Consensus Breaking (The Auran Chronicles Book 2) (28 page)

Seb sighed and rolled over. It was no good. His mind was fully awake now, and the last thing he could do was sleep. He sat up on the edge of the bed.

The unease had been growing for the past few hours. A nagging itch at the back of his mind that began during his last training bout with the simulacrum. He’d put it down to the knowledge, whatever it was, that he’d absorbed. The sensation had been alien, unfamiliar, but it was physical in nature. He’d left the training circle, bruised but intact. But now, as he sat on the edge of the mattress, the unease had grown into a silent scream that echoed inside his mind.

Something was wrong.

He’d tried
sensing
out on a couple of occasions already, but without any concept of where his friends were in relation to him it was like finding a very small needle in a giant haystack.

‘You still not feeling right?’

Caleb was stood leaning against the archway, his thin fingers grasping the near-constant mug of green tea that he drank nowadays, the old cask ale a distant memory.

‘No, I don’t like not knowing what’s happening.’

‘You think something bad has happened to them?’

‘Yes. No. Maybe,’ he shook his head. ‘They’re alive. I think I’m sure of that, I just
know
, you know?

‘Yeah, I know, at least I did.’ Caleb gave a resigned smile.

‘Sorry, Caleb, I didn’t mean to --’

‘I know you didn’t lad, don’t worry.’ Caleb drank down the rest of the draught. ‘I’ll get used to it, it’ll just take time.’

‘You look better, if that’s any consolation?’ Seb said, and meant it. In the past day or so he was sure Caleb seemed more alive, more alert. He was still in the body of the ancient caretaker, but there was a colour to his cheeks now. His eyes no longer seemed as sunken as they did, even hours earlier.

‘I feel it, actually,’ Caleb agreed. ‘My bones don’t feel like they’re full of ice all the time.’

‘Must be the tea,’ Seb said.

‘Sure, the tea, must be.’ Caleb nodded to the bed. ‘You should try and get some rest. We can set off tomorrow morning if you like.’

‘That’d be good.’

Caleb left. Seb lay down and listened to the comforting sounds as the old man went about his nightly routine. Candles were blown out, the light from the archway diminishing with each action. Eventually he heard the creak of a mattress spring, and then the light went out completely.

It was good to be home.

Seb tried to sleep again. He really did. But his mind wouldn’t let him. That sensation just wouldn’t let up. In the end, after checking his watch for the umpteenth time and seeing it was still only one in the morning, he made the decision.

He had to find out.

***

Leaving the Drain was easy. Caleb’s snores would’ve silenced a herd of rhino approaching. Seb crept up the stairs. The wards were crackling with energy as he reached the top, and not by his presence.

Sheol.

It was no surprise. The Consensus was not as oppressive during the night. The ferals would’ve hidden during the daylight hours, the sun sucking the life from them. But now they roamed free. As he stepped past the crackling air around the ward he heard them, jabbering and snarling in the grounds.

He thought for a moment of turning back. What could happen tonight that couldn’t wait until the morning? He looked back down the stairs. He would be safe there. The wards Caleb had scavenged were doing a good job. But that instinct, that one that he’d followed all his life, wouldn’t let go. It drove him on. He refocused his shield, confident that he wouldn’t be detected, and stepped out into the corridor.

Keeping to the shadows, the moonlight like a spotlight illuminating the corridor, Seb moved under each open window. He resisted the urge to simply
blur
to the end of the hallway. It would save time, yes, but the sheol would pick it up in an instant. A few he could handle, but there were many out there, and more would surely come.

A few agonising minutes later and he was in the reception hall, or at least, what was left of it. He stopped for a moment, surveying the ruins of where Cian had made his last stand. Seb’s gaze lingered on the pillar where Cian had finally passed on to the Weave, a hundred dead sheol at his feet.

What I wouldn’t give to have you around now, Cian,
he thought to himself.

He cast the melancholy thought to one side and forced himself on towards the open doors that led down to the scene of his final confrontation with Marek, where he’d smashed the Spoke Stone to activate the sentinels.

He crept across the hall, stepping between blocks of fallen masonry. A sheol, or perhaps a pair of them, were near, too near. He could almost feel the movement in the air caused by their activity. He couldn’t see them, and his
sense
was bouncing back from all angles, distorted by the magical artefacts that no doubt lay strewn throughout the mansion.

He reached the double doors. The stairs extended down below, into the darkness.

Towards the Magister’s Inner Sanctum.

He breathed a sigh of relief and leant against the cracked remains of a sentinel that resembled a medieval knight.

The delay nearly got him killed.

A sheol ambled round the corner without a care in the world. A rotten, half-eaten rabbit hung out of its mouth as it rounded the bottom of the stairs and turned.

It looked straight at him.

Shit!

The rabbit dropped out of its mouth. The sheol bared fang-like teeth. Black eyes glinted. It drew back its lips, drawing in breath.

Seb’s
sense
screamed. It was going to warn the others.

Seb
blurred,
smashing a knife-hand imbued with Avatari into the fiend’s throat. He stared into its black eyes as it expired, the creature falling soundlessly into his arms before he lowered it to the ground.

That was too close.

Seb dragged the creature into the shadows, dumping it on the other side of the door.

It took only a few moments for him to descend the steps that led into the Sanctum. The earlier fear that the chamber would be submerged entirely in rock came to the fore as he encountered a pile of rubble that extended nearly the entire width of the passage. Only a narrow sliver on the far left seemed to allow any chance of entry.

Up close, the fissure
seemed
wide enough to get through. He’d bulked up in recent months, more muscle than bone now, but he was still confident he’d be able to make it through. The only problem being that he’d be exposed as he crawled through. If a sheol came running now he’d be done for.

Why hadn’t he woken Caleb?

Because he would just slow you down
.

The thought, cold and callous, came through. It was right of course. Caleb’s presence was reassuring, but in his non-imbued form he couldn’t offer Seb anything but an extra pair of eyes.

And he wouldn’t let him die. Not again.

Seb took a deep breath and edged into the fissure. For a second he thought he’d miscalculated. The rock pressed hard against him, his head forced against the rotten wood that had once been a burnished panel. As he pushed further in, the pressure grew, the pain in his head growing. He chose to ignore Avatari, sometimes its pain-suppressing abilities were more hindrance than good, hiding damage being done to his body that he needed to be aware of. If his skull was cracking, he needed to know about it.

Then, almost as soon as it was started, it was over. The initial vice-like fissure opened up slightly, allowing him to breathe easy and move freely. He still couldn’t turn face on, but he could manoeuvre through the crack with ease. He popped out on the other side, only a few scrapes at the back of his head to show for his trouble.

It was almost exactly how he’d remembered it. The pedestal that had housed the Spoke Stone still stood in place, the structure having served as the focal point for the Weave within Skelwith. Shards of the stone still remained, strewn about the floor, but they were lifeless now, devoid of magical energy.

Not that this mattered. It wasn’t the stone he’d come for. It was the fact that this room had the strongest affinity for the Weave within Skelwith. It was why the Magister had placed the Stone here in the first place, and it was here that he’d come, two years earlier, when he’d done his first astral walk.

Seb channelled the Weave. He had to find the right balance of maintaining his shield and pushing power to Sentio. The latter had to take precedence if he were to have any chance of finding his friends. If the sheol found him then at least it would be quick.

Seb
sensed
, drawing on the extra power the sanctum gave him. The world faded away. He stretched himself out, searching along the strands of all things. They were out there. Alive. That much he knew. But the echoes that came back overwhelmed him. A tsunami of minds crashed against his shield. He tried to pierce the din, homing in on the unique auras of Cade and Sylph that he knew almost as well as his own, but it was too much.

There was just too much noise out there.

Seb reduced his
sense
. He filtered out the noise.

He
sensed
out again. Gentler touches this time.

‘Seb
.’

The voice boomed inside his mind. His hand rushed to his face and he slumped forwards onto the floor, one hand stopping him just before he smashed his face onto solid marble.

The voice came again.

‘Seb, is that you?’

‘Who is this?’

‘It is I, Gough
.
I’ve been trying to find you for many hours.’

‘Prove it.’

An image popped into Seb’s mind. Sanctuary. Cade, Gough and Sylph sat round the older man’s study.

‘You were here, with us, before you had to leave
.’

‘What do you know?’

‘Sylph made it back, along with Barach and several acolytes.’

He let out a sigh of relief.

‘What’s happening? I had a sense that something was wrong.’

‘Cade and the others have travelled on a mission of utmost importance.’

‘Where? Where have they gone?’

‘Osgog, Siberia.’

‘The home of the Ninth? What are they doing there?’

‘I don’t have much time to explain. It is difficult maintaining a link of this distance. There is much disturbance. What I can tell you is that Sedaris is planning to use the Spoke Stones to harness the power of the Consensus. He plans to bring the sheol through some kind of portal called the Manyway which exists underneath. It is a horde millions strong.

‘A horde,’ he whispered out loud, thinking back to the vision from the tower.

‘
Seb?’

He shook his head and refocused. The link he’d somehow formed with Gough was fading by the second.

‘What is the plan? What are Cade and the rest trying to do?’
Seb said.

‘Destroy the Manyway. It lies deep underneath Osgog. It was closed for centuries. The Ninth didn’t have the power to open it, until now.’

‘I need to get there. I need to join them.’

I cannot help on that, only where they are.’

‘Okay, thanks, Gough, I mean that. I hope to see you again soon.’

‘So do I, Seb, we have much to talk about.’

The crackle in his mind vanished. Gough had gone.

Something growled.

Seb opened his eyes. His heart hammered in his chest.

That growl again.

Again?

Sentio flared. Seb threw himself forwards. A blade sliced the air where his head had been. He rolled to his feet, Cian’s staff materialising in his hands.

Five sheol surrounded him. Another was stepping out of the crack.

‘Mage-flesssh,’ the nearest said, the one that clutched the rusted Brotherhood sword that had nearly taken Seb’s head a moment earlier.

They surrounded him. Growling and snarling, readying to strike. One stepped closer, talons outstretched towards him.

Seb channelled Novo. He hardened the shield around him, and then blasted a concentrated cone of force into the weak ceiling. The chamber shook as the rock dislodged and began to fall. The sheol screamed at the last minute, realising what was happening, but it was too late. As the rocks fell, Seb
blurred
upwards, aiming for the air above and beyond the lip of the newly-made hole. Cold air filled his lungs as he appeared a few feet off the ground. He landed with a splat in a patch of mud and set off into a run.

***

Caleb was at the bottom of the stairs, clutching a flare gun, by the time Seb managed to get back to the Drain.

‘What the hell have you done? The sheol are going crazy!’