Crystalyn took a closer look at the path, opening herself up to the great river of power underlying the world of Astura. As Long Sand mentioned, the Flow ran atop the path but in so thin a stream she’d nearly missed the glowing white strands running through the membrane in the east-west direction like normal.
Crystalyn turned away. How Darwin had managed it was a mystery she had no time to solve, not with him so near. “Come, I get the feeling we’re almost there,” she said, eyeing a pair of dusty footprints leading away into darkness.
Her blue symbol illuminated the hallway from side to side, allowing for an increased pace, which Atoi set without needing to be told. The little girl flitted along, barely stirring up dust at the blue light’s edge.
Crystalyn plodded behind at a near run, sneezing occasionally from the musty smell of the fine powered sand. The dust had formed during an age so long ago no one could recall whose tomb they desecrated by their intrusion.
Atoi slid to a halt. “Someone lies here,” she said, the tone of her voice matter-of-fact, as if she’d opened a door to allow visitors into her home.
At the little girl’s feet, a leather-clad woman lay on her side. Peculiarly, a shroudin covered her ears and eyes. A quick inspection revealed the necessity; a seeping head wound wetted the back of her head, matting her long hair to her pale neck.
Without giving it much thought, Crystalyn replaced her ice symbol with the golden-illumined healing one and sent it sinking into the woman, attaching her awareness to it. Finding and sealing the gash came fast with limited effort, and most of her symbol remained. Replenishing the woman’s dangerously low blood was another matter, though they had the same blood type. How could she fix her?
A more mundane method came to mind. Dissolving the symbol, her comprehension snapped back into herself causing her head to reel for a long moment. Finally, Crystalyn managed to recreate her ice symbol for light. “Long Sand, I need a hose from your water flask, just the tube.”
Long Sand produced a dagger from somewhere underneath his yellow robes and the black leather underneath. He sliced the tube from near his abdomen, pulling it through fitted holes in his attire. “One hopes the length is adequate, my lady,” he said, handing it to her.”
“This will do well,” Crystalyn replied, flashing him a weak smile.
Pulling her pack to the front, Crystalyn sat beside the woman. In the outside pocket where she’d put it and nearly forgotten it, the medical cylinder to control the anger from her mind affliction lay waiting, her mental crutch from not long ago. As Crystalyn recalled, it was almost empty. Breaking it in half, she dumped the three medical loads inside of it on the floor. Slipping a cylinder end over each tube end, she reversed the valve action on the side. “Does anyone have a rope, something to put around my arm?” she asked.
Hastel removed a retaining strap from his crossbow, holding it outstretched. “Will this work?”
Crystalyn held out her arm. “Yes, very good. Tie it off at the base of my bicep and get it tight, we need to start the flow of blood, not stop it. I have to find my vein. With hers, I’ll just go with my training.”
Hastel wrapped it around her, tying it off with the expertise of experience with wounded.
Probing the woman’s limp arm with her fingers, Crystalyn finally balled the woman’s hand into a fist, sticking the sharp end of the cylinder into the back of her hand. Hoping the woman’s vein would hold and her makeshift equipment would provide enough volume, Crystalyn poked the opposite end of the cylinder into the prominent vein of her forearm. Activating the valve with a press of her thumb, the tube flowed red. Her arm soon grew cold.
Atoi sat beside her. “What happens when your blood runs dry?” the little girl asked, sounding genuinely interested.
“First, I’ll turn pale as you or the woman lying here. If I allow it to go on too long, my organs will shut down, I’ll die.”
Atoi leaned over the comatose woman. “Her paleness has transferred to you. Are you now dying?”
With her free hand, Crystalyn gripped the woman’s wrist, gauging her pulse, the strength of her heart pumps. Though weak, they were steady. She’d done everything she could; the rest of the healing lay with the woman’s desire to live.
Thumbing the button, Crystalyn closed the valve, deactivating the transfusion. Removing the tubes, she stowed the entire apparatus in her pack, wrapped a clean silk around hers and the woman’s punctures, and stood.
Too fast.
Weakness arose from her stomach, rushing to her head. Swaying, Crystalyn fought the blackness swelling in her mind. Her symbol wavered, the blue glow flickering.
Strong hands gripped her elbow and supported the small of her back. “Have you grown ill, my lady?” Long Sand asked, his lips close to her ear.
Though his steadfast grip helped her gain equilibrium, Crystalyn pulled away the moment she could. Long Sand’s musky scent stirred something inside her, and she had no time for it. “I can walk now, but the woman will have to be carried, gently. Do you know her?”
Long Sand stooped and slipped his arms under the woman. Straightening, he cradled her head on his shoulder. “The woman hails from the Red Rock clan, a warrior leader we know as Railee, though she has followed a new master, the revered one.”
Crystalyn sent her symbol ahead but only far enough to light the way. “Continue with the lead, Atoi. Hastel, keep an eye on the rear, trade off with Long Sand when he gets tired. Everyone stay alert. This woman, Railee, would’ve expired from the loss of blood within a few minutes. We are close. One last thing. Leave Darwin to me, I don’t want anyone else hurt.”
“Aye, mistress,” Hastel replied.
“I expected no less,” Long Sand said.
Flitting ahead, Atoi set an easy pace. Pausing often, the little girl allowed her to catch up and gain a breath or two before dashing to the edge of the light.
A half bell crept by, longer than she’d expected at catching the quarry.
Long Sand’s pleasant voice broke the silence of the gloomy hall. “The Red Rock woman awakes.”
Crystalyn paused, allowing the nomad to overtake her with his burden. The nomad set the warrior woman on her feet.
The dim light made it hard for Crystalyn to gauge the woman’s balance. “Can you walk?” she asked.
Reaching up, the woman yanked the shroudin down around her neck, wincing when it took dried blood and possibly hair with it. As she looked around, her flowing head of flaxen hair moved wildly back and forth and then settled on Long Sand. “Whom do you share water with, Sand Reader? Where is the revered one?”
“Call me Crystalyn, my companions are Atoi and Hastel,” Crystalyn interrupted, pointing to each in turn. “We can extend pleasantries when we’re out of danger. Can you walk?” she asked Railee.
Railee rested a hand to the pommel of her sword. “My strength is limited, but my will is not. Please, continue. Should I lag behind, leave me.”
“No one gets left,” Crystalyn said, meaning every word. “Atoi, keeping the same pace will do for now.”
The little girl dashed off, and Crystalyn kept the radiance symbol an even distance from the little group and her.
“What magic lights the way?” Railee asked as they walked. “Even the revered one has no such power.”
“My Lady Crystalyn has proven resourceful with her… using of symbols,” Long Sand replied.
“Why is this Crystalyn different than others?” the warrior woman asked.
Long Sand hesitated. “I do not know,” he finally said, his voice barely carrying along the hall.
Crystalyn left them to their conversation. An intersection had appeared out of the gloom ahead. Atoi stood relaxed at its center.
“Which way do their footprints lead?” Crystalyn asked.
At the end of the hallway to the right of them, Atoi pointed toward light streaming from an open set of shiny gold doors. As Crystalyn looked, the boom of an explosion, followed by several
others in rapid succession, belched cloudy balls of dust into the hallway.
With her back against the wall, Crystalyn crept beside the doorframe. Then she took a quick glance inside. What she saw put a frown on her face.
The quarry was not alone.
DIVINE LIGHT
Not bothering to aim, there were too many to miss, Darwin launched another salvo of his Dark flame balls at the horde of beetles. The scarabs, as Malkor had called them from the old lore, or death beetles, delved under one’s skin and ate one alive.
Whatever they were, they filled the floor with their countless numbers, crawling from the now gaping eyeholes of the people depicted upon the main hieroglyphic pillar centered in the enormous room.
One, or perhaps both of them, had stepped on a pressure stone in their rush to get to the end wall mosaic. The magnificent porcelain-colored tiles depicted the Valley of Forgotten Kings in its prime, before sand had buried the bulk of it. Somehow, they had released the nasty creatures, though he had not heard the telltale click.
In whatever manner they had set free the skin creepers, it had no bearing now. Darwin had little energy left, certainly not a sufficient amount to destroy all the bugs. His exploding balls of flame had cleared a wide rounded area with each hit, but the skittering mounds refilled the space in less than a heartbeat.
Darwin reveled in the sweet power of the Flow flowing into him, but he could not keep drawing so much at once. The point of ‘no going back’ had come about quickly. Which was the bane of any intelligent User, Dark or Light, feared by all, with good reason. Draw too much too quickly and the Flow would be unstoppable; one would become a pillar of raw power and be consumed.
Nearly there, Darwin severed the link to the Flow retaining what he could though it would weaken him the longer he held it. A body made a poor container for the Flow.
On an impulse, he installed a half wall of the flame, letting the skin creepers mindlessly march into it, though it was a heavier drain than the dark flame globes. There was no need for a higher barrier. Even if the skin creepers stacked upon each other, he would have sufficient time to raise it. “Perhaps, you would like me to fetch your last meal from a tavern in Gray Dust as you look for the key to the pattern that will open the final door,” Darwin said to his servant with a casualness he did not feel.
Malkor’s eyes brightened to a deep red glow. The whites, irises, and corneas were hidden behind the radiance. “I am truly sorry, Master. My mind has slowed a bit for comprehension and assimilation. Even so, I have read far back in our history, farther than I have yet delved. No mention of this grand montage has surfaced. I feel it is likely the old scrolls never had the key inked on them, perhaps due to the intricacy of the work.’
‘Our one small hope is that a lore master viewed the proper sequence for pressing the eleven raised blocks in the past. Sadly, I have sifted through most of their minds and now do not have much optimism for an outcome in our favor. The one thing for certain is pressing the raised stone pieces in an improper order will set off the final trap the Ancients mention in the codices. If it was, in fact, the Ancients who wrote the codices, as most previous lore masters believe.”
Darwin flashed a brief smile of reassurance. “Keep sifting through it, right to the beginning of the knowledge, if you must. I shall hold the skin creepers off for as long as it takes,” he said though he knew it for a lie.
Darwin meant to ease the pressure on his servant, thereby providing a route to a thorough search, though the drain from his half wall of flame had grown strong. The Flow tugged upon him, as if an immense wild creature chained to his vitality struggled for freedom.
The red of Malkor’s eyes burst into a crimson radiance, consuming sight of all but the glow in both sockets. “I shall strive for speed,” he said, the tone of his voice echoing, as if he spoke from the end of an immense hall. In a way, his servant did—the hall of ancient knowledge.
Darwin returned his focus to the Dark flame wall.
A woman and a girl strode into the room.
The bloody betrayer and the Dark Child! Fear of Crystalyn’s power and rage at her interference roared through him, battling for dominance. For an instant, his concentration wavered.
A mass of scarabs skittered past his weakened flames, some burning. Still they came, scurrying forward in a V-formation, a large scarab the size of a small sand crab at the tip. His momentary lapse would cost them dearly. There was no time to remove the wall and come up with something capable of handling both threats.
A red globe of fire swept the V-shape away. “My mind is clear now!” Malkor exclaimed. Spinning on a heel, he faced the grand mosaic sprawled across the room’s great wall. “Rising from the east, the valley’s youngest light shines first upon the tomb of the high king!” he declared.
Then Malkor pressed the raised portion flush with the top rear of the temple-like tomb they stood in, the tone of his voice loud with excitement. “The light shines next upon the tombs of the queen, and the king’s beloved maidens,” he intoned. Using both hands, Malkor pressed the raised stones on two smaller cathedral-like structures at the same time. Again, he chose the two easternmost raised mosaic pieces.
Darwin held a shaky breath weakened by the drain of the flame wall. If his manservant guessed wrong, they would know soon enough.
Pressing a raised stone piece on the rear haunches of the great warden guarding the front of the complex, Malkor continued along the wall, pressing stones on the resting places of the lesser kings and their smaller retinue, walking a path of the sun until he stood below a depiction of the great orb in the west.
Darwin started toward his servant, but Malkor waved him back. Pressing a round raised stone in the center of a magnificent representation of the sun, Malkor returned to the mosaic of the tomb of the high king.
Malkor pointed to the first stone he had pressed, now raised. “Young light shines first on the high king.” He pressed the stone tile flush again. An audible click sounded from within the wall.
The tomb of the high king split down the center and across the top, dispersing a fine dust as a massive stone door swung inward. The gap between the top and side widened with a surprising rapidity for all the apparent weight of the thick limestone. Inside, a golden light shone.
Darwin rushed into the room oblivious to the gilded objects, jewelry, and precious stones strewn about the small room in piles. He sought and found the source of the divine light.
All else fled from his thoughts.
MELTED STONE
Crystalyn froze a step beyond the golden doors. Countless black beetles marched into a straight line of black fire, burning soundlessly to cinder. Behind the flames, the man whose betrayal sank deeper than the blackest depths of the Wasted Sea, the one whom she’d once thought to build a life with, stood in front of a beautiful tiled mosaic. Darwin glanced across the room and met her eyes.
A scowl marred his handsome features.
Crystalyn missed a breath and then two.
Atoi tugged on her arm. “Skin creepers come,” she said, pointing.
The beetles on the back rows had broken from the mass, skittering across the floor toward them. Having her ice symbol hovering in the air in front of her made her reaction almost automatic; she sent it sailing into the sea of churning bugs. Expanding and elongating many times the original size, it flipped horizontally, landing in the densest concentration of beetles, freezing the floor with a thick coating of ice throughout its oval shape and half again its size surrounding it.
Rows of beetles reacted to her action. Skittering in waves toward her, they veered around the ring of ice.
“They don’t like the cold,” Hastel said from behind her. “Do it again, quickly.”
Combining the two symbols took but a moment, yet the rippling black wave had closed over half the distance. Crystalyn released it into the forefront of the charge, stretching it from side to side as far as it would go. Once it landed, only a small path remained unc
overed on both ends. There, the beetles piled higher trying to get through without touching her ice.
Long Sand sprinted past her holding a crackling torch. The flame flattened, nearly licking his hand from the speed of his rush. “You have the left side, warrior! Do not let a single creeper touch you!” Sliding to a stop, he waved the torch back and forth, stringing fire along the front rows from the wall to the ice channel her symbol had become. Beetles scurried up the wall, moving higher to outflank the heat.
“We all die if you stop now, User,” Railee shouted.
Though it sounded weak, Railee’s shout raised Crystalyn’s anxiety and her ire. She wasn’t a User. Users drew upon the Flow, something she could never do. Pushing her anger to the side, Crystalyn prepared another symbol and then combined a second one.
Behind her ice channel and on the right untouched side of her frozen ring, the black bugs gathered. On her left, the beetles climbed to the roof, slipping around the flames and Hastel.
“I cannot stop them all!” the one-eyed man bellowed. A group the size of a tray of ale scurried down the wall toward him.
Then Atoi was there. As soon as they touched the floor, she danced atop them, her booted feet blurring with the speed of her feet tapping back and forth beside him.
Crystalyn stretched a symbol from her ice channel up the wall to the roof and partway across the left side. Repeating the move with the second one on the right, the symbol elongated as far as the pattern would, leaving an opening the size of a barn door. Staying back from her ice, the beetles climbed the walls to the stone ceiling on both sides, heading for the center. Quickly, she created her ice symbol, filling the gap as the first of the creatures arrived.
Though she’d grounded herself to the planet, such heavy symbol use had taken a lot from her; her head throbbed in time with her heart. Behind the ice, countless beetles swarmed from floor to ceiling, a crawling tunnel of black bumps. Already her first ice symbol was fading.
Beyond the Dark Gate Page 35