Lightgiver

by Gama Ray Martinez

  Jez just stared at her. Linala appeared from around a corner. She breathed quickly, and her face was a little flushed, but other than that, Jez could see no sign that she had just run across the city. Horgar showed up a second later, his heavy steps thunking on the street. The other masters arrived shortly afterward.

  “I’m pretty sure your explanation doesn’t make sense,” Jez said.

  “No, it doesn’t, but it’s as close to making sense as I can get. They’re not a concept meant for this world.”

  “What happened?” Linala asked. “How did it get here?”

  Mirel’s robes faded to a more mundane yellow, and her wings vanished as she took on the guise of an ordinary human. “You were right, mortal. The barrier is too weak. We could try again, but we might end up attracting something worse.” She closed her eyes for a second. “The barrier is now paper thin.”

  Linala nodded and turned to the other masters as they neared. “Horgar, I need you to send a message to all the students we have staying in Tarcai and Hiranta. There is to be no summoning whatsoever, on pain of expulsion. We’ll have to cancel all summoning and binding classes next term. I hate to do that, but we’ve no choice if we want to prevent something like this from happening again.”

  “There is, perhaps, one more thing we can try,” Mirel said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Going to the library itself.”

  “I already tried that,” Jez said. “You said you couldn’t help me find it.”

  “That was before the barrier thinned.” She eyed Jez. “And before I learned just how powerful you are.”

  “Won’t that damage the barrier just as much as a summoning?” Jez asked.

  “For a summoning, you open what is basically a hole in the barrier and send out a call. It is open for as long as it takes for the creature to come through. Leaving this world only opens the barrier long enough for the traveler to go through. The damage is minimal.”

  “Okay,” Jez said, “but how do I find it? Last time, the closest I came was a memory Enki gave me.”

  “You just need more time there,” she said. “Between would eventually shape itself to your desires.”

  “I can’t spend more time there. It tears me apart. Besis used a ward to help me last time, but even that unraveled quickly.”

  “Because it was of this world. You need a ward formed of things of that world.”

  “But Between isn’t a world.”

  Mirel gave him a half smile. “You need a ward that is of Between then.”

  “I didn’t think there was anything of Between,” Jez said. “Isn’t that kind of the point? Between is nothing.”

  She waved a hand toward the central spire. “Where did you think the memory shadows you keep beneath your tower come from?”

  “The memory shadows?”

  “Creatures of neither darkness nor light but of a mix of the two. Where else would such a creature come from if not Between?”

  Jez looked at Linala, but she only shrugged. He returned his attention to Mirel. “Fine, but how does that help us form a ward?”

  “Take the shadows and shape them.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “Of course.”

  “How?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “With your will, of course. From what you’ve told me, you’ve already done a little of that.”

  Jez shook his head. “No, I’m pretty sure that’s something I would remember.”

  She smirked. “How do you think you find knowledge when you immerse yourself in them? Your will gives them shape and forces them to grant the knowledge you seek.”

  “Okay, but that still doesn’t tell me how to make a ward from them.”

  Mirel rolled her eyes and let out a long breath, a gesture that was obviously for show since, like the pharim they came from, afur didn’t breathe. She walked up to Jez and placed a finger on his forehead. For a second, his entire body felt like it was on fire. When the sensation passed, his mind swam with thoughts. He had to lean on a nearby building and was surprised when he saw someone staring back from within the wall. It took him a few seconds to recognize it was his own reflection in the obsidian. He felt like he had when Ziary had given him the knowledge of getting Between, but this was far simpler, and he knew he would have no trouble retaining this. It would be so easy to shape the shadows that he wondered why he hadn’t seen it before.

  “I can do it,” Jez said. “I can protect us Between.”

  “But how do we get there?” Linala asked. “Unless you want Ziary to give you the knowledge again and have us wait four days for you to wake up.”

  Jez closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was more of the knowledge Mirel had given him or if his own senses had grown more acute. Somehow, he could feel the mutable nature of Between. The barrier was so thin he could practically see through it. It would only take a minor effort to pierce it. Jez shook his head.

  “No, I can take us there now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Linala spent half an hour in the central spire before she returned to the summoning house with six of the black glass spheres. By then, Jez was done with his circle, one halfway between a summoning and a binding. Under ordinary circumstances, the conflicting purposes would’ve stopped the ritual from working, but the thin barrier allowed things that would’ve otherwise been impossible. Even still, he wasn’t sure how many he could take with him.

  Linala stopped in front of him and met his eyes. “Are you sure about this, Jezreel? These beings are incredibly dangerous.”

  “I’ve dealt with dangerous things before, Master.”

  “But not against something so able to invade your mind.”

  Jez gave her a small nod. “I’ll be careful.”

  She dropped them into his hand. Though they looked like they were made of obsidian, they didn’t clink when they impacted each other. They were completely black, but when he looked into them, he swore he could see faces in the glass. One of them stared at him, and his mind flooded with images of fire and war. Demons surrounded him, and he extended his hand to call his sword. He jumped when someone touched his shoulder. He blinked, and the vision vanished. He looked up to see Linala.

  “Don’t do that.”

  He nodded. “How long will they be like this?”

  “A day or so. We have no way to bind them to a physical form for any longer than that.”

  “Who should go?”

  “Myself,” Linala said. “Besis and Fina.” She glanced at Mirel, and the limaph nodded.

  “And me,” Osmund said.

  Linala shook her head. “I don’t think...”

  “Me too.”

  The air rippled, and Lina appeared. Jez smiled. “I wondered if you would show yourself.”

  “You knew?”

  Jez rolled his eyes. “Lina, I’ve been around your illusions for almost a year. Of course I knew.”

  “Really?”

  He laughed. “No, but we just fought a huge otherworldly monster. Where else would you be?”

  She glared at him, but he laughed again. Linala cleared her throat. “Regardless of Miss Varindatter’s indiscretion, this isn’t a situation for students. I would even leave Jezreel behind if we could.”

  Jez tried not to glare. “They’re still going, though.”

  “What?”

  “I’m taking them.”

  “You can’t.”

  Jez shrugged. “Then, go without me.”

  “Jezreel...”

  “I’m the one who’s been looking for Sharim while you all thought I was overreacting. They helped me.”

  “That may be but...”

  She stopped when Besis chuckled. She glared at him, but he shrugged. “You know the law. The knowledge a mage has is theirs alone. If this is how he’s determined to use it, we have no right to stop him.”

  “But he’s just a child. That law only applies to full mages.”

  “If you want, we can go over the list of wha
t this ‘child’ has accomplished. In most matters, I will regard him as a student, but when something like this happens, I’ve learned its best to either help or stay out of his way.”

  Jez inclined his head toward the protection master. “Six aside from me then? I’ll try. Everyone get close.”

  Linala looked like she would argue but she set her jaw and moved in close along with everyone else. Jez squeezed his fingers, and he felt the sphere crack in his hand. Tendrils of inky smoke rose up, but he surrounded them in his thoughts. They writhed, threatening to slip away, but he took the image of a cage and forced it onto the shadows. The smoke screamed in his mind, and though it should’ve been a struggle to maintain his concentration, the psychic attack broke against his mind like waves crashing against the shore. Hazy bars formed around them.

  His consciousness reached out and touched the minds of those nearby. He sent power into the circle and was barely aware of the runes illuminating. The barrier parted, and Jez tried to sweep his companions into Between, but he felt resistance. Something was standing in the way, preventing him from finding them. He found Mirel easily enough, and though Osmund and Lina seemed to be hidden from him, he knew them well enough to locate them. The masters, however, felt hazy and indistinct. They slipped through his grasp as the rest of them plunged into Between.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The substance of Between rushed at them, but Jez’s ward turned it aside. They were in a cage with bars seeming to be made of some dark material. No longer the vague smoky form that had existed in the mortal realm, here the cage was solid. It was real in a place normally devoid of reality, and without knowing how he knew, he was certain that here, the form he’d forced the shadows into could last for eternity. Osmund and Lina lay unconscious on the ground, and Mirel stood next to him, though he didn’t feel the need to maintain any of them. She stared at the students on a floor made of dark bars.

  “What happened?” Jez’s voice echoed for several seconds.

  “You lost your grip on the others,” Mirel said. She tapped the downed Osmund with her foot. “These two were lucky to make it here alive. You should’ve released them when you first had trouble gripping them.”

  He knelt down next to Lina and touched her throat. There was a steady pulse.

  “They’re alive,” Jez said.

  Mirel nodded. “Just unconscious.”

  He looked up at her. “Why didn’t that happen to you?”

  Mirel shrugged. “I’m not of the mortal realm.”

  Jez waited for further explanation, but there was none, so he started gently shaking Lina. After a few seconds, she groaned and opened her eyes. She sat up and gasped as she looked around.

  “Where are we?” Her eyes went wide at the echoing.

  Jez started trying to wake Osmund. “We’re Between.”

  She pursed her lips. “You know, I wasn’t sure I believed you when you told me about this place.”

  “Between is not a place,” Mirel said.

  Lina rolled her eyes. “I know that, but there’s not exactly a convenient way to refer to it.”

  “It is Between.”

  Lina sighed and looked at Osmund. “Will he be okay?”

  “No,” Osmund said without lifting his head off the ground. “He’s mad because Jez’s plans always seem to end with him on the ground, and he’s trying to decide how badly he’s going to hurt Jez.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Jez said. “He’s referring to himself in the third person, and that’s not a sign of mental stability, but that’s nothing new.”

  Osmund lifted his head and glared at Jez. “You know you’re not funny, right?” He picked himself up and looked around. “Well, this is familiar.”

  “You have been here?” Mirel asked.

  Osmund nodded. “Sariel brought us here almost two years ago.”

  “The lord of the Shadowguards?”

  Osmund grinned. “Yes, have you met him?”

  Lina narrowed her eyes. “You’re not funny either.”

  “You’re just bitter because you’ve only met one high lord of the pharim, and I’ve met two.”

  “Two?” Mirel asked, her eyes wide.

  “We met Aniel six months ago,” Jez said.

  “All of you?”

  Jez nodded, and Mirel looked from Jez to Osmund to Lina. Osmund looked smug.

  “You are all more than you seem.”

  “So what do we do now?” Jez asked as he took in the surrounding whiteness.

  “We go to the library.”

  Mirel started walking. Though she didn’t leave the cage, she still seemed to move away from them. It seemed like her footsteps should echo, but she walked in perfect silence. Jez stared after her for several seconds before the apparent distortion of space gave him a headache. He looked to his friends and shrugged before following. Almost instantly, he was next to Mirel, though the cage seemed completely stationary. Jez gaped at it as he walked, and Mirel chuckled.

  “Between is shaped by will. It doesn’t conform to the laws of the mortal realm.”

  “I’m beginning to understand that,” Jez said. “How do you know where the library is?” Mirel narrowed her eyes, and Jez sighed. “I know there’s no ‘where’ here. You know what I mean. How do you know we’re going the right way?”

  “Because we can’t go the wrong way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We wish to go to the library so we walk. Between shapes itself to our will.”

  “Why can’t we go directly there?”

  “Because Gayel wished it hidden.”

  “And that won’t stop us?”

  “He cannot hide a thing that is of mortals from mortals.”

  “But I’m not really a mortal.”

  “You are mortal enough for this.” She waved a hand at Osmund and Lina. “The presence of your friends will help as well.”

  Jez pursed his lips. “So you’re saying if we hadn’t followed you, you wouldn’t have been able to find it.”

  She gave him a half smile. “I was fairly certain you’d come after me.”

  “How long until we get there?” Osmund said.

  Mirel didn’t say anything for a while. Then, one of her steps had the grating sound of boots on stone. Jez knelt and tried to put a hand on the floor, but there was nothing to touch, and his arm went down farther than where the floor should’ve been.

  “We’re not there yet,” Mirel said, “but we’re close.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Without a will to shape Between, there’s nothing here, not even the ground.”

  “Then what are we walking on?”

  She grinned. “We’re not really walking.”

  Another of her steps made a sound. After a few seconds, every step sounded on stone, and Mirel pointed.

  “There.”

  As if in response to her word, the fog parted. A domed tower rose in the distance. Its roof shimmered with the shine of polished gold. A single fire burned in a window, though at that distance, it barely looked like a spark.

  “Who’s there?” Jez asked. “Did Gayel leave a Lightgiver to guard the place?”

  “No. The Library of Zandra was the premier center of learning in the world. By tradition, the brazier in the tower is always kept lit to represent the light of knowledge shining in the darkness.”

  “What does it burn?”

  “It burns because it’s supposed to burn. It was an idea, and here ideas have a life of their own. There’s magic in it too, or so I’ve been told.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Even we don’t know everything.”

  “What is that?” Osmund asked.

  Jez looked to where he was pointing. The fog swirled, casting odd shadows on the buildings. Jez almost asked what he was talking about when he realized that Between had an ambient glow rather than a true source of light. There should be no shadows here. As if sensing his realization, the creatures flew toward them.

  “Prepare
yourself,” Mirel said as she drew her shining sword. “In their home realm, the shadows aren’t limited by the bounds of reality. Here, they are stronger than ever.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Half a dozen shadows glided toward them so quickly they left dark streaks in the air. Jez’s fingers dance, trying to form the binding that would trap them, but his magic had nothing to latch on to, and the ward failed.

  “I can’t call fire,” Osmund said.

  “Me neither,” Lina said.

  Jez reached within himself, drawing on Luntayary’s power. The crystal sword appeared in his hands. Osmund nodded, and with a burst of flame, Ziary appeared in his place.

  “Lina, stay behind us.”

  “You won’t hear me arguing.”

  The first shadow screamed as Jez’s blade sliced through it, but this was no mental scream. He heard it, and for a second, he thought his ears would bleed. The shadow disappeared in a puff of black mist. One of the shadows entered through Jez’s nose, but as it plowed through his memories, Luntayary’s consciousness came forth and drove it away. No sooner had it left him than Mirel’s blade cleaved it in two.

  Jez’s sword flashed through the air. He didn’t know how many shadows he cut down, though it had to have been more than the original six he’d seen coming toward them. They fought a long time, far longer than he had even when facing an army in Rumar. He should’ve been tired, but somehow he knew that here he could fight until the Academy itself was only a memory and the mountain it stood upon had been worn away to dust.

  He cut one down and twisted to meet the next attack, but there was none. Aside from the library and his companions, all he saw was the endless whiteness of Between. He held his sword up for several seconds before letting it vanish. Ziary had gone to one knee and clutched his head. His sword was nowhere to be seen. He looked up as Mirel touched his shoulder. Ziary’s eyes looked far away. He was breathing heavily. Then, between one breath and another, Osmund reappeared.

  “Sorry. It got into Ziary’s memories.”