A patch of dark crimson on the weathered wood showed how much blood had been spilled and Tiadaria had to look away. A cursory glance around the room was enough to tell her that the chalice was gone. The wooden holder and the crystal vials that had held the blood were scattered on the floor. There was no telling who else might have been here in the time between when they'd left for the hospital and now. Looters could easily have made off with anything of value left in the decrepit building.
“It's not here,” Faxon said, close to despair. “We'll need to find another way.”
“Just a minute.” Tiadaria said, closing her eyes and slipping into the Quintessential Sphere.
“We don't HAVE a minute.”
She heard him, but he was muffled, as if she could only hear him down a very long hallway. Instead, she was focused on the itch in her arm where Tionne had laid the blade. There was no scar, no sign of the injury, but Tiadaria could still feel it, and she focused on those feelings, letting the power of the Sphere tug her in the direction it wanted her to go.
Tiadaria felt as if she was being led to the center of the room, where the bloodstain was, so she went to it, standing in its center, still surrendering to the will of the Sphere. She felt a gentle tug in the small of her back, as if an invisible hook were drawing her across the room. She followed the insistent tug toward the broken bar at the end of the room.
Putting her hands on its surface, the same place where the Captain's body had lay, she tried to decipher what the Sphere was trying to tell her. It wanted her here, at the bar, but she couldn't fathom why. What was she supposed to do? She pressed further back into the etheric realm, watching the memories slip by as if she was watching time in reverse.
The images were cloudy, obscured by the amount of evil that had been present in such a small pace over such a short period of time. Still, she watched, hoping to find the clue that the Quintessential Sphere was trying to reveal to her. She stopped and watched Tionne feed the Captain's corpse the blood. Tionne sat the chalice down on the bar as the Captain's body started to stir. Then the lich came to life, swinging down off the bar and shambling toward the bound Tiadaria.
This was it. This was the moment of her death. This was when she'd found the Captain in the clearing. That's how they'd been able to find each other. They were both so near to death, but both of them clinging, somehow, to the life they'd had. Tearing her eyes from the scene unraveling before her, Tiadaria glanced at the bar. The chalice was gone, but Tionne and the Lamiad hadn't yet fled. No one had taken it. It was still here!
“Tia, we don't have time for this!” Faxon cried as she slipped out of the Sphere.
Tiadaria forced away the nausea that always came with the transition from the deeper parts of the Quintessential Sphere to the physical realm. With a graceful leap, she vaulted the bar, ending up behind it. She knelt, her fingers exploring the darkness where Faxon's globe of magical light didn't extend.
Her fingers grazed cold metal. It was much colder than it should have been, accounting for the temperature in the room. Tiadaria clutched it tightly, and wrested it from its hiding place under the bar. She held it over her head as if she'd just been crowned triumphant at some summer game of skill.
The surprise and elation in Faxon's eyes was enough for her to give a laugh of her own and she rushed around the end of the bar to deliver the artifact to the mage. If he really could use the chalice to end the threat of the blood wraiths, they might have a chance to yet prevail.
No sooner had she passed the chalice to Faxon than they heard a voice at the wall where it had been broken away by the Xarundi's exit. The voice was soft and sultry, and it was a voice that Tiadaria would never forget as long as she lived.
“Well, well,” Nerillia said, stepping into the room, two wicked looking whips trailing behind her. “It seems that I'm not the only one interested in recovering our party favors.”
“You know what they say,” Tiadaria snapped. “Finder's, keepers.”
“Not in this case, I'm afraid,” another voice said from outside the wall. Tionne entered, the Captain's lich only a step behind. “I think we'll be taking back our little toys.”
“Tia!” Faxon yelled in warning, but her blades were already in her hands.
As the Captain's scimitar streaked down, her blades flashed out, catching the rusted blade of her former mentor and throwing it away. Another strike came soon on the heels of the first, then another.
Soon, Tiadaria and the Captain were locked in a battle of blades that flashed faster than the human eye could recognize. With Tiadaria occupied, Tionne and Nerillia moved toward Faxon.
#
“Don't do this, Tionne. Turn back from this dark path you're traveling and I promise you that we can find a way to make this right.”
Tionne was, at turns, amused and horrified. The fact that Faxon thought he could make her 'right' only showed how little he knew about her or had been paying attention. The last few days had shown her that there was no place for her among the Imperium. Her connection to the Dyr would forever make her an outcast to the majority of their society.
She spared a quick glance to where the lich and Tiadaria were fighting. The swordmage would be far too busy trying to stay alive to meddle in other affairs. Tionne was thankful for that. Though she thought she could fight Faxon and win, she was somewhat frightened of Tiadaria. The flashing blades were something she didn't understand. Magic, on the other hand, was something she was intimately comfortable with.
“I don't need fixing, Faxon. What about that don't you get? Or do you get it? Is that it? That the great and powerful Master Faxon Indra couldn't fix the broken little girl under his care?” She laughed. “You couldn't even see me for what I really am. How could you ever think you could fix me?”
He looked away from her and Tionne knew she was getting to him. That was it then. Faxon felt as if he had failed her. Never mind that she hadn't wanted his help in the first place. He was a fool. She dropped her hands to her sides and hung her head.
“Please, Master Indra,” she said in her best scared little girl voice. “Please, help me.”
As she expected, Faxon took a step toward her, his hands outstretched as if to guide her back to the path of the light. Tionne's head snapped up, her eyes flickering with the sickly glow of power drawn from the Dyr. She snarled the words of power as her hands snapped forward. Deadly black tendrils shot from her palms, seeking to ensnare and devour the older quintessentialist.
A flick of his wrist severed the tendrils before they could reach their target and Tionne felt the burning backlash of the countered spell between her temples. A blue-white missile streaked from Faxon's hands, striking her in the shoulder and spinning her around. She screamed in both pain and surprise. Before she could counter, Nerillia had gone on the offensive, striking out with one of the whips.
Faxon countered with one of his own. A whip of gleaming white light formed in his hand and wrapped around Nerillia's weapon, arresting it mid-strike. He yanked hard on the magical strand, pulling the Lamiad off balance and wresting the weapon from her grasp. He flicked the whip out a second time, wrapping it around the Lamiad's ankle.
Tionne drew on the Quintessential Sphere and sliced the air in the direction of the whip Faxon was holding. The spell bolt went wide, slamming into the bar and sending a shower of splinters into the air. Before Tionne could do anything about it, Faxon yanked the lanyard upward, picking Nerillia up off the floor. He lifted her until she nearly touched the ceiling, then whipped his hand down, slamming her into the floor so hard that the boards snapped.
“NO!” Tionne screamed. Nerillia wasn't moving, but she didn't dare go to her. That would put Tionne directly in Faxon's line of sight.
Instead, she took her rage and coaxed it out, feeding it with all the memories of her miserable experiences in the Great Tower. Feeling isolated and alone in the Academy. All the times she missed her family. All the times Faxon had treated her unfairly. Every negative experience she could re
member, she fed to the raging fire in her belly.
Slipping into the Quintessential Sphere, she called out to the Dyr, feeling its influence in the swirling eddies of magical power that surrounded her. Though the rune was far away, protected by the Xarundi, she felt it answer her call. It had accepted her offering, all the harrowing experiences she had offered it in return for granting her the power to dispose of Faxon once and for all.
He turned on her, his hands full of ivory fire, his lips moving in a silent prayer to whatever lightwalker runes he called on for his magic. Her guttural shout was faster and more powerful than he was expecting. She moved her hands, as if parting an invisible curtain, and the ground split under their feet.
The sudden movement made him stumble. Faxon managed to keep his footing, but his concentration was broken. He cried out in pain and Tionne smiled. She pressed the attack by calling on the power of the Deep Void, enticing the horrors that lurked there to push through the weak spot she'd created in the rift.
Many horrors responded to her call, throwing themselves at the gate, begging for release out into the world. They sang to her, worshiped her, trying to convince her to open a bigger gate. Tionne knew better than to listen to the sweet whispers in her mind. She opened only a small hole in the fabric of the Meridian and coaxed a few of the smallest demons through into the rift she'd created.
A pair of hellhounds clawed their way out of the rift, advancing on Faxon as he prepared another spell. Their blackened hide was shot through with lines of red and orange, their eyes afire with a malevolent red glow. Their slavering fangs extended four inches outside their skeletal maws and dripped with molten fire.
Tionne banished the rift and ordered the hellhounds to attack the quintessentialist. It took every ounce of her power and will to control these creatures from the Deep Void. She struggled to remain in control, for she knew that if she failed to maintain her dominance over them, they'd turn on anything and everyone, including herself. While she relished the thought of Faxon being torn limb from limb, she didn't want to experience that fate firsthand.
The unholy mongrels leapt out of the fissure and ran toward Faxon. Their ragged howls sounded like a blade drawn along a slate board and made Tionne wince. There was a brilliant flash of light and a braying scream of pain from one of the hounds. It spun across the floor, a smoking hole in its side where Faxon had hit it.
He wasn't fast enough to deal with the other, however, and it jumped on him, plowing headfirst into the man's chest and knocking him backward. Powerful jaws snapped at Faxon's neck. He was inches from a gruesome death and Tionne found all her muscles tensed with both the effort of will and desire to see him die.
Somehow, he managed to wedge an arm between the beast's jaws and his neck. The hellhound clamped down on his arm, small gouts of fire bursting from both sides of the creature's mouth. Faxon screamed. The arm of his robe had burst into flames and was dangerously close to searing the hair from his face and scalp. His face contorted in a mask of agony, he forced the beast back, using his own arm as a lever.
The other hellhound, having heard the scream of prey, had gotten back to its feet and slowly circled the pair on the ground. Its wounds were bad, but not mortal. There was still a considerable amount of fight in the beast. Tionne could feel it through her link.
She could also feel the link to the Captain's lich. It's battle with Tiadaria had reached a breakneck pace. Their strikes and counterstrikes landed so fast and furious that the blades threw off showers of magical sparks where they clashed against each other. Fresh blood stained Tiadaria's clothes where the Captain had gotten in a few lucky hits. Likewise, the lich was looking even more ragged and shabby than when they'd reanimated it. Tionne dared say that Tiadaria probably had the upper hand in that fight, so she better dispose of Faxon and be gone before she'd destroyed the lich.
Taking advantage of the moment of respite offered by the hounds' relentless attack on the quintessentialist, Tionne darted over to Nerillia and fell to her knees. The Lamiad's eyes were closed, but her chest moved with breath, so Tionne knew she was still alive. The girl pressed her fingers against the smooth grey neck and felt for the beat. It was there, slow and strong.
Assured that Nerillia was as fine as could be expected, Tionne turned her attention back to the battle. The second hound had darted in, trying to latch its powerful jaws onto Faxon's leg. Though his face was sheened with sweat, he'd managed to land a crushing kick to its skull. There was a crack and the hellhound's head split down the center. It wavered, dead on its feet for a moment, before it burst into sparks that quickly faded to ash.
The beast that had latched to Faxon's arm hadn't lost any of its drive to kill. It had slid further down his arm, toward the wrist, tearing the robe away from his arm. She could see deep furrows where the fangs had torn into his flesh and blisters where the hellflame had seared the skin. The smell of charred flesh was heavy in the room.
With a roar that Tionne wouldn't have believed had she not seen it, Faxon summoned a globe of lightning that danced around the fingers of his free hand. He slammed it into his other arm, where the jaws of the hellhound were firmly latched.
Faxon's roar turned into a scream of agony as his own weapon raced up his arm into his shoulder and beyond. The luminescence in the quintessentialist's eyes faded and Tionne knew that the pain had knocked him out of his commune with the Quintessential Sphere. His gambit had paid off, however. Spears of light shot out from cracks in the remaining hellhound's sides. It yelped, then collapsed in a shower of dust just as its brother had done.
Cradling his ravaged arm to his chest, Faxon had managed to sit up. Tionne took a step toward him, calling on the power of the Dyr to imbue her with pestilence and disease that she could spread to her former guardian and seal his fate. There was a curious tingle in her hands and Tionne glanced down to see hundreds of tiny black-green spheres scuttling back and forth over her skin like hungry insects.
A cruel smile twisted her lips and she walked to the edge of the break in the floor. There was nothing he could do to her now. Without being able to call on his own power from the Sphere, he was no threat to her. She'd always known she was more powerful than he. Now she had proof.
“This is how it ends, Faxon. You die by my hand, knowing that you failed. You failed to 'fix' me. You failed to turn me to the foolishness you lightwalkers regard as truth. You failed to save the Imperium. You'll die as a failure, a foolish, old, useless man.”
“There's something I have that you'll never have, Tionne.” Faxon managed to gasp the words through teeth clenched in pain. She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Oh? And what's that?”
“Friends,” he grunted.
Tionne whirled, aware that the sounds of the sword battle Tiadaria was waging against the Captain's lich had gotten much closer. She turned just in time to see Tiadaria's blade flash out. Time seemed to slow as the razor sharp weapon moved inexorably toward her throat.
At the last moment, the lich's rusted scimitar crashed down on Tiadaria's blade, turning it and forcing it lower. The flat of the blade slammed into Tionne's chest, throwing her across the room. She crashed into the far wall, her teeth coming down so hard on her tongue that she almost severed it. She spat blood and forced herself to her knees.
The battle was lost. The chalice was on the floor beside Faxon and there was no way she could get to it before Tiadaria was able to take another swipe at her. Tionne couldn't count on the lich to be able to protect her from another blow. She'd been damn lucky as it was. She glanced in their direction.
Tiadaria and the lich were still locked in battle. Tionne didn't know how much time she'd have, but she knew when to retreat. She skittered across the floor like a crab, wincing at the pain in her chest. Lifting Nerillia's body by the shoulders, she dragged her toward the hole in the wall where they'd entered.
Tionne was suddenly very tired. The strength she'd expended to keep the hellhounds in check was now endangering both herself and Nerillia.
They needed to leave and they needed to leave now. With a primal scream, Tionne summoned every last bit of strength and pulled the Lamiad through the hole and out into the night.
They'd given the Xarundi enough of a head start. She'd find a way to wake Nerillia, then they'd go to the palace. Once the King had been executed in front of his subjects and the palace cavern returned to the dragon, where the chalice was and who possessed it wouldn't matter in the slightest.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Metal clashed against metal. The shock ran up Tiadaria's arm into her shoulder. Her scimitar dropped from numb fingers. Her entire arm felt as if it had been plunged into ice-cold water. Though the lich's muscles were atrophied, and in some places in tatters, the power that reanimated it also gave it at least as much strength as the Captain had possessed in life. She was forced to defend with her less dominant hand. That always made her feel slower and more exposed, something the construct of the Captain obviously remembered.
“Come, my little one, you can't keep this up indefinitely. Faxon is injured. Go to him and I'll allow you to die together.”
“Don't call me that. I'm not so little anymore, and I don't belong to you.”
She punctuated her retort with a spinning kick to the Captain's middle. The blow knocked him off balance and his scimitar dropped for a moment. Tiadaria swung from the shoulder, sacrificing agility for raw power. If she was going to dismember the horror before her, she needed to be able to cut through bone.
The Captain dodged to one side with a deft feint, bringing his sword around backhand and slicing across her shoulder leaving a jagged gash. Tiadaria cried out from the fire that crossed her back. A skeletal foot in a tattered boot slammed into her ankle and it buckled, throwing her sideways onto the floor.
The scimitar, jarred by the hard landing, slid across the rough planks. Face down and weaponless, she was in a terribly vulnerable position. Tiadaria rolled onto her back, just in time to dodge the whistling blade that embedded itself in the wood inches from her ear. She took advantage of the time it took for the Captain to pull the blade free to roll away from him and recover her weapons.
The Swordmage Trilogy Bundle, Volumes 1-3 Page 51