The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept (74 page)

“They fancied themselves creatures of the night,” Bellimar mused with a dark chuckle
. “
My
night. Imagine their surprise to encounter the Lord of the Night himself.” He tilted his head, studying the grisly objects. “Actually, you do not have to imagine. You can still see that surprise in their expressions.”

Morland wrenched his gaze away from the horrific sight at his feet and found something even worse
awaiting him. Bellimar had not moved, but the shadows gathered to him in crawling, serpentine movements. The light in the great hall dimmed to a ruddy twilight as the remaining torches burned low, coughing and sputtering and fighting for life. The stranger’s smile widened to reveal rows of long, gleaming fangs. His eyes burned scarlet and feral.

A
n inhuman voice hissed from that roiling mass of shadow. “We will not be disturbed, merchant. There is enough time left to us to ensure that you feel a measure of the suffering you have caused. And I will make certain that you cause no more.”

Morland’s
mouth worked in terror, but only a strangled gasp emerged. His breath frosted in a wisp before him.

“Come now, Morland,” Bellimar said
, his words raw and guttural and pulsating with hunger. “You are a man of business. You of all people should know that, sooner or later, one’s debts must always be paid.”

T
he shadows rolled forward at a slow, inexorable pace, closing around him.

Morland found his voice at last, but t
here was no one in the mansion to hear the screams.

The ruins of Queln blazed with light and thunder as Amric and Xenoth fought. There was no longer any semblance of guile or strategy to their actions, and no more words were exchanged. None were necessary. Each man stood his ground, hurling his rage and determination at the other in the form of primal energies, seeking to hammer his foe into oblivion. The Essence Gate towered above them on its high platform of stone, a continual, roaring presence that made the very air shimmer with the power being drawn into it. It looked down upon the battle below with an uncaring eye.

Amric gave himself over to the fury of battle, fighting on purest instinct, and his wilding magic was a
fierce ally in tune with every fiber of his being. He became a melding of man and beast, of steel and magic, and he could not have begun to say where one left off and the other began. His sword flickered, slicing and deflecting too fast for the eye to follow, and he sent attack after attack lancing toward his foe.

He drove forward.

Without even knowing how he did it, he drew upon the rising tide of magic within him and all around him. He pulled it from the air that crackled and sang at the point of overload, and he reached deep into the ground beneath his feet to tap into the immense ley lines coursing there. He drew it in until his body burned and he thought he must surely burst into flame, and then he reached for still more.

Amric
pressed the attack, strike and counterstrike at lightning speed. Xenoth’s eyes grew wide. Perspiration ran freely down the hard lines of his face, and his dark hair hung damp and lank across his brow. Step by grudging step, the black-robed Adept was forced to give ground. Amric bared his teeth in a wordless snarl and pressed harder.

He took another
arduous step forward, and Xenoth took another back. He pummeled at Xenoth’s defenses in wave after wave. He felt the other’s shield crack before his onslaught and uttered a growl of triumph. Another slow step, like walking against a hurricane wind, and his foe’s heels were against the marble steps that led up to the Gate. Xenoth felt behind himself for the first step, and then the second. He stumbled and fell back against the cold marble, his motions frantic. Amric put another foot forward, pressing the advantage.

His legs
wobbled beneath him.

The world tilted and dimmed for a sickening instant, and Amric shook himself with a curse
. Not now. Not when victory was so close. He had been pushing too hard, running up against the mortal limits of endurance and punishment all night. Now it seemed that even Bellimar’s gift of borrowed vitality was waning at last. Even the darting presence of the wilding magic within him had grown sluggish and confused. His eyes fell on the crumpled form of Halthak, lying too still in the tangled grass at the base of the stairway by the Adept, and his jaw clenched. He thought of all that had been sacrificed for this moment. He would not succumb now.

He brought the world back into focus with an effort, but the damage had been done
. Xenoth was on his feet once again, and there was an exultant glint in his dark eyes. Both men sent blazes of light lashing at each other, and for long seconds they traded frenzied blows, neither giving ground. Then Amric’s defenses faltered, his exhausted reaction too slow by a bare instant, and a coil of energy snaked through, rocking him back on his heels. The next blows fell less than a heartbeat later, before he could recover his balance, and they slammed him to the ground with crushing force. His sword slid away into the grass, its flame extinguished.

Abrupt silence fell over the ruins,
except for the background hum of the forces being drawn to the gate and the labored breathing of the two combatants. Amric rolled to his side, dizzy and disoriented, his unfocused eyes rolling about in an attempt to determine from which direction the attack would come.

“You are even stronger than I thought, wilding,” Xenoth panted
after a moment, bracing his hands upon his knees as he gasped for breath. “You would be fearsome indeed, if you had even a modicum of skill. But I warned you before about overextending yourself. This battle ends now.” The man straightened with obvious effort and started toward Amric.

“Damn right it does,” growled a voice from the ground.

A gnarled hand of pebbled grey flesh lashed out from the grasses at Xenoth’s feet and wrapped around his ankle.

“What the––
” The Adept staggered, caught by surprise, and almost fell. He spun to find the fallen figure of Halthak looking up at him. The Half-Ork’s talons tightened, digging deep into the man’s flesh. Xenoth cried out in pain as his leg buckled beneath him.

“Fear not, Adept,” Halthak said, baring crooked teeth in a
broad, grim smile. “Nothing down here but us insects.”

W
ith a clap of impact, the healer released his magic into the Adept.

It was
just as he had done to the mad Wyrgen Grelthus in Stronghold, reversing the normal flow of his healing magic and sending his own injuries slamming into the other. By that point, the boiling mass of greenish energy had spread to cover Halthak’s entire torso. Sickly black tendrils wound into his extremities, climbing his neck to his jawline and threading along the flesh of his forearms that showed past the sleeves of his robes. All of this withdrew as if time itself had reversed to undo the damage. The corruption retreated from his limbs and crawled across his chest, contracting to a burning hole of seething energy that dwindled and vanished. Halthak let out a gasp of relief even as Xenoth cried out in new agony. The Half-Ork released his grip on the man’s leg and scrambled back from him.

The Adept stumbled a few steps and stood with legs braced wide apart, swaying in place
. A ravenous green glow lit his tunic from beneath, and blight crept up over his throat, darkening the skin there. His eyes bulged with disbelief as he clawed at his chest. His uncomprehending stare leapt from himself to the healer and back.

“It feeds on magic, I believe you said.
” Amric dragged himself to his feet, leveling an iron gaze at the Adept. “The more you pour into it, the faster it grows and consumes you.”

Xenoth whirled to face him, fear flooding his features.

“Earlier this night,” Amric continued in a pitiless tone, “you also told me that there is a time and place to hold nothing back.” He gave the Adept a wintry smile. “I could not agree more.”

The warrior stepped forward in a lunge and thrust out both hands
. He called up every last ounce of power he could muster and hurled it all at Xenoth. Light and flame roared at the Adept, hammering into him, driving him back against the marble stairs. The black-robed man howled and thrashed beneath the torrent, trying to deflect it or wriggle free, but it seized him and pinned him in place. Rather than incinerate him, however, the flood of energy was drawn into him, feeding the sinister affliction that consumed him. The blight spread at a fiery pace, green and black strands writhing across his limbs, gnawing and tightening with predatory swiftness. Xenoth’s cries rose to an inhuman shriek and then cut off abruptly. His tall form collapsed in on itself, then withered and burned. In mere moments it became unrecognizable as anything that had ever been human.

When only black ash remained, scorched across the pale marble of the stairway, only then did Amric allow the torrent to cease
. He fell forward to all fours, the breath searing in his chest. His wilding magic swirled and darted in weary jubilation, and he allowed himself a small smile in response.
Well done, my friend,
he thought.
Surviving to this point was all part of my plan, but I did not much care for our chances.

The magic pulsed back at him with a sensation very much like humor, and Amric blinked
at the sly intelligence he sensed. It seemed there was more to this mysterious presence than he had realized.

Such matters would have to
wait, however. Their work was not yet done.

He tried to stand, failed, tried again
. Strong but gentle hands clutched at his arms and helped him on his third attempt. Faces swam before him: Halthak, his coarse features pinched with concern; Syth, bruised and battered but alive; Valkarr and Sariel, the visages of home. He mumbled something about the Gate and made for the platform.

Amric remembered little of their ascension to the Essence Gate
. At the time, it seemed an eternity of climbing and stumbling, of lifting hands and distant, encouraging voices. The sounds rose in volume, became sharper, resolved into a single insistent voice, repeating his name over and over.

“No time,” he insisted, his words slurred
. “Have to reach the Gate.”

“We are here,
sword-brother,” Valkarr responded in the patient tone of repetition. “And we have found no way to shut it down.”

The statement caused a chill within him and Amric sobered, felt the fog lift in grudging stages
. He blinked and looked around. His friend’s statements were true. He sat on the raised platform, and the others were gathered around him.

The Essence Gate loomed
over him, and he was awestruck by its ancient majesty. The massive arch of stone towered sixty feet or more into the air, and each of the worn sigils carved into its broad surface was the height of a tall man as well. An aura of brilliant light surrounded the device, radiating from it in measured pulses as if the device drew long, ponderous breaths. The sigils pulsed with an orange-red glow to the same slow beat. Within the arch stretched a shining surface, almost too bright to look upon. Amric’s second sight showed rivers of energy running into that rippling aperture, flowing into as to a giant drain, never to return.

“
We have found no controls, on or around it,” Valkarr said, his jaw muscles tightening as he regarded the mammoth device. “It continues to empty our world of life.”

“We thought you might be able to…” Sariel trailed off, ending with a vague gesture.

Use magic, Amric thought with a bitter grimace. Of course.

He studied the Gate, observing the movement of energies around it
. His wilding magic stirred and quivered, though whether with trepidation or eagerness, he was not certain. Not knowing how to proceed, he reached out with his senses, seeking to touch it and better understand it.

T
o his surprise, something touched back.

An expansive presence followed
that initial contact, flooding him with its awareness, and an eager murmuring pattered against his mind. Amric’s mouth fell open in shock. It was an ancient thing, timeless and patient. It was vast and powerful, but oddly compliant––and it was very much alive. It whispered to him, eager to yield its secrets, and there was a soft susurration at the back of his mind as it conversed with his wilding magic as well.

Hardly daring to hope, he
inquired after the information he sought, and the Gate responded to that encouragement with a surging desire to please. A score of voices babbled at him in cheerful cacophony, and he struggled to single out one at a time to follow. In moments he understood how to return the mighty Gate to a state of quiescence, and he knew how to travel through it to Aetheria, the master world on the other side. He also knew, beyond a shadow of uncertainty, that there was no way to destroy or permanently disable the Gate from this side. A cold pit opened in his stomach.

The roar of the
Essence Gate lessened, and its radiant corona diminished to a faint, clinging nimbus of light. The surface within the arch darkened until it no longer blazed like the sun, and instead resembled the moon-kissed ripple of the sea at night. The sigils dimmed until they burned low, like dying embers.