Lords Of Existence (Book 8) (5 page)

He thought about the planewalkers.

How did they go about their lives? Were they truly immortal? Did they have anything to do beyond toy with each other or play with the rest of the world around them? They were like children, he supposed. Like apprentices who were all grown-up with nowhere to go.

He sat on Takril’s cold throne and let himself relax.

His breathing slowed. His muscled seemed to go numb, and his senses rose.

His mind wandered.

As he sat on the edge of dream his senses warped and he felt more distant connections. He sensed images of things beyond Adruin. Scents. Textures. He lived a moment of Hezarin’s time with Neuma, then a moment of a distant plane. He followed an intense thread of current between the planes, and felt grace in the casual swirls of its eddy pools. An interconnected sense of oneness came over him. The Thousand Worlds were beautiful in their way. The whole of creation was a being in itself, an organism that breathed and thrived together. Damage one, harm the rest.

And, amid this learning, he found a thread, an interesting tie, a new truth about Braxidane.

The planewalker was ubiquitous. His print of power touched everything, everywhere. He had other champions.

Of course he did.

Garrick felt foolish at first. He should have known he was just one of many champions Braxidane would create. For a moment Garrick hated himself for having such hubris to think he might have been somehow special. But the simple fact was that Braxidane was using him, no differently than any other man of power used their subjects. And Braxidane was using the others, too.

He should have deduced that earlier.

His superior had always been an adroit liar.

He stirred from his rest, and opened his eyes in the dark quiet of the chamber.

Yes, he liked this sheltered pocket of air best of all. It was a place he could breathe, a place where he could draw strength from thinking, a place where he could plan.

That it also resembled a node in the middle of Existence did not occur to him.

Eventually, Garrick became aware of Braxidane’s presence as it passed through the dark passages.

He supposed he should have been surprised. Yet he was not.

Garrick followed his struggles from afar as the planewalker progressed over similar paths as Garrick himself had picked through earlier. He did nothing to help his superior.

When Braxidane finally arrived at the throne room, he came forward in the form of a dragonfly, its wings beating phosphorescent rings of color into the pitch darkness of the chamber.

“What do you want?” Garrick said as he cast dim light across the chamber.

“Greetings to you, too,” Braxidane replied as he took the human form Garrick had first seen him in—though he was perhaps taller this time, and thinner. Garrick found Braxidane’s appearance awkward now, more comical than mystical.

When it became obvious Garrick was not responding, Braxidane continued.

“I bring you good news, Garrick.”

Garrick raised a brow. “Tell on.”

“I’ve come to offer you your freedom.”

“Don’t pretend with me, Braxidane. It does not sit well on you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know what you’re doing. It won’t work.”

“I am merely here to give you the opportunity to be free of your curse—the very thing you have been pleading for me to do since the day we met.”

“No, Braxidane. You are
merely
protecting your own arse is what you are merely doing. Unless I miss my mark, you merely intend to go back on your word once again. Rather than lay low to ride out the damage you’ve created, you
merely
intend to remove whatever trigger you placed inside me, and then hand me to your Joint Authority, thereby attempting to prove to them that you are worthy of continuing to draw breath.”

“That is not true,” Braxidane said.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if I was the only one you were trying to hang. But I’m of the expectation that you intend to provide this same opportunity to all of your champions across all the worlds—though perhaps you might just strip them of their power and hope the council will leave them alive. Of course, that means the others would
merely
be forced to live the rest of their lives without aid of the powers they’ve built their lives upon, lives that will then likely be short given the demands of the people around them.”

“I would attempt to save them,” Braxidane said, giving up any pretext. “Just as I would save you, if I could.”

“You disgust me,” Garrick said.

Braxidane’s magic rose.

Garrick braced himself and flowed thoughts toward the attack. Everything was so different now, so easy. Their magic clashed, and the chamber rang with an explosion that thrummed so deeply inside his chest that Garrick thought he might be sick.

Braxidane’s next attacks were swift. Multiple slashes of sharp beams, a sickle that flashed past as Garrick deflected it, and a final all-encompassing blast that Garrick dealt with by capturing in a shell of his own energy.

Then everything settled and Braxidane’s heavy breathing was the only sound in the cavern.

“Is that it?” Garrick said.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Braxidane replied.

“How kind of you to leave that to the Lords.”

“It is, isn’t it? Perhaps I’m wrong, though.” Braxidane smirked and stepped forward, readying a fresh barrage. “Perhaps the Lords would be just as happy with a corpse.”

Existence

Agar took his position by edging his node gently toward the gate. He tried to stay between it and Leaxis—the acting Lord Council of Joint Authority—who was most definitely on her way. He did not want Leaxis to destroy the worlds he was so near to controlling. But, accompanied by her entourage, the Lord Council was in no mind to debate procedure.

“Greetings, siblings,” Agar said to the collective as they halted before him.

“Where is Braxidane?” Leaxis replied.

The four others—Lar, Wadanti, Valpu-nof, and Idolfilane—stood beside her, each flaring power into over-bright shells they wove around themselves. Their tendrils trailed in the flow with charges that made it known that Leaxis was to be heard.

“He has been here,” Agar replied. “But that was some time ago.”

“You are aware he has killed.”

“Certainly I am, Lord Council. But just as certainly you see the truth of the killing. It was not his fault.”

“Tell that to Hezarin.”

“Our sister was not without responsibility in this process. You cannot ignore that.

“Such details do not concern us.”

“And, yet, they should. To destroy Braxidane for this would be to destroy a part of ourselves. Even you must admit that hurting yourself for no good reason is not … prudent.”

“Braxidane is a cancer. He must be removed. This decision is made, Agar, and you would be wise to stay out of our path.”

“If our brother is such a cancer, why is it that, as we speak here in Existence, he is outside, toiling to bring his errant liege to justice?”

Leaxis hesitated.

“I’ll tell you why,” Agar continued. He stiffened his communication now, knowing it would be best to avoid deep inquiry at this time. “He wants to right this wrong. He wants to square events by being the one to bring his own champion to accountability. Which, I might say, sounds more than a little repentant to me.”

Leaxis and her entourage shared considerations, and for a moment Agar thought he might have won the day.

“These things Braxidane is working on should not have to be set right,” Leaxis finally said. “But we understand your position. It is not without merit. We will not destroy Braxidane as first planned. He will, instead, be banished.”

Agar considered one more protest, but the Lord Council’s demeanor was bold enough that he bit back on his words. While Joint Authority was slow and generally lenient toward the musings and conflicts of its constituents, it was also unyieldingly short-tempered when it came to dissent to its decisions.

“I see,” he said. “How can I help you, Lord Council?”

Leaxis’s aura faded to a golden red.

“Where is Braxidane?”

Agar drew on the flow. “He is in Adruin, Lord Council. As best I know, anyway.”

“How convenient,” Leaxis said.

She turned to her entourage.

Idolfilane flared green and cinnamon. Wadanti responded with a sense that tasted coarse and spicy, like a tomato fresh off the vine.

“Yes,” Leaxis said, flashing a command. “I agree with both of you. Shutting him into that plane would be easiest.”

On her word, the planewalkers moved to the Adruin gate and flowed great masses of energy through their bodies, warming the plasma trails around it and driving tight beams of its magic—its space-time mass, its radiation—into the gap that connected Adruin to the Thousand Worlds. When they were done, they returned to stand beside Leaxis in the central core of all Existence, leaving the portal smelted shut and pulsing with white-purple heat.

It would stay this way for a very long time. The capped gate would be a marker, a warning to other planewalkers who decided to stray the path. There was no longer any connection between this plane and the Plane of Magic. No energy could get in, and none would get out.

Magic on Adruin was now doomed to the slow death of neglect.

Agar felt a roll of contentment filter through him. Wherever Braxidane was, he would no longer be able to access his powers.

This was good.

It meant Braxidane was out of his concern. Hezarin was gone for good. And—of more value at the moment—it meant Leaxis considered the situation to have been dealt with.

Agar could now wait the time of a reasonable cooling period, then he would use his own mages across the rest of the Thousand Worlds.

The wait would be worth it.

Chapter 7

The blockage came as a rift in Garrick’s consciousness. Where once there had been a pressure, there was now a void.

Braxidane paused in his spell work with a gasp. His magic faded from his fingertips in Arderveer’s dim chasm. He fell against a slab of rock, stunned. The expression on his face let Garrick know his superior felt it, too.

“What is it?” he asked as he set his own magic aside. But he knew the answer before Braxidane responded.

“They can’t do this!” Braxidane said. “They can’t.”

And, yet, they had.

Garrick gazed upon Braxidane, the planewalker’s fate dawning upon him.

“You have been banished, haven’t you?” Garrick said. “Joint Authority has sealed the plane.”

“Yes,” Braxidane managed despite panic that rolled off him like waves. “They have cut me adrift.”

“They will seal the other worlds, too,” Garrick said with bitterness that surprised him. He returned to Takril’s throne-chair. “They will cut off every champion you’ve ever created, won’t they?”

“What is it to you?” Braxidane said, turning away.

“All of them will perish.”

“I am sure Joint Authority will be bitterly disappointed if any live—including you, Garrick.
Specifically
including you. And yes, Agar, the lying ingrate, the despicable coward, will ensure Leaxis finds them all—while at the same time placing his own mages to fill the voids they leave behind.”

Braxidane screamed then.

He pounded his fists against the wall.

The stone rumbled with new stresses. For a moment, Garrick feared a quake would entomb them both. Eventually, though, the planewalker’s anger subsided and the ground stopped shaking.

“Including me?” Garrick finally said.

Braxidane’s laugh was tinged with mirth.

“You destroyed one of their numbers.”

“They have sealed the plane. Won’t that be enough?”

“Of course not,” Braxidane said, his throat raw and his voice ragged. “Search that power you carry within yourself and you’ll know that Joint Authority will not leave you as a loose end. The sealed portal provides them time. It allows them to give you lower priority, but they come for you in time.”

Garrick contemplated Braxidane’s words.

He felt the power of Braxidane’s statement.

He understood.

Hezarin’s energy would lead them to him.

Hers was an energy that should not be his. The lessons she learned filled him with things she understood and facts of her existence that no man of Adruin should ever have. They would stay with him, mixing with his own understandings to create new ideas. Garrick had turned into a creature stranger than any before, a man who was half human, half planewalker.