fog. Asla took the chance to strike, sprinted toward him, and attempted to slice his throat.

  The magi loosed the sphere of gas he had toyed with and vanished into the thickened smoke as she dipped under the attack and slashed at nothing. She looked at the malefic and dove toward it as she empowered her gauntlets in an attempt to destroy it. They merely impacted the wooden flooring as the cursed object streaked to the other side of the room as if snatched by a magical hand—which was certainly possible if this magi had any skill outside the malefic.

  “It was she who called to me,” Hem continued. The wildkin saw several visages within the smoke, all roughly in his shape. She wondered if this was a trick of his or the poison affecting her. “I learned that a ruler long ago once had her to thank for his reign. He used her magics to kill any who opposed him, only to grow too complacent and die as a result of an assassination plot. She told me once I had taken her and shares all her secrets with me.”

  Asla shivered instinctively. This deranged man reminded her of Salvo. He spoke of his malefic in a similar manner and she wondered if this was some kind of defensive mentality killers used to justify their actions—that it was the will of their powerful objects that only they could wield, which made them right in their minds.

  She extended her arms and thrust them forward. The strikes, powered by her majestic, reached the far walls well away from her and sliced through almost the entire floor. They knocked aside some of the poisonous mist along the way to reveal the real Hem stretched on his back, his malefic held above his head.

  “So you’re not in the mood for a story?” he prattled and snaked onto his feet before he balanced the artifact on his head and held his hands out in front of him to gather the smoke as it poured from the censer. “You are full of tricks you, little minx, but I see your coat is getting rather ratty, isn’t it?”

  The wildkin backed away. Sweat dripped down her brow as she tried to raise her arms once again, but they refused to cooperate and dangled uselessly at her sides. Her knees shook and she felt incredibly thirsty and lightheaded. A dull throb of pain traveled through her whole body and her vision blurred. She was reaching her limit and while she knew she would not win this by attrition, she was unsure if she could inflict enough damage to kill him with what mana she had remaining.

  Her gaze settled on the place where she had broken through. She was on the top floor and all the upper floors were made of lacquered wood, which meant she could break through them with ease. While she needed to move this fight away from his domain, at least, perhaps she could do better.

  Hem began to throw blasts of smoke at random, mostly to taunt her. Asla maneuvered around them. Her steps attempted grace but she was close to simply waddling around the floor. She took her arm-mounted crossbow out and loaded three bolts.

  “Do you have another new trick for me?” Hem laughed and twirled his fingers to make smoky halos. “Give it a try, kitty.”

  The wildkin knelt and fired the three bolts. He dodged them easily with a simple sidestep. “A desperate move,” he mocked and tossed his censer from one hand to the other. “Those arrows are nowhere near as fast you are—or were. You shouldn’t rely on a weapon you can’t—” His eyes bulged as he heard something whistle ominously behind him. “What the hells? They come back?”

  He turned and one arrow barely missed his ear as he caught another in the air but dropped his malefic. The third came in low and pierced his leg. He shouted angrily as Asla used what remained of her mana and strength and vaulted to the ceiling directly above him while he scrambled to retrieve his malefic.

  She pushed off the ceiling with all the force she could muster and sank her claws into him as she pushed them both through the floor. The force of the impact was enough to drive them both through all three levels until they reached the first and she was finally out of the fatal haze.

  They crashed into the working area of the first floor and she bounced off him and noticed a few small splinters in her arms and foot. She looked at Hem, who limped for a moment, but her relief was short-lived. He thrust one of his arms out to grasp his malefic and he stood, pointed it at her, and shambled closer.

  “You bitch!” He hissed in fury and smoke poured out of the censer toward her. “I can’t wait until your body is nothing more than a rotted puddle of fle—” His words died with him when his head tumbled from his shoulders. Chantarelle fell out of his hands and his body followed seconds later.

  Jazai stood over him. He held a mana blade and sweated profusely, and a dark patch had spread over most of his face. “I would like to say that made this worth it,” he mumbled and fell onto his back in exhaustion. “But I would be lying. Good job. You look like you crawled out of the hells.”

  “Thanks. You look about the same.” She wheezed and crawled across the floor to close the malefic. When she turned to look through the holes she had created, the fog above that had begun to drift down now dispersed and faded to nothing. “It’s disappearing. Is that a good sign?”

  “Sure, but this is probably better.” Her friend held an arm up. Its color returned quickly and the dark patches and spots had already lightened noticeably.

  “So it worked, then?” Asla asked with a sigh of relief as she checked her arms and confirmed that the spots had begun to disappear. “Thank the Astrals.”

  “Yeah.” Jazai rolled his head to look at the two bodies near the cabinet, n
ow merely two skeletal frames with dark gray skin and patches of matted hair. “I don’t think I’ll ever look handsome but I’d rather leave the world as a prettier corpse than that.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Merri fell to his knees with his hands around his throat. Shadowy tendrils wrapped around the wound, and the light that emitted from it not only fought back but caused the shadows to wither back toward the magi’s fingertips.

  The light around Devol’s neck dimmed and faded away to show that not even a scar remained from where the magi had forced him to hold Achroma against his throat. The sword continued to glow as he approached and the shadow-user writhed for a moment before he fell with his arms at his sides and gave in to the inevitable. Despite his predicament, his eyes began to clear and the easy smile returned to his lips as he dragged in gasps of air, more out of natural habit than trying to stave off death.

  The young swordsman stood over him and held Achroma in both hands as he considered simply ending the false healer with one final strike. His adversary tilted his head with no malice or fear in his eyes as he looked at the young boy bathed in a warm glow from the light of his majestic. He smiled as his eyes filled with tears.

  “Kiara,” he muttered. “I’ve failed Kiara.” The regret he evidenced surprised the Templar in training and he wondered who the man had referred to. Perhaps it was the angeli he’d mentioned earlier. He did not ask, nor did he have the time to consider doing so. Merri pursed his lips, the blood flow from of his wound slowed, and his eyes shut for the last time. The mana in the magi’s body began to unravel and flow into the ground as he finally departed the living world.

  Devol lowered his blade with a sigh as he turned to move past the body. He kicked something inadvertently, looked down, and realized that he had nudged one of the magi’s packs, knocked it over, and spilled the contents. Among some vials and a couple of notebooks was a smaller bag, not well cinched, and a handful of familiar dark signets had tumbled out of it. The boy clenched his jaw in morbid realization.

  “Devol, can you hear me?” the diviner asked in his mind.

  “Jazai?” He retrieved his a-stone hastily. “Are you all right? Is Asla with you?”

  “We’re fine now but knackered, I have to say. It’s not surprising since we basically went through years of disease and medical treatment in less than an hour,” the scholar told him. “I noticed you didn’t come looking for us. What happened on your end?”

  The swordsman glanced at Merri’s corpse. “You were right to be suspicious of the healer.”

  “Is that so?” Jazai inquired and he could sense his friend’s unease even in his mind. “Were you able to get away from him or did you deal with him?”

  He took one last look at Achroma before he sheathed it. The light had begun to dim again and he traced his throat gingerly for a moment. “He’s dead. I discovered that he was hunting other Oblivion Trial participants.” His gaze settled on the signets on the ground. “He’s been quite successful at it.”

  “Asla said that the guy who trapped us here mentioned something to that effect,” the diviner informed him. “He said he was working with Merri. Tell me, is the fog clearing?”

  Devol finally took a moment to look at his surroundings. The camp, at least, was less shrouded and he moved cautiously through the alley and into the street. There was only a light haze in the area now. “Yeah, it is. I can see much more clearly now.”

  “Good. It seems this bastard played a part in making the fog, although it wasn’t fog so much as a toxic gas of some kind he produced with his malefic.”

  “Malefic?” he questioned, startled. “He was a malefic-user? Are you both all right?”

  Jazai chuckled. “It’s nice of you to ask but I wouldn’t be chatting so casually if I was still occupied by the bastard. That smoke was nasty. It even played havoc with the mana in the area, which was why we couldn’t establish a connection before.”

  “Where are you?” he asked as he leapt onto the sign of an old inn and jumped onto the roof of another building from there. “I’ll meet you.”

  “Focus your Vello,” the diviner instructed. He did so instinctively and felt a warm pulse from the northeast. “I sent out a pulse of mana. That should give you a rough direction. Look for a four-story building, probably with some structural damage now.”

  “Is that wise?” Devol asked as he hurried down and through the alley to the camp to retrieve his pack and the medicine bag from Asla’s satchel. He turned in the direction of Jazai’s pulse and vaulted onto the closest roof to move toward his friends. “What if you attract other magi?”

  “I think if that were an issue, Asla pounding our new friend through three floors would have been loud enough to bring anyone running by now. We have a different and more pressing concern, though, since we can’t leave this laying around.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “We should take it to the Order.”

  “Well, probably, if they weren’t already on their way here,” Jazai told him.

  “Do what?”

  “I’ll explain when you get here,” the diviner stated. “For now, let me tend to Asla.”

  The swordsman nodded as he continued to stride over rooftops. “All right, I’m bringing her medicine bag. I’ll be there soon.” With that, he stowed his a-stone and scanned the buildings around him. His gaze settled on a taller building not far ahead. It seemed close enough to the description to be the most likely location but before he moved closer, he felt the familiar touches of his friends’ mana surrounding him. They would be reunited again soon.

  When Devol entered the main factory area of the building, Jazai knelt next to Asla, who lay motionlessly on her back. Far behind them was a headless body and two other emaciated forms near a cabinet.

  “Jazai, Asla,” he called, jogged closer to them, and placed the medical bag beside the diviner. “Here. I brought some supplies.”

  “They are appreciated. I’m not much of a healer, at least with magic, but I can work with draughts and salves.” The boy opened the bag and rummaged around. “If you want to see it, the malefic is over there—but try to not get too close. Whiffs of smoke occasionally still puff out.”

  The swordsman’s gaze followed his friend’s hasty gesture. Near the body was a beehive-shaped object partially wrapped in bandages around the lip of the lid. He shuddered as he looked at the headless corpse. “Were you able to beat him by yourselves?”

  “Asla did the lion’s share—no pun intended,” Jazai explained as he looked at two different vials, one red and the other green. “I was stuck in this room trying not to let the poison spread.” He placed the red one down and popped the top of the green one as he pointed to the broken ceiling. “She beat his ass down from the top level in one massive attack that drove him through the upper floors. He landed here and I was able to finish the job. Unfortunately, she used much more mana doing that than I did, which meant she had to deal with more of that poison.”

  Devol turned and looked at the wildkin, who seemed to be napping. Her skin was clammy and there were traces of sweat. “Will she be all right?”

  The other boy nodded. “Yeah, the worst of it was dealt with when we killed the user. Poisons and disease, when made by magic, are deadly and almost impossible to treat by normal means, but they generally all have the same cure—ending the curse or killing the user. Fortunately, malefics seem to work on the same principle.” He tilted her head up and made her drink about half of the green potion. She complied but pulled a face at the bitterness. “This isn’t great but it will flush out anything remaining and begin to rejuvenate her body. Most of this is residual shock and fatigue from her body fighting the poison.”

  “Will she be able to press on?” he asked and knelt beside them.

  “I’m fairly certain, mostly because I don’t want to be the one to tell her she can’t come. There is no point in surviving a malefic-made disease only to die at the hands of an angry cat girl.” Jazai chuckled, swallowed some of the potion, and
made a similar face to Asla. “The person who finds a way to make potions taste decent will make untold fortunes. Anyway, enough about us. What happened with the healer?”

  Devol stiffened slightly before he responded with a casual shrug. “Merri was some kind of shadow magi and was hunting other trial participants, like I said. He caught me off guard with some type of magic I have not seen before—by swallowing some of my blood, he could control my body like a puppet.”

  The diviner froze and his gaze darted to his friend. “Seriously? What happened?”

  With an inner shudder, he recalled how the man had almost forced him to slit his own throat before Achroma flared and transferred the wound to the evil magi. “I cut his throat,” he responded quietly. When he looked up, the expression on the scholar’s face was a mixture of surprised and impressed.

  “Well, you’ve certainly come a long way since you first arrived.” Jazai picked the red potion up and gave some to Asla. “Not to make light of it but at the beginning of this year, you probably wouldn’t have expected to have killed two men by the end, would you?”

  Devol shook his head and withdrew his black signet. “I can’t say I did. Nor did I think I would be in a position where I would willingly walk into a place where many more will want to kill me—or at least not have a problem with it.” He rolled the signet between his fingers before he closed his fist around it. “And I know I may have to kill more by the end of these trials. But if they are like Merri and Salvo…I worry that it doesn’t bother me.”