The Rifts of Psyche

by Kyle West

  It would only be a temporary reprieve. It gave him time, nothing more. He could not indefinitely overdraw from the Manifold, as the poison of ether would make it impossible to remain conscious.

  So, he cut off the Psionic stream, his chest heaving. The power felt sweet, but at the same time, gut-wrenching with the nausea it had introduced. His skin prickled with fire. It was almost as if he could feel the poison of the Manifold rotting him from the inside out. The taste on his tongue was acrid and foul. If he drew any more ether, he would be in dire danger of fraying.

  He had to figure out how to use the Orb. And he had to figure it out now. Nothing else would save him.

  The words of the Oracle returned to him. The Orb of Binding would allow him to stream the Binding Aspect without fear of overdrawing. While its power was theoretically unlimited, it was still constrained by the strength of Lucian’s Focus.

  His heart pounded, not knowing what to expect. Using this Orb might even kill him. But he was dead anyway, and there wasn’t a moment to waste. He sought the Binding Aspect, only dimly aware of the flapping of leathern wings accompanied by monstrous shrieks.

  He opened himself to the Binding Aspect. And beyond even that in his mind’s eye was the Orb, waiting and thrumming with potential power. He reached for it with his Focus, and streamed.

  And gasped as the Orb siphoned an insane rush of ether into him.

  He had never known such pure, unadulterated power. And within the ether given by the Orb, there was no hint of the foulness of the Manifold’s toxin. It was as if it were naturally accrued ether, although even compared to that, it was purer. It was magic as it was meant to be, as it had been designed to be. And he could drink of this well as deeply as he could control it. In his mind’s eye, the Orb of Binding’s radiant blue light pulsed with seemingly endless energy. He had the power to Bind entire worlds, crash them together, rip them apart . . .

  It would kill him, but it was a possibility. If only he knew how.

  That power needed an outlet. Now, those wyverns would die. He had no doubt about that. He knew that as surely as he knew his own name.

  He began by streaming a focal point on a nearby stand of sharp rocks, and the focal point held with ease. As the wyverns entered a dive, he created two more streams, anchor points, one for each wyvern. These two streams held as well. That shocked him; the greater the mass of the bound object, the more magic required to complete the anchor point. Magic rippled through him, his hands emanating blue light. And still, the Orb pulsed, an endless fountain. He strengthened the energy in each of the anchor points, allowing more and more magic to stream into them. The rate of his magic flow doubled. Then tripled. And then quadrupled. The Orb opened further, allowing more ether to flow. The tethers connecting the wyverns to the rocks grew brighter, and brighter, until Lucian could hardly look at them.

  The rush of magic burning through him was unreal. It was like blue magma, and he knew without the Orb, it would have frayed his mind and body to a crisp. Even with the Orb, he could hardly control the two tethers, such was the power behind them.

  And if he lost control, he died.

  The Orb pulsed like a beating heart. With every pulse came more ether, more power, more magic.

  And that magic had to go somewhere.

  With a guttural yell, Lucian released the tethers’ tension, which had become a laser of blue light connecting the wyverns to the sharp rocks. The wyverns shrieked as they shot with incredible speed along those lines, the change in direction so fast and sudden that their bodies ripped apart in midair. Most of the wyverns’ remains were pulled along toward those rocks, where they were impaled, while the rest of the bloody bits and viscera had been obliterated into a fine, red mist.

  Lucian had no time to wonder at this power. To be horrified by it. The Orb was still beating like a heart, spewing more and more ether into him. Did this thing have brakes? He couldn’t hold it in, and it had to go somewhere. He set a new anchor point on some nearby cliffs, in the direction he had come from, and a new focal point on the cliffs opposite those.

  There was no time to think. He simply had to do. Holding this amount of magic for any longer would end him. He could feel the power of the Orb ebbing, the force of its pulses fading. He had to make sure every bit of it was streamed into the new tether.

  Lucian held the tether as long as he could, until he could no longer maintain the stream.

  He released, and with that action came a deafening crack. In a single moment, metric tons of rock ripped from the two cliff faces, guided by a crackling blue energy tether which looked more like lightning. The bright blue tether spread, diffusing into random rocks and debris, creating a storm of floating boulders that crashed into one another with thunderous booms. Small bits of rock rained from the sky, pelting Lucian’s back.

  He ducked behind a nearby boulder. For minutes, that rock rain fell in the slow motion of Psyche’s gravity. His chest heaved, and though his eyes were open, he couldn’t see a thing. When he tried to stream a light sphere, he didn’t have a drop of ether left. Minutes later, the cliffs were still collapsing. He could only hope he was far enough to not be buried.

  It was probably fifteen minutes before things settled down enough for him to poke his head above the boulder. He tried streaming a sphere again, but he could only do so long enough to see his immediate surroundings.

  What he saw looked like a war zone. Blasted cliffs, craters, ground up rock about a meter deep in all directions, the tinge of ozone, as if that massive storm of tethers had burned the air itself. When his light sphere winked out after using the last of his ether, he was left in darkness under a star-filled sky.

  All he could do was hope that such a raw display of power kept other wyverns away, rather than draw them like moths to a flame.

  He reeled in disbelief, knowing he had done something that no mage could ever hope to do. None of it had been a lie or a hallucination.

  He held one of the seven fabled Orbs of Starsea.

  4

  Lucian forced himself to stand, his legs shaking. He felt as if he were coming down off the hardest of hard drugs, every neuron fried to a crisp. An impenetrable fog made it hard to hold onto any thought for long. Despite feeling completely empty, he still needed shelter, and fast. He would not be able to handle another outburst of magic, and more shrieks were already echoing in the distance. It was impossible to tell just how far away they were, but he had no doubt they would be upon him soon.

  He began searching the piles of rock and disintegrated boulders for somewhere to hide. Surely in all this mess, there was some hole he could crawl into. He’d have to risk it collapsing on him, because sleeping out in the open was simply not an option. He had to find a crevice large enough to fit into, but small enough that the wyverns couldn’t reach him with their long talons.

  After a few minutes of aimless searching, he found something that would suit well enough. He got on his belly and crawled inside like a worm, going as deep as he could until he was sure nothing from above could follow him in. Serah had mentioned they could sense heat, so he needed to go deep enough for them not to detect him. He couldn’t create a fire, so he’d have to rely on the shelter of the rocks themselves.

  There was always the danger he could be buried alive, and he didn’t relish the thought. But as he saw it, this was his only option. He was simply too exhausted to run any farther.

  Once deep enough, about five meters beneath the surface, he closed his eyes. Until he heard the crunch of feet on the rocks above.

  “Lucian? I thought I saw something over here.”

  Serah? How in the Worlds had she found him? He remained as still as a mouse, unsure of where he stood with her after the Ramore incident.

  “I can feel you around here,” she said. “Too tired after your fight for a concealment ward, eh?”

  Concealment ward? Lucian had never heard of such a thing. “What do you want, Serah?”

  “Prickly, aren’t you? You buried alive or someth
ing?”

  “Something like that. Where’s your friend?”

  “I left him back in the cave. Sorry. He must have gotten jealous or something. He doesn’t really have much impulse control these days, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen how he acts around others.”

  She waited a moment, apparently waiting for him to accept the apology. He remained quiet.

  “If you hold on a minute, I can lift up these rocks with an anti-grav disc. It’ll probably kill me, but . . .”

  “No!” Lucian said. “I’m not buried. Just hiding.”

  “Oh. Well, coast is clear for now. Can you get out of there so we can talk?”

  Lucian considered a moment whether he could trust her. It didn’t make sense that she would risk her neck just to hunt him down. So what did she want?

  Lucian shimmied up through the rocks. The squeeze was so tight that for a moment, Lucian believed he might be stuck. He could see Serah’s bare, dirty feet above him, illumined presumably by a light sphere. He sucked in his breath, and pushed upward, scratching his torso in the process. The next moment, he was standing in front of her.

  She gaped at the surroundings. “You did all this?”

  Lucian looked around at the devastation, which was made even more apparent by the light of Serah’s sphere. “Seems so.”

  “I saw the blue light from the cave,” she said. “Either you’re the best Binder this side of Sol, or the dumbest one.”

  “Probably the second.”

  “There’s bloody bits of what looks like two wyverns on the rocks over there.” She pointed with her chin.

  “You’d be right about that. That was the focal point of the tether I made.”

  “How’d you manage to bind two beasts that size?”

  Lucian decided to ignore that question. “Why did you follow me?”

  “Well, I risked my neck to see if you were all right. As to the why, I don’t know. I just follow my gut, and my gut said to come check on you.” She smiled sheepishly. “Sorry again about Ramore. Like I said before, I guess he jumped to conclusions when he saw us together.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Look, are we sitting ducks out here or what? What should we do? Because I’m not heading back to the cave.”

  “I don’t know what sitting ducks are, but I think I know what you mean. I don’t think getting us both out of here tonight is in the cards. Besides, the pass is buried now.”

  “Then how did you get over here?”

  “I’m nimble as a rift goat, and my primary is Gravitonics. I’m almost good enough to fly.” A shriek sounded in the night, to which Serah rolled her eyes. “Great. They got the scent of us now. You think that gap can hold us both?”

  “Probably. It’ll be tight, though.”

  “We’ve got to get in there before . . .”

  Two more shrieks sounded.

  “Rotting hell. Get in!”

  Lucian let her go first. With the benefit of her sphere, it would be easier for him to make his way down. Serah wriggled quite adroitly, and he was soon following her path. She went to his former spot, as deep as it was possible to go. If Lucian followed her that low, they’d be rubbing elbows. Well, more than elbows. He was face-down in the tunnel, though, with no way to reorient himself so that he was facing above.

  “You’re too close to the surface,” she said. “One of their claws might stick you.”

  It seemed there was little choice. He wanted to be as far from the surface as possible, and if that meant risking it right next to Serah, then so be it. Besides, if wyverns could truly detect body heat, he needed to be as low as he could get.

  Lucian wriggled his way down, until he and Serah occupied the same cavity. He tried to create as much space as he could, but they were still shoulder-to-shoulder, lying on their backs in the gravel.

  “Don’t be bashful.” He could hear her smile. “I won’t bite.”

  Lucian ignored her. She let the sphere wink out, likely to conserve her ether. Lucian knew if those rocks above so much as shifted a centimeter, it could cause a chain reaction that would bury them both.

  Even as Lucian tried to create more space, Serah didn’t seem to be one for modesty. If anything, she snuggled closer. He almost told her to cut it out, but he had to admit, it was a cold night and all he had on was his prison jumpsuit. Sleep would come easier if he were warm.

  They lay there in silence, with nothing but the sound of their breathing and the fading shrieks of wyverns. After five more minutes passed, it seemed the monsters had lost the scent, because there were no more shrieks.

  Serah let out a sigh. “I think they’re gone.”

  Lucian moved to head up to the surface but was restrained by Serah.

  “Hold up! What’re you doing, trying to get yourself killed?”

  “You said they’re gone.”

  “If you go back up there, they’ll come back, mudbrain! You can’t keep me warm if you’re a dead body.”

  Lucian settled back. It appeared that this was reality, at least for the rest of the night. It was too dark to see her, anyway. Thankfully, she didn’t smell too bad, mostly of smoke and earth. He was probably far worse. They only showered them on the Worthless once a week, and it had been a few days since his last one.

  “I guess what they say about Earthers is true,” she said.

  She left that hanging, likely to get him to bite. “What do they say?”

  “That you’re all a bunch of prudes.”

  Lucian scoffed. “I’m no prude.”

  She gave a short laugh. “It’s all right. Maybe you’re just shy.”

  “I’m not shy.”

  She sighed. “Well, you’re no fun. That one you can’t argue with.”

  “This isn’t a vacation.”

  “You’re telling me. This is the first conversation I’ve had in months outside of Ramore’s grunts and groans. Can’t you indulge me just a little bit?”

  Lucian was too exhausted for this back and forth. Then again, it didn’t seem she was going to relent unless he gave her something.

  “Sorry. Just not sure what to talk about.”

  “Tell me about Earth.”

  “What about it?”

  “Paint me a picture. If you paint a picture nice enough, maybe I’ll fall asleep.”

  Lucian had to repress a sigh. “I’m from Miami. It’s a city in America. Lots of water, tall buildings. And people. Lots and lots of people.”

  “How many? A thousand?”

  “Millions. Most of them clawing and fighting for survival, but some of them living the good life.”

  “Which one were you?”

  “Clawing and fighting, of course.”

  “Good. That’s the more interesting answer.”

  She scooched closer to him, until the entire sides of their bodies were touching. Lucian didn’t stop her. They lapsed into silence for a while, and Lucian found himself getting a bit more comfortable. Even if she was fraying, she didn’t seem dangerous.

  “Tell me more,” she said.

  Lucian almost told her “no,” but he found himself talking about home and himself and how he’d ended up at the Volsung Academy. She got bored of that pretty quickly, and asked him instead to describe various things about life on Earth. What people did, what they ate, what the men looked like there, what the women wore. Her questions were exhaustive.

  “Let’s just get some sleep, all right?” he said, once he’d had enough.

  “I can’t fall asleep next to a stranger. You’re a dangerous prisoner, after all. An exile of the prestigious and exclusive Volsung Academy.”

  “I’m not dangerous. In fact, I was one of the worst Novices the Academy has ever seen. That’s why they sent me here.”

  She laughed at that. “Really? The weakest mage of the Volsung Academy can kill two wyverns and bury the Snake Pass? Then I would like to see what the strongest could do.”

  He somehow had to get her off the scent. If she even suspected what he had, he didn’t know how
she would react. “I don’t know how I did what I did. Pure luck, I guess.”

  “Lucky and dangerous. I think you might have a secret.”

  She couldn’t possibly know about the Orb. Then again, she had managed to detect him simply because he didn’t know how to stream a “concealment ward.” Was it possible she could detect the Orb, too? Was that the reason she was flirting with him, to lower his guard and try to steal it? To Lucian, it didn’t seem likely, but he knew not to trust anyone.

  “Remind me how it is you found me,” Lucian said.

  “I followed the light. And I followed the ripples in the ethereal field, which got me close enough to find you.”

  “The ripples? What do you mean by that, exactly?”

  “So demanding. I might tell you. But you must promise to be nice from now on.”

  “I am being nice.”

  “Men always think they’re being nice. But I regret to inform you that you’re an unrefined brute, Lucian. You must listen to a lady when she speaks and give the appropriate response to whatever she says. You might be surprised how far that gets you.”

  He suppressed the urge to growl. Doing that would only make him sound like an unrefined brute. “Well, you’re full of surprises. I’ll give you that.”

  Her posture seemed to thaw a bit. “That’s better. Well, Seeking is rather simple. Using Radiance, you can learn to feel flows of ether accumulating into a mage. Some are better at Seeking than others. When a mage doesn’t want to be found, they can stream what’s called a concealment ward, also using Radiant Magic. Done right, it keeps the mage from being sensed ethereally.”

  “I see,” Lucian said. “Thanks for explaining.”

  “You’re welcome.” After a moment of silence, she continued. “I feel like I need to explain something else to you. You’re from a warm climate, right, so customs are different. Here on Psyche, in the Upper Reaches, there’s little firewood. All you have is warm bodies to keep from freezing. So, this is very normal to me. In fact, it’s highly offensive to sleep separately from someone. It means you greatly dislike them, or you’re mad at them, or you’re just trying to insult them in some way.”