by John Mangold
Ignoring Thayne, Maluem rolled up her sleeve, revealing the spell binding she had on her arm. It took the form of a long sinuous tattoo made up of meticulously etched runes, snaking its way from behind her elbow up and around her arm until it ended at the base of her wrist.
“This is a beneficial spell placed upon me by a Sorcerer I trusted completely,” Maluem explained to the group. “It is called a spell binding. I fully understood the risk I was absorbing when I subjected myself to it. I made sure I understood every rune within it, that I was confident of its function, so I would control it, not the other way around.
“Everything you have told me about these mechanical devices you call ‘augments’ leads me to believe they are a form of spell binding. These gadgets are powered by runes with meanings you are utterly ignorant of. You are binding magically based mechanisms to your bodies that were made by people you have never met, harboring intentions you cannot begin to fathom!”
“Dove, as widespread as the augments are, if there was some sinister plot to their manufacture, we would have seen it by now. There are millions of them in NuSam alone! No one has ever reported that their implants had driven them to any uncontrollable acts of madness. Besides, who could possibly control that many devices, all at the same time?”
“I am certain I do not know,” Maluem conceded. “However, I can tell you that these etchings are, in fact, control runes. Whatever device contains them is under the sway of a single controller, most likely the one at the end of that tendril bundle. Thus, anyone subjecting themselves to an ‘Augment’ has unconsciously made themselves spell bound to the master of these runes.”
“Dove, I have those same devices implanted in me, but nobody is pulling my strings like some ferd puppet,” Thayne shot back.
“And how exactly would you know?” Maluem demanded. “Perhaps your masters have not exercised their full powers yet. Or, perhaps they have, but the effects are quite subtle, steering you to hate those you are told to hate. Teaching you to follow those you are told to follow. You have lived under this state of war your whole life, Thayne. Could you tell me what victory is hoped for over those villains? Can you tell me why your enemy must be defeated?”
“Well, that is simple, they are…our enemy, they…we will defeat them when…” Thayne stammered a look of vague alarm on his face that quickly turned to rage. “Oh, what the kulk would you know of it? You’re just a chud headed Bocor from Camilos. You wouldn’t understand it anyway!”
“I hope that rebuttal worked on you because it failed to convince any other member of this party,” Maluem replied. “Let me give you some advice. The anger and frustration you are feeling right now are tell-tale symptoms of attempting to defend a lie.”
Maluem opened her mouth to continue driving her point home when the background presence she had found so easy to put down earlier became a thousand-fold stronger. The sensation flooded throughout her psyche, bringing that callous soul in direct contact with her own, superimposing itself upon hers.
Long-familiar nausea took hold once more, but in such an overwhelming manner as to make all others before pale in comparison. Maluem’s muscles convulsed instinctively to the horrible discomfort, but there was no way for her to pull away, no method to rid her flesh of a caress so far beneath its surface. To her, it was the vilest thing she could possibly imagine, and there was no escape from it.
“Maluem,” A voice spoke.
Maluem froze in shock for a moment, reeling from the flood of sensations pouring into her mind. Had she just spoken her own name, or had she heard another intone it, another with a voice imitating her own? She could not tell. Unclenching her eyes, she looked at her three companions. All of them had expressions of shock on their faces. They had heard it as well. It was not merely in her head! Looking to where Cruentus had been lying, she found the woman sitting up, staring directly at her, those amber clockwork eyes softly clicking as their internal mechanisms wrestled to bring Maluem into focus.
“Your name is Maluem,” Cruentus spoke again, a slight slur to her speech as her system struggled to adapt to the control device’s absence. “You were in my head when I was in the arena. You were the one pushing me to keep fighting. I can feel you in my head right now. Your thoughts make me sick. What are you? Why can I feel your mind inside mine?”
Maluem opened her mouth, though even she could not tell if this was to answer the woman or make another vain attempt to empty her own stomach. She struggled to find a way to channel the rush of emotions she felt flowing from Cruentus, to direct them in some way so she could suppress her own body’s reactions. But the force of it all was overwhelming. All she could provide in response were ragged gasps as she struggled to master her own mind.
As she looked past Cruentus, a strange spark blossomed on the far wall of the chamber that, for the briefest pulse, took the form of a fire rune, transforming immediately into an ear-shattering explosion, disintegrating the far wall of the cell. The force of the blast struck the group full-on, filling the chamber with dust and debris. Through the newly created breach, dark armored forms with crimson eyes darted in, each carrying a heavy weapon in their arms. It appeared that their time was not merely fleeting; it was altogether gone.
“We’re copped!” Torrez bellowed. “Thayne, give us some cover with that rifle of yours! Shelia, grab Maluem. I’ll grab Cruentus!”
Torrez lunged for the woman sitting impassively on the floor, but a soldier tracked him immediately, his weapon pointed directly at Torrez’s head. Everyone froze, all eyes wide as more soldiers thundering up to flank their comrade, each with a firearm trained on a separate member of Maluem’s group. The pulses stretched out as each group eyed the other, the chamber becoming so quiet one could hear a pin drop. More precisely, one could detect the firing pin in Thayne’s rifle drop, striking the end of a dud round. With that tiny, metallic click, a torrent of chaos was unleashed.
Torrez had just enough time to bring his forearms up to block his face, his bonded runes turning the skin of his arms to steel, before the soldier opened fire, sending a slew of steel bolts at the unarmed man. With a dizzying array of pops and fizzles, the projectiles bounced off, spattering the floor harmlessly as they were deflected. Torrez was saved for the moment, but the rest of the group still stood defenseless as flanking soldiers squeezed tightly on their weapons’ triggers.
Running strictly on adrenaline, Maluem threw her hands out before her as though to block, then spread her arms wide. As she did so, the soldiers' forms before them turned to shadowed blobs, a wall of fog springing up from cell floor to ceiling, parting the two groups. With a gasp, Maluem stumbled two steps backward, struggling to stay standing. That spell had never strained her so brutally in the past. Looking downward, she could see the frost was yet thicker at her feet.
Before the barrier completed its journey to the ceiling, the soldiers opened fire, their weapons unleashing a torrent of death upon their chosen targets, yet not a single bullet struck its target. To the murderers’ amazement, their projectiles slammed into the ethereal barrier and stopped, seized in midair like flies trapped in a wall of honey. Their shock was short-lived as they repeated their assault, determined to push their projectiles to their targets through brute force alone.
As volley after volley slammed into her mystical wall, Maluem could feel every impact, their combined force draining the magical energy within her by degrees. Turning her mind back to her Acolytes, Maluem mystically reached out to them, attempting to pull a portion of their stores. She did not want to overstrain them, but she had no choice. The group’s protection had to be maintained!
To Maluem’s surprise, she found little there to collect. At first, she feared her Acolytes might be resisting her, attempting to save their resources for their own purposes. But, as she probed each, she found them just as drained as she. Cruentus was affecting all of them, sapping their energy by her mere presence.
Quickly, Maluem retrieved her own staff, allowing the case and Dorjakt’s staff
to tumble free. Raising it horizontally before her, Maluem attempted to draw power from its core, finding none within. Her mind raced with panic. With the stress from the barrier steadily sapping her meager stores of energy, she had only the chilled air around her to draw from. The thickening puffs of steam rising from her exhaled breath testified that this source would not assist for long.
“Great cover, Maluem,” Torrez yelled before turning to Thayne. “Where’s that rifle of yours?”
“It’s jammed! The piece of chud is jammed!” Thayne screamed back.
“Well, unjam it before that barrier collapses,” Torrez responded before spotting his wife’s new position, deducing what she had planned. “Maluem, Thayne, plug your ears!”
At that point, Maluem became aware of the music flowing through the air, mingling with the flakes of frost and floating debris. Her hands quickly obeyed Torrez's command as she turned to find Shelia standing between the group and Maluem’s wall, Wheeled Fiddle cradled in her arms, eyes closed as she concentrated on her art.
Turning her attention to the ominous forms beyond her wall, Maluem realized they had stopped shooting. The shadows stood still, dumbfounded as Shelia’s transfixing music filtered through Maluem’s protective barrier. Slowly, their bodies began to sway, like reeds in the wind, moving with the rhythm of her tune. One by one, obedient to her melody’s coercion, their legs crumpled beneath them, their bodies collapsing to the ground in inelegant heaps.
Whether from Maluem’s exhaustion or from her lack of concentration, the protecting barrier collapsed. For but a pulse, the cell was a scene of perfect serenity, the soldier’s slumber-bound breathing weaving a hypnotic spell all its own. It was enough to make even Maluem yawn in sympathy before the air was shattered by an ear-piercing crack. Shelia’s music faltered, then ceased as a swell of crimson blossomed on her chest and back. A pulse later, her Wheeled Fiddle clanged as it struck off the hard surface at her feet. In another pulse, her knees buckled, her lifeless body collapsing to the frost-covered floor.
“Shelia!”
As Torrez rushed to collect her up, Maluem looked to the breach in the wall. Shadows danced on the other side, accompanied by enraged screams echoing through the ragged break, but no more soldiers came through. Maluem could only imagine what they might be struggling with, but she feared it might only be a ruse to draw them out of the cell and into their grasp. It mattered little as she could see the soldiers' sleeping forms begin to move as they shook off the effects of Shelia’s musical tranquilizer.
Looking to Torrez, she could see he would be no more use in the fight. He had a mind only for Shelia now. To the left of him, Thayne was wholly absorbed with his weapon, making quite a show of trying to make it function once more, and Cruentus was simply gone. This last point gave Maluem a bit of relief as her nausea was steadily decreasing as the distance between them grew. Maluem could only pray her stores would replenish quickly enough with Cruentus gone. Staggering forward, Maluem passed Torrez and put herself between the rousing soldiers and the remaining group.
Mustering what energy she could, Maluem thrust both her hands forward, palms out, casting a massive force bubble that surged out before her, picking up all disoriented soldiers and debris in its path. Passing through the newly created breach, Maluem’s spell slammed into the inner wall with a thunderous boom, collapsing the ceiling within, completely sealing off the break in the wall. Her plan had worked perfectly, or it would have if she had taken a few details of the structure around her into account.
When Maluem’s spell struck the structure's foundation, weakened by years of artillery attacks and overburdened by ad hoc armor plates far above, its force finished what the millennia had begun. Enormous fissures sprang open, coursing up multiple pillars surrounding the room, racing each other to meet in the ceiling above her. Maluem could only lunge forward, struggling to escape an avalanche of dirt and stone thundering downward, threatening to bury her alive.
As the deluge eased, Maluem reopened her eyes and crawled out of the light debris covering her legs. Regaining her feet, Maluem fought to peer through the choking haze around her, the air filled with the earthen smells of freshly turned soil and pulverized stone. She only had time to realize that she had trapped herself on the wrong side of the collapse, separating herself from her party with a massive pile of debris, before something heavy struck her on the head, knocking her unconscious.
33.
Betrayal Revealed
Torrez could not tell exactly how he had managed to avoid the prison cell’s collapse or how he had ended up following Thayne down the darkened corridors between the holding cells. To be honest, he had no idea where they were even running to. All of these critical questions seemed trivial to him at the moment.
All he knew for sure was that Shelia was in his arms, and he could not feel her breathing at all. Comforting words of encouragement tumbled from his lips in a jumble as his feet staggered down the passage ahead, but he did not know if she was hearing any of them. She had not murmured or twitched since Torrez grabbed her falling body. He prayed it was only his fevered imagination, but as the micros ticked by, he was more and more aware that her skin was growing cold.
Dust fell from the ceiling’s masonry as the earth above them shook furiously. It seemed the annual Furaxis artillery strike had begun. Preceding each fresh shower of dirt and stone, the ground trembled fiercely below their running feet. However, none of this affected Torrez in the slightest. His mind was locked solely on the tender burden he bore. The first outside stimulus Torrez actually noticed was Thayne’s voice yelling.
“For kulk’s sake, why have you stopped?”
Torrez was not even aware that he had, but it was apparent that his body had made decisions his fevered mind could not. His knees buckled beneath him as he gently lowered Shelia to the ground. His eyes were immediately drawn to her chest, where the blooded spot had blossomed. Her blouse was now a uniformly dark shade of crimson, its original color wholly overrun. He put his hand to her throat, desperately searching for a pulse, but none was to be found, her skin clammy and cold to the touch. There was no escape from the evidence before him. Shelia, his wife, his very reason for living, was gone.
Brushing her hair out of her eyes, Torrez gazed into them one last time. They were vacant and unmoving, but they were still those of the woman he would have given his life for, had he been given a chance. With a ragged sigh, Torrez caressed her face with his hand and closed her eyes. Then, with the gentle care of one who knew he would never get another chance to do so, Torrez gave Shelia the softest of kisses. It was the only gift he could give the woman he had failed so utterly.
As he leaned back, he could feel tears streaming from his eyes. They had not asked his permission to flow, nor did he care to try and stop them. As far as he was concerned, the whole world could stop spinning. Nothing mattered anymore. Life, death, it was all the same now. Let those soldiers find him here next to Shelia and execute him on the spot. They would be doing him the sweetest favor possible.
When he felt the hand grab his shoulder, however, that attitude changed drastically. The jarring wrench tore him from his misery and sent him flying into a state of rage. He did not care to whom the hand belonged or why they had decided to accost him so roughly. Whatever their thinking, was it was guaranteed to be the last decision they would ever make.
The sound of Thayne’s gun cocking froze these thoughts in place. With the fog of rage clearing from his mind, he was keenly aware that he was on his feet and was holding Thayne’s left arm tightly in his grip, his other hand pulled back, ready to swing. Thayne was now in an exaggerated stance, pulled back as much as possible to gain the necessary distance to level his rifle at Torrez’s chest. It was anyone’s guess what might happen in the next slip of the micro. Torrez could feel that his life was on the verge of ending, yet he could think of only one thing to say, and it was not an apology.
“I thought you said that gun was jammed.”
“Did I?”
Thayne replied. “If that was true, I wonder who shot your little dove. As I recall, I was the only armed soul who was still awake, seeing as how Shelia did not think to put me under along with those troops. A foolish mistake to make, but I suppose your last should be a big one. What can I say, Torrez? Life is hard when you’re stupid. And in both your cases, it is turning out to be quite short.”
Torrez’s eyes fluttered down from Thayne’s fierce eyes to look at the arm he still held tight. The man’s jacket sleeve had been pushed back by Torrez’s rough grab, revealing his forearm up to the elbow. Torrez stared dumbfounded at his friend’s exposed skin, completely forgetting the rifle aimed at his chest.
Thayne was wearing a bracelet, one etched around its circumference with a wide band of runes mirroring the ones that decorated the rings on Torrez’s fingers. Also mimicking his jewelry were the tattoos that radiated around Thayne’s arm, their text aligning with those of the bracelet as it was turned. It was the mark of a Neophyte, particularly one sworn to his erstwhile master.
“Interesting tattoos Thayne. Voltulo’s handiwork. This is the mark of a Neophyte. Why do you have it? I thought you despised the ‘Bocor trickery.’ Isn’t that what your father taught you? Why have you branded yourself as one of their students?”
Thayne offered no explanation, opting instead to jerk back hard in a bid to free his hand, but his unbalanced position, and Torrez’s superior grip, kept him locked in place. To make matters worse, Torrez stepped even closer to look his old friend in the eyes, bringing the barrel of Thayne’s gun flat against his chest. Thayne had the upper hand as long as he held that weapon. It would only take a convulsion of his finger to kill Torrez, freeing him from the steady gaze of the enraged man. Yet, despite Thayne’s obviously superior bargaining posture, Torrez could find only fear swirling within his friend’s eyes.