Beyond the Sapphire Gate: Epic Fantasy-Some Magic Should Remain Untouched (The Flow of Power Book 1) (34 page)

Malkor’s eyes narrowed. He scowled. “The little thief never mentioned anyone except you. Where are the rest? Command them to show themselves!”

Crystalyn’s ire grew. She’d made all the concessions and received nothing in return. Negotiations had failed. Danger now loomed over Broth and possibly Hastel, initiated by her stupid, blundering mouth. It didn’t matter now, had never mattered. From the start, cooperation had only stoked his brutality; Malkor’s type should have been simple to read. Power was their only ambition. “My companions are my concern. Please, release Atoi. I don’t want to get angry with you.”

Malkor’s eyes bulged. “You stupid, foolish, arrogant little girl, Allow me to inform you what happens now. You won’t be enslaved, as I first intended,” he said, his voice a hiss. Taking a step backward he lowered a palm toward the ground. “Your death will instead, be marked by cries of pain. Everyone, burn her, burn her now where she stands!”

At the edge of her vision, brown shapes removed their hands from their sleeves.

Crystalyn had anticipated anger to follow her demand, but she hadn’t expected him to attack so quickly. She released her prepared symbol as Malkor’s hands vanished behind a red mist. Black raindrops coalesced into the symbol as it spun in front of her. Picking up speed, the symbol spun, flinging the droplets away in a growing circle at an incredible rate. Whirling faster and faster, droplets shot forth like a sodden cloth wrung dry, though her symbol was no towel, nor were the droplets flung from it water. They were liquid however, an unforgiving liquid, something she may not have chosen to release had she known its deadly effect.

Where the droplets landed, black smoke hissed and finger-sized holes appeared. Gray marble, clothing, or flesh, it didn’t seem to matter. The black rain burned through it all. Nausea rose in her stomach, but she forced herself to continue on, or be overrun. Rotating her body and the symbol with it, she peppered the brown robes, their fists aglow with a tan translucence.

Some of them managed to hurl clouds of needles at her symbol. The dreadful rain steamed every needle, however small. Black, caustic drops flew at the hapless Users. Some died screaming as the droplets ate through the main artery of an arm or leg. Others dropped without a sound as the black liquid sank through tissue, bone, or some vital organ.

The left side drenched, she worked her way down the right until she faced Malkor. The red-robed Dark User had erected a transparent barrier around his body, but not before one leg had taken severe damage. Lips peeled back in agony, he hopped toward the black obelisks and vanished through the gate. Crystalyn swept the symbol over the one guarding Atoi.

Broth’s enraged growls broke through her methodical cleansing.

Crystalyn dissolved the symbol, feeling detached, but with a growing sense of elation. She’d won. With the exception of Malkor, no Dark User had survived. She had beaten them all. At least no visible was upright.

Atoi appeared intact, with no open wounds in sight. She knelt beside her oldest, yet youngest, companion. Atoi was still unconscious, though her breathing seemed normal. She wondered if it was possible to kill her. Atoi-the-Girl may die should her little host body take damage beyond the entity’s ability to heal or replenish her blood. Once the precious bodily fluid was gone, it may leave the husk behind. Perhaps. Or, perhaps, the entity shielded her from the worst damage. Who knew what it could do, or what it
would
do. How badly would it want to preserve its host?

Atoi-the-Dark Child was a mystery that rarely communicated. She was glad she’d met her and found a friend with the little girl. Though calling Atoi a ‘friend’ was stretching her sensibilities a bit—the little imp
had
stabbed her on their first meeting—but she’d been a loyal little sociopath thereafter, even bringing help to rescue her from the spiderbees. Whether the being Atoi carried inside was a friend was still a mystery. Crystalyn suspected
friend
was as alien a concept to it as it was alien to them all.

Her eyes fell on the dagger lying beside the tattered, red-robed guard’s corpse. Picking it up, Crystalyn was surprised at its weight, far less than its size suggested. The balance of the thing was flawless.

Do’brieni!
Weakness and pain flowed into her mind.

Broth! Oh no, please, don’t be hurt!
Silence subdued her silent plea.

Fearful of what she would find, Crystalyn ran to the last place she’d seen Broth. Rounding a pillar, she slid in a dark red liquid, careening against a brown-robed body, flailing to keep her footing. Broth lay close by. Many brown robes lay wet and torn around her faithful companion. No one moved. Not even her Do’brieni.
No!

Falling to her knees, Crystalyn willed her heart to slow while groping under the Warden’s front haunch where his fur was thin. Slick with his blood, Crystalyn spent a terrifying moment finding a weak pulse. It would have to be enough.
It had to.
Bringing out her golden healing symbol, Crystalyn attached herself to it as it sank into her companion.

WAIL

Sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, Jade peered in terror over Camoe’s shoulder as he crouched. The terror she’d sensed, growing ever stronger since leaving their camp hours ago, had its source within the monstrous wall rising dark and ominous from where they hid. The rock and earthen pile that concealed them was small: Jade imagined two giants hiding behind a thrust cycle. Some part of her and Camoe had to be sticking out flagging the enemy.

Spread out beyond their lonely pile, a shattered talus field lay leveled, as if someone had ignited explosives throughout the area, and then dragged something heavy over it once to fill in the holes. Why had the druid brought them so close? The wall was not as high as the one above the Black Gate at the Dark Citadel, but still it was high. Someone or something was watching them cower behind these pebbles; she could feel it through every fiber of her being.

Her benefactor was acting from desperation. There was no way she’d be able to do what he wanted: she couldn’t step out into the open in front of the ominous thing, not even with sunlight fading. It was too barren, too open out there. Even a small lizard would have to move ever so carefully, scurrying from rock to rock. Where was the pitted ground Camoe had described earlier?

Jade glanced at her druidic guide. His plan had seemed a bit brazen behind the cover of the short, rocky ravine that had brought them this far. He had assured her that, by keeping to small drainage ditches and cratered holes left behind from ancient times; they could pass the wall undetected in daylight.

They had to do it by light of day. Nightfall, he’d claimed, would increase the danger of the guardians’ detection. Now look at them, stuck behind a pile of pebbles, afraid to go forward and too wary to go back. The risk was too high they’d be spotted a second time. Yet what else could they do? Sit here and wait for the Stair’s denizens to slaughter them at days end?

A winged shadow in the shape of a large man darkened the ground before them.

Camoe tensed.

Jade bit her lip to keep from crying out.

What landed a spear’s throw away was no man. The back of its large, wide head had thick brown hair, but any resemblance to human ended there. Its scaled wings befitted a hatchling dragon, with prominent bone spikes protruding from the membrane tips. Jade guessed without difficulty what the creature was from Camoe’s earlier description.

The maimwright retracted its dragon-like wings along its spine, forming a spiked carapace that added to its already formidable armor. Shifting on splayed, three-toe feet, the maimwright head pointed toward the swamps, showing its beaked profile.

Jade’s bottom lip hung slack in her mouth, chewing forgotten as her fear grew. Thick, curved claws protruded from the end of one of its arms like a wheat scythe scissor. The claw looked strong enough to shear through an aspen tree—or her waist. Camoe’s comment about maimwrights keeping food fresh blared in her mind. Its food required cutting into chunks to fit in a beak.

Jade knew she should flee, but her body failed to respond. Her eyes remained fixed on the scissor hand, watching in stark terror as the maimwright opened and closed them as though in anticipation.

A shadow passing overhead followed by the thump of something heavy enough to vibrate the ground, heralded the arrival of a second creature. Afraid of what she would see, Jade tore her vision from the first creature to gaze at the second one.

The newcomer was a darker shade of green, yet was similar to its partner in most every horrid detail. Its monstrous face showed wide mandibles covering the jaw where a nose should reside. Two rows of jagged, carnivorous teeth lined the beak. Above the beak, two multifaceted eyes crammed with silver octagons bulged out below its forehead like a diamond covered with a screen foil.

The green maimwright halted near the brown nightmare, opening its beak. A series of clicks and wheezes in an odd supernatural tone spewed forth, rolling over the teeth. The clicks and wheezes ended abruptly when the brown creature turned its alien head in their direction.

Camoe drew his sword with a faint rustle of air.

Jade wanted to scream at Camoe. What could he hope to accomplish against two of them? It was hopeless. The maimwrights had size and strength on their side. Camoe had only useless, helpless her. Her mind cried out a warning to run away, but terror kept her mute and frozen.

The maimwrights separated, approaching their hiding spot with surprising speed.

Camoe gripped her arm hard. He pointed with his sword, breathing a terse whisper, “Run back the way we arrived. Make for the fallen falun tree. I shall attempt to meet you there.”

Jade nodded, but still her muscles refused to obey. The wrights had too few steps to go before they would be upon her, dicing her and eating her alive.

“Go!” Camoe whispered urgently. Standing, the druid faced his foes.

Both monstrosities paused, gauging the druid, but not for long, the creatures advanced.

Jade couldn’t move. The creatures were almost upon the druid, then her.

Suddenly Burl was there, halting in front of the druid. Outstretched in one upheld hand, Jade’s bag dangled, swinging back and forth by the strap.

“At least I get to destroy the betrayer,” Camoe said with deadly calm, raising his long sword.

“No!” Jade croaked, finding her voice amidst her fear. “He’s here to distract them!”

Four, foil-covered eyes followed the sound of her voice. Each facet seemed to glisten with anticipation. Ignoring Burl, both maimwrights moved toward her, their scaly toes scraping rocks with metallic clicks. Why wasn’t she fleeing?

Burl stepped behind the brown wright, wrapping the strap around the beak in one awkward, though fast, motion.

The maimwright’s claw shot upward with surprising speed to grip Burl’s forearm. Burl wrenched backward. A snip and a sharp cracking sound rang through Jade’s hearing. The creature’s head fell back at a grotesque angle. “The head is the weak spot!” Jade screamed.

Pushing off from the top of the rock pile, Camoe lunged, burying his sword halfway to the hilt in the green monstrosity’s screened eye. Several inches of steel was visible protruding from the back of the creatures head. Never releasing his grip on the sword’s hilt, Camoe followed it to the ground.

Burl allowed the brown maimwright to drop beside the green.

Jade drew a shaky breath, stunned; it was over as fast as it began.

Planting a booted foot on the maimwright’s throat, Camoe pulled his sword out accompanied by the dull
schling
of steel against stone. Perhaps the thing was made of rock.

Holding his right arm to his side, Burl stepped toward the black wall, pointing at it with his left arm.

Jade was alarmed. “What’s wrong with his other arm?”

“This isn’t the place to find out,” Camoe said in a loud whisper. “Come on, Burl’s right. We need to move close to the wall. It shall be harder for anything without wings to spot us there.” Sprinting, he caught up to the raggedy man just as he reached the wall’s base.

Jade scrambled over the rock wall, avoiding the creatures. Uncertain they were actually dead; she swung wide, angling ahead of Camoe. As she ran, her mind whirled. The snipping sound must have been Burl’s arm. How bad was the injury?

Burl reached the wall first. Switching direction, he ran along it toward the swamps, moving with astonishing speed. Jade pumped her legs hard, trying to catch up. Concentrating on the layout of the ground ahead, she ran past Camoe and fell in behind Burl at the wall, sensing an alien presence behind it. Old when the planet was young, it was here feeding on Astura’s vibrancy, growing in power, devouring a new world with ease until making a near fatal mistake. It attempted to consume something stronger. Something its alien intelligence had never before encountered in its long history. Forced into a great slumber, it had left this world alone. But not now, they’d awoken it.

Terror coursed through her veins. It was aware of her and it had spawned an offspring, one with mobility, a single offspring made for the sole purpose of extending the range of its terrible wrath for the older offspring were as helpless as it was without a host.

Onward they ran. The wall seemed to go on forever.
How big could the wall be?
Jade wondered. It was taking them too long. The looming presence shrugged off its last vestiges of sleep. Jade gazed wildly ahead; they must leave the wall behind them. But the wall stretched into eternity.

The alien awareness focused on her, unwinding one of its many tendrils. Jade’s breathing grew labored, harder than her running merited. Her heart thumped in her chest. “Faster!” Jade managed to yell, not much above a croak. “We have to go faster!” She feared no one would hear her cry.

Burl somehow heard. His legs a blur, he sped away.

Behind her, the malice paused briefly where they had first contacted the wall. Slipping along the inside wall, a shapeless darkness trailed them, moving with incredible speed.

The terrain changed from loose rock to dense clay, adding traction to her flailing legs, however, small.

The dark thing on the wall’s other side caught up, slowing to match her pace.

She tasted its malice, stale and thick as fog fouled with evil, and something defining, something she’d felt on this world before...boundless hunger. This hunger terrified her beyond what the flickers had, for this blackness had a timeworn, superhuman intelligence. It would first assimilate her and her ability, and then feed on the threat that Camoe posed. Burl was inedible, but it would destroy him nonetheless. Running was futile. It was too fast, too strong.

Slipping up the inside of the wall, the evil within stalked the top, slowing again to match her pace.

Jade wanted to veer away, but her body refused to obey.

All she could do was run, run until the horrible darkness consumed her, consumed them all.

Except, except, the wall was no longer beside her. She was running through a narrow path overgrown with humid, frond-like plants.

A high-pitched, inhuman wail rang through the air behind her.