Caldar stepped back, never taking his eye off of Obrett. “You will bear witness. Mark my words, you will bear witness.” With a final hate-filled glance for him, Caldar turned, and was gone. Garias had already left, and the only people that Obrett could see outside of his cell were the guards escorting them, their feet echoing through the corridor. When the sound diminished enough, he turned his back on the scene outside and returned to the stone that he had come to see as his own personal bit of reality in the madness that was this situation. He only wished that he could take it with him, mad though that sounded. He laughed at the thought of an old man digging through mortar to rescue a rock, and then carry it with him for leagues. Obrett poured his will into the crystalline structure of the rock, and sent his enhanced perceptions to the cells around him.
“Brendan?”
After a pause, a voice reached him, dimly. “I am here, barely.” The words came muffled as if shouted a long way off on a foggy night. “They worked me over pretty well.”
“Can you move?”
A pause in the link meant that Brendan was checking himself over. “I do not think that they broke anything, my friend. But I am going to ache well into the next month. My back is killing me.”
“You will be fine.” Came the reassuring mental tones of Jacob, who could see any hurt much more clearly as he was attuned to the life force of every living creature that much more.
“I hope to share your optimistic appraisal Jacob,” Brendan replied so that they could both hear, “but I think that I shall wait until I get the feeling back in my arms before I start agreeing with you.” There was an implied humour in the mental voice that he projected, and both Jacob and Obrett knew that the Earth Guildsman was going to be fine.
“Keep the focus up and you will be fine in no time.” The voice of Ispen intruded over all. “If you lot are finished trying to play nursemaid to our poor Earth brother, how about we get ourselves out of here?”
“There's no time like the present. You all know your roles,” Obrett replied, and focussed on what he was about to do. Every other message had been intended to do something passive. Hang up a charm, sit around making funny noises. Obrett had misgivings about an actively aggressive intention. Did it go against the very Law that he stood for?
“No it does not, if you follow the logic through,” Jacob thought to them all. The link between the four of them was still there, Obrett had just wandered off. “Your intention is self-preservation. This is just a means to an end.”
“Perhaps,” Obrett thought back to them. “But is it the best way of going about it?”
“It is the only way of going about it, Law wizard,” Ispen replied.
“Let's do it,” Brendan agreed.
Obrett gave a mental assent to the rest of them, and they concentrated their minds on the 'crack' they had formed in the great focus of Raessa. Formed from the very bedrock beneath the city, they wormed their minds down towards the very base, seeking to become one with the compulsion to draw nigh to and remain in the city. Even as they did so, and not for the first time, the force of the focus threatened to draw them in and smother them. It was like a tidal wave assaulting a beach, and they were sat in a rowing boat trying to ride the crest. The magnitude was phenomenal, but they held the secret. It depended on emotion for its power. The fear that the Witch Finder had managed to generate about the region was more than enough to feed the focus, which grew and hungered much like the creature that did Garias' bidding. The secret to riding the wave was the lack of emotion, and their trained minds were more than enough. Their impassivity held them to their course like a rudder, and their training was the wheel. The sail was the message that they now whispered, softly but urgently, so that gradually the entire population would hear their call. 'You are not content. Things are bad. Rise up; rise up, against the city. Rise up.' Again and again the four of them spoke the message, and the energy of the focus crackled about them. It took on the message, immersing it within its enormous compulsion. Not only would people be afraid, and yet drawn. They would get angry very quickly, and it would take a lot more control than the Witch Finder presently had to clear this up. All of his resource would be put towards quelling the unrest that would inevitably follow. The focus would have to be dealt with, but if their plan went well, they would be long gone by the time he realised that he was not infallible.
Slowly, they withdrew themselves from the power of the focus. It held onto them with a death-like grip, refusing to part easily with something that had just augmented it. Obrett knew what had happened to Garias. It came as a sudden jolt of realisation. In forming that focus, any power that he had would have been sucked out of him. The essence of the man was contained within the focus for all to see: Anger, spite, jealousy. “You know, the focus is the Witch Finder personified. Just feel the need for domination.”
“It must have held onto Garias until the bitter end, rendering him impotent,” Brendan agreed.
“It will take a long time for him to be able to bring his mind to bear through a focus once more,” Ispen added. “We will have no better chance for this to work. We have no emotion, and there are four of us as opposed to his one.” Obrett withdrew from the focus, and brought his perceptions back into reality. It was always a disappointment when he saw the real world. It was so much less than when his mind was wandering. Maybe it was because he knew that he would be denied the freedom that focussing gave him by means of the cell door in front. His skills meant that he could see everything that much clearer when he focussed, and different realities became possible. Being able to enter through a wall, or contemplate the forming of a rock from within was comparable to nothing when he was sat in his cell. That would change now. All they had to do was wait. He did not even need to focus to become aware of the change in the atmosphere around them. The desire to remain within the sight of the city was still there to trap the unwary, but now there was a more aggressive tone. If Obrett concentrated, he could feel the mounting tension that resulted from the compulsion. He got up and looked out of his cell door.
To the left, Brendan stood there grinning through the bars that contained him. “It is working,” he mouthed silently, aware that there may have been other prisoners that they could not trust. The mere fact that Brendan was standing meant that he had healed as they had focussed. That was one thing they had never discussed. Obrett had known that the two were linked, but each order had a different interpretation of what focussing actually did for a man. Shortly Ispen appeared, his face filling the gap in the heavy oaken door. Next to him Jacob stood with his head tilted back so that he could see more. It appeared that he was not the tallest of men. After a silent moment where those that could made eye contact with the others, they moved back in to the space of their own cells, to await the results of their work. It did not take long. As the sun set beyond the mountains, noise started to creep up through the windows overlooking the city. It was not much at first, but gradually, the noise increased in volume, carrying an air of discontent through the twilight sky. The wizards listened impassively, gauging the effects of the focus. A few yells became many as more and more people outside the city found reason to become discontent with something or other. Words were indistinct, but the clamour steadily grew. It was about this time that one of the other prisoners started grumbling about being stuck in a cell, with no room to move. Two others joined in. Obrett listened with abject fascination, trying not to become excited by what was happening. Outside the noise had become so loud that it was probably deafening at ground level. If there were not a riot outside the city, there soon would be. Howls of anger now rang through the air, and crash of broken crates indicated that fighting had begun. As the crashes grew in number, so the three prisoners escalated their grumbling, and began yelling, as they banged on the cell doors with their fists. Obrett took one look through his door. His cohorts were all watching in amazement. They had never thought that it would have such a profound effect. Time was suddenly of the essence, and Obrett dove towards
the stone that he had been using. “When you hear the guards, join in the clamour,” he thought to the other three.
“To what end?” Brendan replied.
“I'll be damned if they aren't going to go in the cells to shut that lot up. What if we can get them in the cells? It will be safer for us than our previous plan.”
“Use both,” Jacob suggested. “When they open the cells, send a focus to knock them down, or wall them in.”
“Whatever you are going to do, decide fast,” Came the thought from Ispen. “I can hear guards coming.”
Immediately all four jumped up and joined in the noise. It was a glorious counterpoint to the racket coming in from the outside. Their shouting raised the din to the point that it hurt the ears. They yelled about their cells, the food, the mothers of the guards, anything they could think of. The only difference was that they were not angry. Obrett found it therapeutic. He had not had this much fun in years, not since his novitiate, not since before politics had become the primary goal of the order. It was hard for him to keep the grin off of his face as he yelled blistering curses at the approaching guards. He only hoped that his growing excitement was masked by the anger elsewhere.
It worked out even better than he had hoped. Instead of the usual four guards, only two arrived.
One appeared to only just be out of his swaddling, judging by his youthful appearance. “Shut up!” He half yelled, half screamed with the adolescent tones of one whose voice has not reached its final adult pitch. That guard went to look out of the window, turning his back on them.
The other was a bit more wily, and looked as though he might have a bit of a mean streak about him. They all carried on yelling, spewing out curses as fast as they could. “You lot pipe down, or we will be in there to shut you up!”
No effect, and the younger guard was unsure what to do. “Look down there,” he shouted above the yells of the prisoners. “There is a full scale riot!”
“The army will deal with those peasants,” the older guard responded, spitting out of the window onto the battlements below. “We have our own little chore. This is going to be fun.”
“Not half as much fun as your mother had when she dallied with a swine to produce you, I'll bet!” Ispen yelled out at the guards.
“Get that door open!” The guard commanded to the other. “This old man has just earned himself a beating.”
Ispen would have retreated from the door after that, for Obrett needed a distraction, and he knew it. Hearing the rattle of keys as the guard unlocked the door, Obrett reached for the stone in the wall. Like an old friend it had become, and he knew its properties. Instead of the subtle nuances that helped him subvert the commons, he fed his intent into the rock and let it build. The power of the stone multiplied his will, and Obrett unleashed the power. His door exploded outwards in heavy wooden shards. At the same time, Brendan and Jacob did the same. The room became a riot of woodchips and confusion. Before the guard in Ispen's cell could act, the water wizard had thrown a shield around him, gagging and binding him on the spot. The younger guard took one look, and ran screaming down the hallway, which pleased Obrett. There was no need to harm the boy. The Witch Finder would probably do as much when he found out what had happened. Ispen had the other guard firmly in hand, and bound him with ropes that had been strewn about the place. A war hammer rested against the far wall, and Obrett lifted it, testing its weight.
“You are committed to a life of peace.” Brendan admonished as he hefted the hammer. “Weapons are not your tools. What are you going to do with that?”
“Ensure us a way out of here.” He replied. “The guard may have gone, but who knows what else may await us.” Taking the hammer, he entered his cell. Swinging with all the strength that he could muster, he hit the mortar to one side of the rock he had focussed with. The mortar began to crumble. He swung again, and again, and several more times. The rock shifted in place, along with copious others. One more swing was all that it took. Obrett raised the hammer over his head, and shattered the stone into fragments. Discarding the hammer to one side, he knelt down, and took for himself a palm-sized shard of the stone. Strangely, the fractures on it left the stone smooth and curved, as if it had been this shape all along. It would do, for it was as good as a weapon in the hands of one that was trained properly. “Get what you can.”
Seeing what he had done, the others repeated it, hewing themselves chunks of stone from the walls of their cells. Obrett fretted, as he was sure that the guards would come running at any time. They did not. He looked out upon the plateau that spread out from the city walls. It was alive as people rampaged through the shanties that had grown out from the base of the city. They were out of control, and the city had despatched guards to stop them. It was a right mess. “The only thing that qualms my guilt about this is that we need to escape, and warn others about this.”
“The old man speaking to you.” Implied Jacob.
Obrett grinned at the use of the word 'old'. He was not a young man, old by normal standards, yet years of focussing had left their mark. Caldar had been old when he had been young, and Obrett expected the others could tell of similar cases. “Was the head of my order in Eskenberg,” he replied. “It seems that they have taken a side, and the side they have taken I do not agree with. They have sided with the Witch Finder. I thought that they were foolish, and over-political. I never thought that I would see the day my order abandoned reason for madness.”
“That is bad news indeed, my friend.” Jacob sounded apologetic. “But let us get out of here now. Only by escaping this hive of evil can we hope to affect events without.” Ispen and Brendan murmured agreement, and they moved quickly but quietly for the hallway. They encountered no one as they hurried through hallways bejewelled and dazzling. The noise from the city below echoed through the very halls as they sought the passageways that would take them out of the fortress. It was scary for them all; One moment it seemed as if the riot was about to enter a corridor they had just passed, and at other times it was as if they were leagues away, the noise only a distant murmur.
Jacob commented on this. “Are you sure that we are headed the right way? The fighting seems to be in the other direction.”
Obrett cracked a smile. “Trust me, Ispen. It is the hidden passages that fool the senses. They make walls thicker and distance the noise.” As if to prove his point, Obrett clutched at the fragment of stone he had brought with him, and focussed. “There.” He pointed at a section of wall that his perceptions told him had a passage behind it.
Brendan examined the wall for a moment, and then stepped back, pressing a section of the wall as he did so. “Easy.” He said as the wall clicked open, revealing a torch-lit passageway behind it. “This is the route we will take. It will lead us straight out of the city.”
Ispen looked into the passageway sceptically. “Are you sure of this?”
“As sure as I am that we will be killed if discovered anywhere in Raessa other than our cells.” Brendan answered, and then stepped in through the gap. The others followed, and the 'door' closed as Obrett activated the switch, which was an iron lever on the inside of the wall.
“Quiet now, for we do not know how thin the walls are.” Obrett followed his accomplices down the passageway.
Jacob stopped. “Oh no.”
Obrett felt the evil, coming upon them to rapidly to react. “Run!”
Too late, the wizards stared back at him as the wall crumbled under the creature's onslaught. “Go! I will find you. Get out of the city now.”
Brendan gave him a last look as the bulk of the Golem edged its way into the passage. He did not resist. “You found me then.” He said as he stared at the black visage. The Golem replied by picking him up with one of its huge paws, and carried him out in to the corridor. Holding him by his tunic, it stared at him as it walked, pulling him closer to it than ever before. He couldn't cringe away, his crawling skin touching the stone. It wanted him, desperately. Only the merest of threads controlled it
and kept it from consuming him there and then. While the evil consumed him from without, Obrett did not even notice being put down again.
“Whoever thought you would be capable of such disastrous intent. You are a prize indeed.” Garias watched the carnage below unfold with a mixture of anger merged with glee, and fascination. He did not turn away from it, as if addicted to the scenes.
“It will not help you, Garias.”
“Why my dear Obrett, it already has. The anger feeds us. You have done more than you could ever comprehend. I do not need to focus any longer.”
“Emotions.” Obrett said, realising for the first time what was actually occurring. “You couldn't have. That magic was lost in the distant past.”
“Not to me. Denial is a simpleton's argument, wizard. I found the keys to using emotions in texts long since forgotten.”
“There is no record, or we would have heard of it.”
“Where would you look? The Ducal libraries? All their pretty books for show? Even the mightiest storehouse of knowledge on Thiwa does not rival the collection I have amassed. What do you think is going on around you if not magic that draws on emotions? You know already that a focus draws the unwary to this city, but you are far too clever for that. You have it figured out. That is why I have asked you here one more time. Join us. With the powers of the focus and emotive magic combined we will cast out the Gods and place ourselves on their pedestals.”
“You think the Gods will just sit by and let you oust them? You have been talking to yourself for too long.”
Garias slammed the book he had been holding onto his desk, sending dust flying into the still air. “When I lay my hands on the Tome of Law there will be nobody in your Nine Duchies that can stop me.”
To one side, Armen watched the riot and flames with undisguised joy. The man had always tended towards the violent, and this was the epitome. “He started this. Just think what else he could be capable of.”
“Armen, get the wizard.” Garias commanded.
The Path of Dreams (The Tome of Law Book 2) Page 25