by Kyle West
“Aye, that it does. But light blinds them something fierce, and they won’t attack into it unless they are truly desperate.”
The woman suddenly approached. Lucian tensed, but she only walked past him and took a seat on a rock by the fire. There, she warmed her hands. “Have a seat. Looks like you’ve seen better days. I don’t have much, but there’s food and water.”
Lucian approached the fire cautiously and sat on the ground. He felt a curious pressure release in his mind. When he reached for his Focus, he had access to his magic again. He watched her for a moment cautiously, suspecting some trick. But it seemed her unblocking him had been intentional. It was her way of showing good faith, so it was on him to match that.
Lucian watched her from across the fire. “What do these wyverns look like? I found a steaming pile of crap up the trail, so they must be big.”
That got her attention. “Quite early for them to be active, but it’s not unheard of. They have big wings, big teeth, big claws. Trust me. You’ll know one when you see it, and there’s a good chance it’ll be the last thing you see altogether.”
“Lovely.”
She watched him. This was Lucian’s first real conversation in months. Did people always stare like that when they talked? Perhaps they did, and he had just forgotten.
“Is there something in my teeth?”
She broke into a smile that seemed a bit too wide. “What do you mean?”
Maybe that idiom didn’t exist on this world. “You’re staring.”
“I know,” she said. “Just sizing you up. If you lost that beard and got some meat on you, you might even be passable.”
Passable? What was she getting on about? Lucian decided that comment was best ignored. Her poking him just showed how little she thought of him as a threat. That alone was humbling.
He cleared his throat. He had to admit she was a good-looking woman, but besides their obvious differences, that skin of hers freaked him out a little. She claimed to have her mind still, but of course, she could just be saying that. Normally, fraying began its work by rotting skin and organs before spreading to the brain itself. It was hard to tell whether her eccentricity was due to the fraying, or from living alone. And why did she live alone, for that matter?
Whatever the case, he couldn’t ever forget that she had manhandled him like a child. Or rather, woman-handled. Whatever happened, he needed to avoid going toe-to-toe with her.
“Quite the conversationalist,” she observed. “Who are you? Where are you from? How’d you come to be here?”
Lucian warmed his hands a moment, considering his response while ignoring her jibe. “My name is Lucian. I’m from Earth. I . . . attended the Volsung Academy and failed out. That’s why I’m here.”
“Volsung,” she said. “Never been there.” She gave a short, somewhat bitter laugh. “Then again, I’ve never been anywhere but Psyche.”
He was right about her being a native. “What’s your story, then? And your name?”
“I’m Serah. Serah Ocano, if you care to know my family name.” She looked him over. “You’re the first off-worlder I’ve seen in a long time.”
“Are there a lot of Psyche natives?”
“Well, there was a colony here before the Mage War. And the other Worlds have been sending their own trash here for a while, along with the mages. And of course, people have needs, and those needs make more people. Not a lot of folks live here in the Riftlands, but go to the Golden Vale in Dara and you’ll find cities so big they’ll make your eyes pop out.” She shrugged. “Or so they say. Never been there myself. But they say Dara has a population of one million.”
That had to be an exaggeration, but Lucian didn’t want to openly disagree with her.
“My mother and father were both mages,” Serah went on. “I guess that’s where I got it from.”
What were the odds of that? Being a mage was supposed to be random, or from the Manifold, or whatever one wanted to call it.
“Why’re you looking at me like I’m strange?” she asked.
“It’s nothing. I’ve just always been told genetics had nothing to do with magical ability.”
“Genetics?”
Maybe that was a word she didn’t know, either. “The bloodline. You said your parents were mages, and that’s the reason you’re one, too.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s . . . different from what I’ve been told.”
“You’ve been told wrong. Children of mages aren’t always mages, but they are more likely to be.”
“And that’s . . . common knowledge here?”
She gave a lopsided smile. “What, they don’t let mages couple off-world?”
Lucian was about to protest, before he realized that they didn’t. Well, the Volsung Academy didn’t, at least. Could that be the reason? If the League didn’t want extra mages on their hands, they would certainly discourage mages coupling. Or force sterilize them, but that wasn’t a practice as far as Lucian knew.
There was something more to it than that. Vera herself had acknowledged magical ability had nothing to do with genetics. There was a missing component, but it wasn’t worth arguing about.
Of course, if Serah knew something that everyone else outside Psyche didn’t, that knowledge would be useless. No one left this world.
“I guess you know a lot about surviving here, Serah.”
“You don’t live to be my age without that.”
“You can’t be that old, though. You seem close to my age.”
“About that. Maybe a bit older. Fifteen or sixteen.”
Lucian looked at her blankly. There was no way she was that young.
“Psyche years,” she said. “Sorry. We don’t go by the Earther calendar here, but I understand the years are shorter there. I’m not even sure what I’d be in that. Twenty-five or twenty-six, I guess.”
“And you really live on your own?” He watched carefully for her reaction.
She poked the fire with a stick, her expression unchanging. “No. I’ve got a friend in the back of the cave there. He’s asleep, so no need to worry about him. He’s got the fraying bad, but it makes him melancholy. He’s not a Burner.”
“A Burner?”
“Wow, you really do know nothing. That’s what we call the ones who go crazy. They burn up all their ether, trying to kill everyone and everything. Until they kill themselves, at least. That’s maybe a quarter of frays. The rest just sort of . . . lose themselves, I guess. Slip through the cracks of sanity.” She sighed sadly. “That’s Ramore right there.”
“Ramore’s your friend’s name?”
She nodded. “I know, it’s a weird name. Don’t really know where it comes from. Me and him go way back. Both exiles from the Deeprift villages. I’m from Kiro, he’s from Fira.” She sighed heavily. “He was once a wyvern hunter, taught me a lot of what he knows. Without him, I wouldn’t have survived the Upper Reaches. Now, he needs me to survive.”
“That must be hard.”
“Yeah, it is. What can you do, though? I stick by my friends, even when they aren’t convenient. Makes the living twice as hard, but without him, what do I have? Maybe one day, he’ll get better. Not likely, but there’s always a chance. Most would have left him for the wyverns by now. Not me, though.”
“I take it survival isn’t easy here.”
She cast him an annoyed glance. “You’re one for making obvious statements, aren’t you?”
“Sorry. It’s all I’ve got right now.”
“Well, just shut up and listen. You don’t have to have some rotting remark to everything I say.”
Rotting? That was the second time she’d said that. It seemed like a local profanity. He wanted to ask about it, but figured it would be best to keep quiet.
She nodded in satisfaction. “That’s better. First thing you need to learn – get inside before nightfall. If you don’t, there’s a good chance you won’t live to see the morning. There are plenty of caves in the rifts. Don’t go in the
ones that are too high up. That’s where the wyverns like to nest. For that matter, you shouldn’t ever go to the very bottom of the rifts, the part where you can’t really see the sky anymore and it’s dark all the time. At some point, all the rifts go low enough and join up in this place called the Darkrift. That’s where you’ll find a lot of nasty creatures, and a lot of frays, too. And with frays, you’ll find Burners.”
“How far until the bottom?”
“There’s no real bottom,” Serah said. “It just keeps going down and down until you realize you’re not in the open air anymore. And it keeps going down below that, as far as we know.”
“How long’s a day here, anyway?” Lucian said.
“Well, a day’s a day. From what others have told me, Psyche’s close to Earth standard. Don’t know if anyone’s measured it properly, though.”
“I see. So, it’s just you and Ramore in here?”
She nodded. “It’s a bit too close to Kiro for my liking.” She held up a finger, staying Lucian’s next question. “Kiro is a day’s walk down the trail. Keep going down and you’ll find it. Big cave mouth, big wall, always guarded.”
“Why aren’t you living there?”
She laughed at that. “You kidding? I used to live there.” She held up her frayed arm. “The minute they see this, they send you packing.”
“That’s harsh.”
“That’s the rules,” she said. “Can’t let a fray wind up a Burner one day. It can happen at any time. Even if I don’t blame them, I don’t like them.”
“So, when someone frays, they just get banished?”
“That’s the modus operandi,” she said, mispronouncing things epically.
It sounded harsh, but if there was a better solution, Lucian didn’t know what it was.
“Well, it’s getting a bit late,” Serah said. “I should probably check on Ramore.” She stood and seemed to consider for a moment. “Tell you what. Tomorrow, I’ll take you down to Kiro, see if they might let you in or at least give you a chance.”
“Why wouldn’t they let me in?”
“You’re a stranger. Usually, you can’t get into a Deeprift village unless someone vouches for you, first.”
“Can you vouch for me?”
“I would, but I don’t know how far that would get you. Kiro and I have something of a . . . strained relationship.”
She went off to check on her friend. Lucian wondered how bad Ramore’s state was to be isolated back there.
Whatever the case, tomorrow he would wake up and hopefully reach this Kiro Village. He was nowhere near fraying, so maybe this place would accept him if he were willing to offer something in exchange, like work.
And always, Lucian had to remember his ultimate goal: escape. He recalled his audience with the Oracle all those months back on Volsung. She had entrusted the Orb of Binding to him. He didn’t even know what to do with that, and he didn’t know how any of it worked.
For a moment, Lucian doubted whether it had even happened. It wouldn’t be the first time. The question was probably pointless, anyway. He had to survive the night first, and every night after that. Then, he could worry about the Orb, along with the Oracle’s worrying encouragement to locate the rest of them.
When Serah’s footsteps approached the fire, a series of high shrieks emanated from outside the cave. Just hearing that gave Lucian chills.
“There they are,” Serah said. “Just pretend it’s a lullaby and you’ll fall right asleep.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“They’re checking us out all right. But with the way I built this fire up, we can sleep as safe as two mud-sallies during hibernation.”
“Whatever that means.”
“Goodnight, Lucian.”
Lucian lay down, being sure to keep the fire between himself and the cave entrance. More shrieks echoed from outside.
This was going to be a long night.
3
Lucian awoke to a guttural yell, and was pushed by some unseen force across the rocky cave floor. He scrambled up and found himself face to face with a shambling corpse of a man dressed in rags.
It took a moment for things to register, but when they did, he reached for his Focus.
It was going to be a fight.
Ramore’s deadened eyes did not match his wide, mad smile. He’d lost most of his hair, while his pink, mottled skin hung from his face like melted wax. His flesh was cadaverous and decaying, covered with open sores. He extended a trembling hand, which became wrapped with reddish light.
Serah scrambled up, her eyes widening. “Ramore, no!”
Lucian had time enough to wrap himself in a Thermal shield, countering the incredible blast of heat directed at him. Even with the shield, he felt as if he were standing in an oven. Ramore’s nightmarish face strained as he streamed more Thermal Magic. Lucian felt his shield buckling while his reserves of ether burned away at an incredible rate. Thermalism was not his strength, and this would be a losing battle the longer it went on.
“Get out of here!” Serah said. “He’s too strong!”
Ramore’s stream strengthened, and there was nothing Lucian could do to defend against it. Ramore’s expression was one of twisted, murderous rage.
Serah was trying to pull Ramore away, but he shook her aside with unreal strength, sending her sprawling to the ground. Lucian edged away from the cave while concentrating all his ether on maintaining the wavering shield. If it cracked, he would be immolated in seconds.
When he reached the cave mouth, Ramore was still in pursuit. Lucian had to do something to keep the frayed mage from following him, but what? All his ether was tied up in the shield’s upkeep, and if his concentration slipped, even for a moment, it would mean his death.
Suddenly, the heat dissipated, and Ramore keeled over with a groan of pain. Serah had clearly done something to distract him, but Lucian didn’t have time to speculate. He ran off into the darkness, leaving the frayed mages behind. Serah screamed something after him, but Lucian wasn’t sure what. The only thing he was sure of was that there was no way in hell he was taking his chances back there. Not when he could be murdered in his sleep.
He had to find his own cave, somewhere. Serah had said there were plenty of them. The only question was, could he find one before the wyverns smelled him out?
Serah had also said the wyverns hated light. So, he streamed a light sphere to illumine the path ahead, tethering it so that it floated about a meter ahead of him. As before, streaming Binding seemed to make no impact on his ether at all, even when he was dualstreaming. All he had to do was keep up Radiance, which thankfully used less ether than the Thermalism.
The trail snaked down into the rift. Due to the low gravity, Lucian wasn’t really sprinting, but loping. He forced himself to slow down before he careened over the edge. It didn’t seem as if he were being followed.
Not ten seconds after streaming the light sphere, bloodcurdling shrieks echoed from the rift, causing the hairs on his neck to stand on end. Lucian picked up the pace, glancing behind to see the cave mouth he’d just escaped, where two human silhouettes blocked the interior light. They both disappeared, likely seeking shelter from the wyverns that were surely coming.
He had to find a cave, and enough fuel to make a fire. The shrieks sounded again, closer now. Would he have the time?
The path made a bend, weaving between two clefts of rocks. It had to be the entrance of a cave. If he could just get inside, find some fuel, and light it with a Thermal stream, he’d be safe. Probably.
Lucian went inside, following the trail until it reached an open area surrounded by high cliffs. No, this was most definitely not a cave. There was no discernible escape, though of course it was impossible to tell in the darkness.
Lucian’s blood went cold when he realized the truth. He would have to fight for his life again, but this time, there was no Serah to bail him out.
The first thing he did was deepen his Focus, streaming the ligh
t sphere as bright as he could manage. Doing so burned his ether at an alarming rate, but there was no other way to counter what was coming. He needed not only to see his surroundings, but to inhibit the wyverns before they got too close.
Lucian didn’t have to wait long. Two massive, dragon-like creatures with wide, leathern wings and long, snake-like necks emerged from the darkness above the cleft. Their forms were long and scaly, while massive black eyes reflected the light of his sphere. In tandem, they opened their gaping maws, revealing rows of needle-like teeth, and let out discordant shrieks that sounded demonic as they flapped toward him. The light sphere had little, if any, effect on their aggression.
Lucian reached for his shockspear, only to realize he had no weapon at all. He had only his magic and his wits to rely on. And of course, the Orb of Binding. If everything about what he’d experienced on Volsung was a dream, then he would be dead within seconds.
But he would not begin by streaming the Binding Aspect. He reached for his Focus, only to find that the light sphere had eaten up all his ether. He had no choice but to overdraw from the Manifold itself. A sweetly poisonous infusion of ether entered him, leaving him shaking and exultant. It was a fiery power that demanded immediate release. He reached for the Psionic Aspect and began to direct every bit of that ether into a stream designed to push the two wyverns back as far as possible. He needed to create some space, enough time to figure out how the Orb of Binding worked. And a kinetic wave would give him that space – assuming his stream was powerful enough.
The hardest part was waiting for the right moment, watching helplessly as the wyverns dove toward him. They seemed to move in slow motion, a side-effect of being so deep into his Focus. All that training on the prison barge had given him a concentration greater than he would have ever thought possible.
And he would need every bit of it as he waited, patiently, for the right moment. He had to wait until they were just meters away . . .
The wyverns’ shrieks pummeled him then, drowning him in a wall of sound. The time had come to create his own wall. He finally let go of his stream, unleashing a massive, kinetic wave. His entire body shone with violet light as the shockwave emanated outward. It blasted the wyverns, who shot away as if knocked with a gigantic and invisible bat. They tossed and tumbled in the air, shooting into the distance. Lucian had hoped the lower gravity would make kinetic force even more powerful, and it was a bet that was paying off. The wyverns screeched their dismay, but they spread those wings wide and were slowly regaining control.
