Beyond the Sapphire Gate: Epic Fantasy-Some Magic Should Remain Untouched (The Flow of Power Book 1) (42 page)

“You have succeeded! Call out to your sibling by her name, her full name! Visualize her image in your mind,” Lord Charn shouted. As the words left his helm, his voice fell oddly downward, echoing around the cornucopia until it too, ended abruptly.

Though Lord Charn’s words had sucked down into the Oracle, Crystalyn heard enough to comprehend. “Jade Creek! Can you hear me? I’ve been searching for you! Jade, are you there?” Her voice leapt from her lips and vanished into the maelstrom.

“Good! Keep speaking! Lord Charn and I will amplify your words. Maintain her image in your mind—” Darwin’s voice floated past her hearing before fading down the tube.

“Jade! Jade Creek! Can you hear me?” A memory from seasons ago drifted into her thoughts, when she’d called out for her sister many times during a camping trip at the Farm. She recalled the wide circle they’d hiked from camp searching for Jade. Crystalyn had been so frightened then, not knowing what had befallen Jade. Finally, she’d found her little sister asleep in their tent. “Jade Creek, where are you, my beautiful little sister?”

A tiny sound erupted with an unexpected volume from the cornucopia.

“Oh, Crystalyn, is it finally you?” Jade’s voice resonated oddly, as if forced from a great pit.

Crystalyn’s eyes welled with tears. The sweet, familiar voice she’d longed to hear echoed throughout the hall. “Yes Jade, it
is
me! Where are you? I’ve been searching so hard.”

Jade’s voice drifted out of the pit below. “I am in the town of Brown Recluse, waiting for Camoe to decide where we go next. I knew you’d be worried. I’ve been looking for you, too.”

Crystalyn spoke without glancing away from the maelstrom, not caring which of the two standing at the Dark Oracle answered. “Do you have a gateway there, in this Brown Recluse?”

“I have a pair of obelisks at the outskirts of town,” Lord Charn said. “Command her to go to the Staunch the Flow Inn, ask for the owner, Craight two days hence. Let him know the Great Lord requires a debt paid. He will provide the path here.”

The spinning, brackish water was mesmerizing, but Crystalyn kept her focus. “Did you hear that?”

Jade hesitated. “Yes, but Crystalyn?”

Crystalyn wanted to comfort her sister, to reach through the eye of the churning cornucopia somehow and give her a hug. “What is it?”

“Make haste!” Darwin shouted. “The Contacting is closing!”

“Where am I going?” Jade asked.

Crystalyn felt the vortex slow perceptibly. She blurted a reply. “To the Citadel, but we can talk about it when you get here. Go to the Staunch the Flow Inn in two days.”

Jade’s gasp resonated out of the Maelstrom. “You don’t mean the Dark Citadel, do you? Crystalyn you’re—” Jade’s voice broke off.

The maelstrom slowed quickly, returning to its normal rate after a few rotations. The funnel filled quickly from the bottom up, replaced by the slow, churning blackness.

“No!” Crystalyn reached for her symbol, but it was gone. “Should I get it going again?” she asked, though she felt woozy. Gathering energy from around her instead of from her by grounding herself her helped, but it still had its limits. The magnitude of energy required set those limits, and the Dark Oracle must require a huge amount.

Lord Charn confirmed her suspicion. “No, it has drained us. We cannot risk another attempt this soon.”

Crystalyn was disappointed, but jubilant: she’d heard Jade’s voice for the first time in weeks, and they
were
on the same world. They’d be together soon. Together, they were stronger.

“I don’t understand.” Darwin’s voice was heavy with fatigue. “Why couldn’t we see her sister? I put far more into it than any other Contacting.”

“There was supposed to be an image?” Crystalyn asked. Oh, how she would’ve liked to see Jade.

His voice soft, but distinct, Lord Charn leaned on the Oracle’s short wall. “Always, at the bottom of the maelstrom, there is an image of the Contact, but some kind of light blurred it this time. I couldn’t bring it through, though I attempted many times, strange—” He stared into the Dark Oracle’s murky depths and was silent. After a while, his horned helm swung toward Crystalyn. “Your sibling should have seen your image in her mind as well, but it is of no consequence now. Provide Darwin with a description. He will deliver it to the gatekeeper.”

Crystalyn recalled the awful day in the Big Ugly, when she’d opened the Sapphire Gate. “Jade is two inches taller than I am, over six feet, reddish-brown hair with dark emerald eyes. She was wearing blue jeans and a black tee when I saw her last, that’s the best I can do. Thank you for helping us, Lord Charn,” Crystalyn hesitated. She already owed the dark armored man so much for this, not to mention his promise to bring her here so they could be together. The last thing she wanted was to alienate him, but she had to know the cost. “What is it you want in return?”

“Nothing too demanding, I assure you, my wishes are simple,” Lord Charn said. Then, he too, hesitated for nearly a full rotation of the Oracle’s slow-churning water. Inhaling a small breath, he continued. “Now that you know I am going to follow through with reuniting you with your Jade, I shall enlighten you. I want you, your sibling, and anyone else you desire and can vouch for, to join me in the battle against the lies and corruption we’ve lived with too long on this world. Khiminay has informed me you’ve been subject to some of it from the Circle already.” He paused, letting her absorb his words for a long heartbeat. “We’ll talk later on the deceit practiced daily coming from the White Lands. At present, please, exploit what we have to offer as my guest. Your decision can wait until you’ve been given information and after your reunion with your sibling.”

There it was. At least he’d been up front about wanting something. Crystalyn didn’t know what to say, his desire went beyond a simple favor for a favor. He wanted a long-term commitment. She wasn’t certain how she felt about it, but at least, she didn’t have to provide an answer right away, not before Jade arrived.
Now that I’ve found Jade, what to do about getting home?
Crystalyn asked herself, gazing at Darwin Darkwind. Was it really such a big hurry?

Dad would be worried, for certain, but a few extra days shouldn’t cause him any additional anguish than he experienced now. Besides, once Jade was with her, they still had to find the way back. Lord Charn wouldn’t be eager to help with that one, no matter what her answer to his offer. He had nothing to gain by them going home.

Her host’s pleasant voice broke into her thoughts. “Other matters require my attention. Darkwind will show you and your companions to your quarters. He will instruct the servants to attend to your every whim, however small. Make use of them as you will.”

Crystalyn inclined her head.
Stay close Broth, please.

I will, my Do’brieni. Please, do not dwell here long. Danger awaits us here.

Oh? How is it you know this?

I have heard…tales, dark tales.

Then we will have to decide for ourselves if there is any merit to these tales, but I will take extra care.

Gripping Atoi’s icy hand in her own, Crystalyn began an intercept route to the robed boy’s side. Darwin’s tanned face looked striking under the dark hood; it suited him.
Of course, it probably wouldn’t matter what he wore even had he wore nothing.
Her face heated at the thought.

Darwin started along the great hallway as Crystalyn joined him at the Oracle’s end. She wondered what it meant for him to wear the black robe and not the red, as Malkor had. Did the color mean a certain rank? If so, which was higher in rank? Perhaps Atoi would know. Strangely, everyone seemed to know her, for no one paid attention to her wherever they traveled, which was disturbing in itself. How much was the Dark Child and its host withholding from her?

“One other thing,” Lord Charn’s deep and pleasant voice called out when they approached a nearby intersection. Crystalyn paused, looking back over her shoulder. “I will send for you tonight. Please accept my invitation to dine at my table.”

Crystalyn nodded, deeper this time.

Lord Charn inclined his head in return.

Resuming their walk, Crystalyn stayed by Darkwind’s side gathering details of her surroundings, committing them to memory. She wanted to be able to find her way back on her own.

The intersection opened upon another grand hallway supported by massive pillars stoically holding the purple granite roof high. Provided from clear crystals, the lighting hung from rigid wires from somewhere up above. She started to ask about the crystals, but something else caught her eye, something that made her breath catch in her throat. Standing nearly as tall and majestic as the grand hall, a pair of topaz crystal obelisks stood as two magnificent beacons heralding the hallway’s beginning. Spectacular by their sheer size alone, the obelisks were the largest she’d yet to stumble across.

A smile pulled at her lips. The situation had just ascended from awful to decent. Perhaps it was a way to send two lost girls home. They
could
be home in a few short days after Jade arrived, regaling dad with all that had happened. Crystalyn yearned to see him, to be in her room with Jade. Home was where they belonged.

DARK MAN

Yet another brown robe—Browns, as most monks called the Users in Brown Recluse—stood outside Jade’s doorway in the monastery. For days, the monks had pleaded for a chance to study a live Dark Creation—though he’d never been, nor ever would be alive—after she’d made the mistake of taking him outside after Dirk had attacked her. Now she was paying for wanting the protection, daily.

Neither she nor Camoe was naïve enough to believe the Browns intended harmless studies only. They’d caught quite a few Using the Flow on their mute friend. Some seemed designed to help Burl, like bombarding his pinched arm with a healing spell—that had failed utterly. Their healing magic had no effect on Dark Creations. Other experiments were destructive. One User hit him with ice through a window, trapping inside a block. Camoe forced the haughty woman to release him, but she never expressed any remorse. No one had. To them, Burl was the perfect lab rat for their experiments with the Flow.

Jade was tired of their transparent subterfuges. Not one seemed to understand that Burl was more than some User’s Creation; they had such single path minds. She’d given up on being civil. “Why are you still speaking to the Brown, Cam? Send him on his way. I need to talk to you.”

Jade raised her voice just enough to be heard from where she sat in the little alcove, trying to read. Saddened and angered by the betrayal of his acolyte, Caven had shown them to the securer room the same evening. She’d found the nook with the stuffed bookshelves immediately. She read to ward off boredom, keep her mind off Dirk’s actions, and simply for the pleasure of it, something one could do alone.

Camoe was busy meeting with every monk in the monastery. Caven had sat in on many of the meetings, usually held in the room adjacent to the kitchen. At first Jade had felt left out, but the wondrous leather-bound books had stifled the feeling. Astura’s history was rich, with evil tyrants wielding dark powers and ancient wars lasting hundreds of years. The Dark Citadel is the farthest anyone had beaten back Virun.

Camoe’s reply drifted from the entrance doorway. “Perhaps we should give this one a few minutes. He claims to know how to end the experimentation attempts on our resident Dark Creation. His words, not mine.”

Jade looked up from the book titled
The Dark Empire
with more than a little reluctance. The chapter had detailed the violent shifts in power throughout User history in graphic detail. She’d discovered a reference to a codex called
The Surbon Codex
. The author—a renowned scholar and Light User—hinted at an adverse User erupting on the world causing untold destruction, eventually bringing an end to a war at great cost. Jade had some concerns. The codex failed to mention what war and which side it ended with, apparently it could shift either way. Right after, it mentioned an anomaly moving through the world at the same time, which may, or may not; affect the outcome of the chosen side. It was almost as if the book remained vague on purpose.

Folding the book over her hand to mark her place, Jade went to deal with the intrusion. Peering over Camoe’s shoulder, she gazed at the man standing with his arms folded into the wide sleeves of his tan robes. The material was lighter in color than the monk’s dark brown tunics or even the brown silken robes they so piously donned for daily rituals. Unlike the Brown Robes who had made such a nuisance of themselves, this one had left his hood hanging at his emaciated shoulders, exposing curly blond hair. The lack of a hood called attention to his gaunt face and dark, haunted eyes that had…seen things. “What do you want?” Jade demanded, in no mood for pleasantries.

A pained look crossed the man’s face. “May I enter? This open hallway provides an opportunity for an easy ambush. I don’t wish to have my backside shaved by a fledgling User.”

Jade wanted to trust him, but only at arm’s length. “You have one minute to convince me you can help. If not, you leave.”

Camoe flicked a glance at her, but said nothing.

Peering over Camoe’s shoulder, the man inclined his head. “Fair enough,” he said.

Camoe swung the door wider, but stayed blocking the threshold
.
“Step back first.”

The man complied.

Glancing both ways down the hall, Camoe finally stepped aside and motioned the man inside, closing the door on his heels.

“That’s far enough,” Camoe said. “We have never met, so I cannot vouch for you.”

“Let me correct that oversight. I am Vancid, at your service.” Not looking around, he stared at her. “Now let’s move onto why I’m here. Simply put, I wish to help you.”

Jade waited for him to continue with his explanation. When he didn’t, she asked, “You don’t know us, yet you offer aid. Tell me, what ‘services’ can you provide?”

“Ah-ha! Very astute questions, very astute, I say!” Vancid exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. Dropping them to his side, he stood still.

Something’s not right,
Jade thought. For the first time since Dirk had tried to kill her, Jade switched her view to his aura.

Vancid’s spinning aura was cloudy and brackish, like much of the swamp water she’d waded through before Brown Recluse. Jade forced it slower. A blackness roiled behind the aura’s grayness, gaining power with each rotation, poised to break…
through!
“Camoe!” Jade cried, “he’s not what he seems!”

Vancid’s face darkened, his eyes bulged to grotesque spheres. The tan robe he wore bled into a dull black color, elongating to twice its size. A man-shaped darkness detached from Vancid, stepping out from him as one might discard soiled clothes. Vancid’s deflated form slid to the floor.

Jade screamed.

Camoe’s sword passed through the shadowy torso, lopping their wooden garment stand in half.

Jade’s mind lurched, slowing the scene around her. A single mahogany wood chip floated in the air, lazily striking the shadowy head then rebounded slowly away. Her mind shifted back, the chip fell away at a normal rate, but not her rising fear.

The light in the room
bent
around the murky shadow as it advanced toward her.

Jade backed away, filled with dread. The sense of the dark man floated through her awareness. A single touch meant death: its evil would replace her bone marrow with shadow as it absorbed the rest of her internal matrix, over time, feeding on organs and nerves until she became a dark one, a slave to a dark mind. No, more than a mind, an over mind. The same evil she’d sensed in the dominion wraith, and again at the wall, as it chased them into the swamp.

Camoe’s sword flashed, once, twice, diagonally from shoulder to pelvis, slashing a terrible crisscrossing pattern across the dark torso from behind, parting it like pitch-black smoke.

The swords pattern merged with the dark man, leaving no trace behind. The black shape slid toward her.

The small of her back rammed against a table, halting her backward momentum. The dark arms began to raise, to reach out.

The memory of the wood chip intruded into her mind. “Camoe!” she cried, leaning back. “Go for the head!”

The druid’s sword rent the shape’s head from ear to ear.

The dark man froze for less than a beat of her thumping heart as its head reformed. It reached out again.

Instinctively, Jade brought the book up in front of her like a shield. The shadowy hand touched the book and recoiled. Jade scrambled over the table, confused. The dark shape glided cautiously around the table, moving relentlessly toward her.

Slipping around the table to keep it between her and the dark man, Jade thought furiously,
the book stopped it, yet Camoe’s sword to the head didn’t, why?
A fraction later, it occurred to her,
paper! The book was paper! Paper was a product made from wood. Why didn’t it like wood?

The black shape glided around the end of the table, coming for her.

Dropping the book on the table, she shoved the table with all her might.

The heavy table pinned the shadow to the wall, slicing through. Half of the dark man fell onto the table and fragmented into smoky filaments that soon dispersed.

Afraid of what she might see, Jade squatted, searching under the table. Nothing but normal shadows lay underneath. At least she hoped they were.

Straightening, she leaned on the table, touching its smooth texture with reverence. The wooden object had saved her life. The attack was odd, but devious, in an evil sort of way. What warrior would use wood as a weapon?

Camoe exhaled an explosive breath. “By the true power of the One, what was that thing?”

Suddenly Jade was tired, too tired to stand for long. Taking no chances, she sat on the table cross-legged, setting the book on her lap. “You’re asking
me?
Why was it after me? Why does everything and everyone seem to be after me?”

Camoe looked taken aback. He sheathed his sword with a soft clang. “I don’t know, but you are right, the darkest evil...”

Camoe’s voice faded away as a new voice rang in her mind. One she’d desperately wanted to hear for many, many days.

Jade Creek! Jade! Are you there?
Crystalyn’s voice called out in her mind sounding clear, yet so far away.

Oh Crystalyn, it’s finally you!

Yes my Jade, it is me! Where are you?

I’m in the town of Brown Recluse waiting for Camoe to decide where we go next. I knew you’d find me!

Do you have a gateway there?
Crystalyn asked someone else.

Jade was confused. Then a pleasant masculine voice echoed through her mind.
I have a pair of obelisks within three days’ ride,
the voice said.
Command her to go to the Staunch the Flow Inn, inquire of the owner, Craight. Tell him the Great Lord requires a debt paid, he will provide the path here.

Did you hear all that, Jade?

Yes, but Crystalyn?

What is it?

Make haste! Your spell is dwindling!
A new male voice said, sounding younger than the other one.

Where am I coming to? Jade asked.

To the Citadel, but we can talk about it when you get here. Go to the Staunch the Flow Inn,
Crystalyn said her voice urgent.

You don’t mean the Dark Citadel, do you? Crystalyn you’re in great danger!
Jade shouted into the recesses of her mind. Silence met her call.
Crystalyn, are you there?
No answer, her sister was gone.
No!
Crystalyn couldn’t have meant the Dark Citadel, could she? An involuntary shudder racked her bones. What would she do if Crystalyn were at the same horrid, evil place she’d fought so hard to escape? Would she go back after expending so much effort escaping from there?

She had no choice. She would do whatever it took to reunite with her sister, for them to go home, though she might be creating anxiety over nothing. There must be other citadels on the planet. Crystalyn could be in a different place, one without the evil.

Camoe eyed her, his eyebrows slightly elevated. “I’m sorry, what have you been saying?” she asked.

“Other than asking what’s wrong with you? I said, I wouldn’t have thought anyone else would know or care about your being here on Astura.”

“My sister does now. Crystalyn contacted me.”

Camoe’s aging face darkened. “What? When?”

“It just happened.”

“Oh! Then she is still alive. Try to recall everything she mentioned.”

“She wants me to go to the Staunch the Flow Inn to make contact with its owner, a man named Craight.”

“No, not there, I forbid it. The owner hates Users to no end, all
Users
, no matter how small their ability.” The druid looked at her pointedly. “His patrons detest Users as much as he does. When I’m recognized, most everyone in there will attack me. They would not kill me, or there would be recriminations, but that does not mean they would not beat me to near death. It is too dangerous, even up here with the monks. Have you forgotten about that acolyte, Dirk, so soon? Down in the town of Brown Recluse, murder from dueling or assassinations is an everyday occurrence.”

Jade moved to the pantry and peered inside. “I’m guessing the owner of the inn has a gateway that will take me to her. If he hates Users, if
they
hate Users, what will they think of a User’s Creation?” Burl’s unblinking yellow-orange eyes regarded her.

Camoe didn’t reply immediately. “It is irrelevant. I told you, I forbid you from going. You and I should not ever be caught near a place such as that,” he finally said, his voice firm.

“Oh, Camoe,” Jade replied her voice catching in her throat. “You know I have to. It’s what we traveled here to do, find my sister. Now she’s found
me.
I have to go.”

Camoe gazed at her, a frown creasing his forehead. His jaw worked, but no sound escaped his throat.

Jade’s resolve weakened. There had had to be some other way, but nothing came to mind.

Camoe turned away. “I suppose there is no stopping you, but you shall not go alone.”

Jade was frightened but determined. “I won’t be alone. I have to figure out a way for Burl to accompany me. He can’t stay here, and you cannot go. You can’t defend him forever. I won’t put that responsibility on your shoulders. He has to go with me I owe him too much, and I won’t let you risk the inn to help me, either. I will be safer without you,” she hated herself for saying it, but it was true..