Chapter 57
Primeval
Mithris tumbled through endless nothingness and screamed.
The lightless abyss swallowed his panicked shouts. There was no sound. Screaming silently felt ridiculous, so he stopped.
Mithris could not tell how far he fell, or for how long. The void offered him no frame of reference. Only the free-fall lurching of his stomach afforded any indication that the young wizard was even still alive.
Where is this place, he wondered. What has Eaganar done?
No answer came. Silence was unbroken — unbreakable — here in this place. Even Vapor’s telepathic voice deserted him now. Mithris was alone.
He tried to stretch out his magical senses to get a feel for the void. He felt nothing. It was not like the time Lord Tzrak had cut him off from magic. Then, he had still been able to feel the energy floating just out of reach. In this place, there was nothing.
Mithris felt a chill. Without magic, he was helpless. Without even the foundation crystal to speak to him, he was alone and powerless. He was no longer sure that he was alive. What was this place?
He had been so certain of Eaganar’s defeat. With ancient Grandmaster Rethbrin at his side, Mithris had the evil wizard at his mercy. Yet it seemed Eaganar had held out some last resort, some spell which Mithris had never seen him cast. That was the only explanation, unless…
Mithris thought back to those final moments in Rethbrin’s Arcanium. He recalled a brief flash of motion. He had seen it from the corner of his eye. He thought he had seen it, anyway. He could not be sure.
It could have been Absence. The final foundation crystal was difficult to keep your eyes on. Much like this limitless abyss, the voidstone was more of an…well, an absence rather than a presence.
Still, Mithris was sure…almost sure…that he had seen the dark crystal rising into the air…
Bright sunlight stabbed at his eyes, dazzling Mithris. There was no transition, no slow fading from one to the other. One instant he fell through eternal emptiness; the next, he was lying on the hot sand of a tropical shoreline.
The sun burned hot overhead in a sullen sky. The sand burned beneath him, the heat passing through his robes to sear at his skin. The air was heavy and sultry with no breeze and a pervading stench of brimstone.
Pushing himself up, Mithris cast his eyes about his surroundings. A dozen paces from him, a stick-thin figure in silken robes of blue and bright silver lay at the foot of a tall, unfamiliar tree. Rethbrin!
Mithris jumped to his feet and ran to the unconscious wizard. Rethbrin was more than two thousand years old. He had trained Deinre, Mithris’ own former master.
Eaganar had murdered Deinre, and later imprisoned Rethbrin in his own tower. Impersonating the ancient magician, Eaganar was able to fool the black tower into obeying him for a time.
That tower was a long way off now, Mithris was sure of that. He had no idea where they were, but he knew they must have traveled far.
Reaching the unmoving master wizard, Mithris fell to his knees in the hot sand beside the recumbent form. He rolled the old man over onto his back. Rethbrin’s chest rose and fell unsteadily, but he still breathed. Mithris sank back on his haunches, sagging with intense relief.
Shifting to a more comfortable position, Mithris again scanned their surroundings. They were on a narrow strip of beach. Surf pounded the shore, frothing white. Tall and slender palms rose alongside strange trees like the one he sat beneath. The young wizard had never seen trees quite like these.
The sky overhead was a sullen reddish-black, choked by volcanic smoke and ash. The stench on the air was similar to the smells of Mount Wileth, the volcano where Mithris had dueled with Eaganar for the first time. Mithris knew a volcano was near.
Almost, this could be the same island where Rethbrin’s black tower stood. Almost.
But this place was…primeval. Was that the word? Mithris wasn’t sure. He was sure that this was not the same island. Similar, perhaps, and just as hot and humid. Yet at the same time, this place was nothing like the place he had been before.
Rethbrin coughed. Sitting up, he hacked until red in the face and then spit angrily into the dark sand.
“Well,” he grumbled, fixing Mithris with an expectant stare. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Mithris, looking around once more. He was not avoiding Rethbrin’s eyes. “It doesn’t much look like your island…”
“No, it does not,” Rethbrin said. The old man looked about, his wrinkled face creased in thought. Then his eyes bulged and he gasped.
“What is it?” cried Mithris.
“Pay attention, lad!” Rethbrin turned a stern glare on Mithris. “Haven’t you sensed it yet?”
Mithris stretched out his senses in puzzlement. Then he recoiled in shock. After the dark abyss, he had not thought to check. Finding himself here, once more in the real world — or a real world, at any rate — he had just assumed. Anyway, he’d been concerned with Rethbrin…
Mithris knew he was making excuses to himself. If Vapor were there, the foundation crystal would not hesitate to point it out to him. The young wizard had to face the fact.
There was no magic here. Just as it had been in the abyss, the ever-present energy was absent.
Chapter 58
Another Foundation
“How is that possible?” Mithris asked, not wanting to believe it.
Ancient Rethbrin did not answer. He rose to his feet and dusted off his robes as though unconcerned. Mithris didn’t buy it. He himself felt helpless, on the edge of panic. Deinre’s master had relied on sorcery for far longer than Mithris. After two thousand years, how must it feel to have your magic taken away?
It must be like having your eyes ripped out, Mithris thought. No. Worse than that. He was trembling. Mithris forced the unpleasant thoughts out of his mind. He was not the same lad who had fled Deinre’s tower more than two years ago. He would not huddle on the ground, shaking with fear and waiting for someone to rescue him. He was a wizard now.
But what was a wizard with no magic?
“First, we figure out where we are,” said Rethbrin, interrupting Mithris’ rising panic. “That means finding Eaganar.”
“You think he’s here too?”
“I saw him in the Abyss,” the grandmaster said. “He passed through it, whatever it is, the same as us. It stands to reason he’ll be somewhere nearby.”
Mithris puzzled over that for a second. “It wasn’t him,” he said. Rethbrin looked at him sharply. “I mean, it wasn’t Eaganar who…sent us here. Why would he have followed us if he sent us?”
“Probably to get his hands on those foundation crystals,” answered Rethbrin without hesitation.
“I don’t have them anymore,” said Mithris, hooking a finger through the empty loop of fabric which had until recently held Vapor attached to his robe. Similar loops hung empty in several places on the garment. The crystals were not merely silent; they were gone. “Could Eaganar have taken them already?”
“Not without you knowing about it,” said Rethbrin, troubled. The old wizard frowned and rubbed one hand at his chin through the scraggly white hairs of his beard. He shook his head. “No, there’s something else happening here…”
A loud rumble sounded in the distant, followed a moment later by a sympathetic shiver of the ground below their feet. Mithris and Rethbrin both turned their eyes inland, toward the smoking peak in the far distance. Mithris swallowed nervously, then felt ashamed. He’d braved a volcano before. He had to stay focused.
“I think the crystals sent us here,” he told Rethbrin. “All of us.”
Rethbrin nodded. “You could have something there. No one knows what will happen when all the foundation crystals are brought together.”
“They’re never really apart…” Mithris mused, thinking back to the earliest arguments he’d had with Vapor.
“Eh? What’s that? Of course they are. Why, until you came along, no two of the stones had been
in the same place for thousands of years!”
“No, I know.” Mithris shook his head. He still had trouble with the concept himself. The foundation crystals were difficult to understand at times. He did his best to explain. “That’s just the part of them which projects into our reality, though. The crystals exist on all foundations at once. In the first foundation, they are never separate…What? What is it?”
Mithris stared in confusion as the ancient wizard Rethbrin spun wildly in place, waving his arms like a madman and hooting. Had the old man suddenly lost his mind?
“Don’t you see?” Rethbrin was excited, hopping from one foot to the other. At least he stopped twirling. It had begun to make Mithris feel dizzy. “The other foundations! That must be where we’ve landed.”
Mithris took that in slowly.
“You think we’ve been transported to another foundation,” he said flatly after a long moment.
“Of course we have!” Rethbrin narrowed his eyes, looking around with renewed curiosity. “The only question is, which? Certainly not the First Foundation, we’d never survive there. Second, Third, or Fourth…which is it?”
The old man’s voice had trailed off to a low mutter. Still talking to himself, Rethbrin went to the nearby tree and peered closely at its bark.
“Why couldn’t it be Sixth or Seventh?” asked Mithris.
Rethbrin whirled around. “Don’t talk nonsense, lad.”
“No, listen,” Mithris protested. “Vapor told me there are actually seven foundations. It’s just that we don’t know about the ones which came after our own.”
“Hmmm…” Rethbrin drew the thoughtful syllable out, tapping his bearded chin. “All right then, I’ll accept that. But why would your crystals have sent us to another foundation? Hmm? I thought you called them your friends. Allies. Would your allies do something like this, at the very moment of your victory? Hmm?”
That troubled Mithris. He tried not to show his concern, but the old man saw it anyway and nodded. Mithris sighed. He would not have expected to miss Vapor’s voice in his head, but right now he thought he would trade most anything to hear the crystal speak again.
“Well, we’re not getting anywhere standing here,” Rethbrin announced after an awkward length of silence. “Let’s see about finding out where we are, and from there we’ll…”
With a trumpeting roar, a large and fearsome creature broke through the thick jungle foliage which bordered the inland edge of the beach. Rethbrin broke off, staggering back in alarm. Both wizards shouted cantrips, but of course they had no effect.
The creature stood five paces at the shoulder, towering over the startled wizards. It had a long, lean body and a powerfully muscled tail that stretched out behind its thick hind-legs. Its forward limbs were much smaller, situated as arms rather than legs, and tipped with gleaming claws several inches long. Its body was covered with sleek feathers of tan and brown and off-white. Its eyes, set wide on either side of a projecting snout, were reptilian. Its jaws were lined with jagged teeth.
“What is it?” cried Mithris, falling back from the creature. It stood where it had emerged, head weaving back and forth to bring its slitted yellow eyes to bear one at a time on first one wizard, then the other. It lowered its head, pawing at the ground with one clawed foot as it studied them.
“I hardly think classification is our first priority, Mithris,” Rethbrin said breathlessly. “I suggest we run!”
Chapter 59
Melendra
Broad leaves slapped at Mithris as he plunged through the jungle. His heart pounded. Chill sweat ran down his sides. He could hear the pounding pursuit at his back. Rethbrin snaked through the thick undergrowth just ahead of him. The rail-thin grandmaster was lithe and fast, and he slipped through openings in the foliage that seemed too small for a man, but he was winded and losing speed.
We’re going to die, Mithris thought as he ran.
He ducked a thick, gnarled branch and ran on. He was gaining on Rethbrin with every step. The ancient magician wouldn’t be able to keep up this pace. Mithris could hear his ragged, gasping breath.
The creature pursuing let out an ear-splitting roar. It sounded so close, Mithris could scarcely believe he didn’t feel its fetid, hot breath on the back of his neck. He risked a backward glance, saw the triangular head surging toward him through the dense growth.
It would be on them in another minute. They could not outrun it. The nearly impenetrable vegetation slowed its charge, but not enough.
Mithris had defeated beasts of the other foundations before. But in each case, he had drawn on magic to aid him. He did not want to think on what might have happened if he’d been unable to cast spells against omnitors or a devinist.
At least the creature had no magic of its own. Small blessing, that, but it told Mithris the problem was not just with him and Rethbrin. This realm, wherever it was, knew nothing of sorcery.
The beast roared again. It was right behind him. He could feel its breath now, hear the snapping jaws inches behind him. Mithris darted to the left, around the thick bole of one of the gnarled and unfamiliar trees. He heard the monster pursue.
His mind raced, searching for solutions. Spells kept popping into his head, cantrips he had practiced for defending himself against Eaganar and the creatures he summoned. The spells were useless.
Mithris yelped when his ankle snagged on an exposed root he had not seen. His momentum threw him down on the ground, twisting his foot under the root painfully. Mithris pushed up but knew he was too late. The monster was on him.
The young wizard squeezed his eyes tight and gritted his teeth against the inevitable agony of being devoured by the feathery dragon.
The beast roared. Hot air blasted across Mithris’ exposed back. Stinging flecks of spit landed on his arms and in his hair. Mithris opened his eyes in confusion. The monster’s roar sounded more of pain than triumph.
“Hit it again!” he heard Rethbrin shouting, somewhere close by.
There was a thrumming sound, almost a whistle, as of something long and slender hurled fast through the air. It ended with a wet thunk and the beast howled again. The ground shook violently when it fell.
Extracting his foot from the root, Mithris pushed himself away and rolled frantically onto his back to see what had happened. The monster lay on its side two paces from him. It had stood right over him. The first spear had driven into its hip in the moment before it struck. The second still quivered in the beast’s throat.
Thick, slow-moving blood bubbled up around the haft of the spear, staining the feathers dark red, nearly purple.
Rethbrin was at his side now, kneeling beside Mithris among the creeping vines and lianas. The old man took him by the shoulders in a grip the strength of which surprised the younger wizard. He looked up at his master’s master and saw the girl who stood behind Rethbrin. Mithris forgot about Rethbrin.
“Are you whole, lad?” asked Rethbrin, sounding deeply concerned and a million leagues away.
She was tall and slender and had raven black hair that fell to her waist. She was about his age, he thought. She wore a supple vest of lightly tanned leather, laced up the front with thongs of slightly darker hide. Her short trousers were of the same material and fit snugly around her hips and ended just below the knee in a tight cuff. Her eyes were very large and brown and they glistened with what might be concern for his safety.
Mithris hoped so anyway.
“Who are you?” he asked the girl.
Another figure stepped into view. With the same tan skin and home-cured leathers, he stood a head taller than the girl but had the same black hair — his pulled tightly back and held in a long braid that hung over one shoulder. His eyes were the same as well, and Mithris knew he was the girl’s close relative. Probably her brother.
The man stepped over Mithris and went to the monster he had felled. Glancing back at the sprawled wizard with undisguised contempt, he retrieved his spears. He returned, carrying the two spears crossed in one hand
. He knelt down opposite Rethbrin and frowned.
“Why have you come?” he demanded.
Mithris looked helplessly back and forth between the girl and her hostile brother. His jaw worked but the words didn’t come.
“We hardly wished ourselves here,” Rethbrin snapped at the spearman. Even kneeling, the old man managed to draw himself up into an imposingly indignant posture. “I’m grateful for the help you’ve rendered, young man, but I must say I don’t care for the tone of your question. Now why don’t you just tell us where we are, hmm?”
“Why are you here?” The insistent spearman glared at Rethbrin. He fingered the sharpened stone blade of one the spears with his free hand.
“Stop it, Lothar.” The girl ran forward, one hand outstretched to the spearman.
“Stay out of this, Melendra,” snapped Lothar, sparing a rapid flicker of his eyes in the girl’s direction. She drew up short, but her face was determined.
“They are strangers here,” she told Lothar firmly. “Listen to the old one. He says they came not willing. Stop your posturing and hear them out.”
“Here’s a young woman who speaks sense,” Rethbrin interjected, crossing his arms over his narrow chest and looking down his nose at Lothar as if the matter were settled. “I’d listen to her if I were you, young man.”
Lothar ground his teeth together angrily. He glanced at his sister again and gave a curt nod. “Very well,” he relented. “We take them to the village. They can tell their story to Grimball. He’ll decide.”
“Who’s Grimball?” Mithris finally found his voice. From the look that came over Melendra’s face, he didn’t want to know.
Chapter 60
Grimball
Melendra and Lothar moved through the jungle with an easy grace Mithris and his grandmaster could not match. Soon enough, however, they led the way to a narrow path that cut through the jungle. Melendra took a short, fat-bladed sword from a sheath on her back and took the lead. She hacked at the encroaching jungle, shearing off broad leaves and cleaving vines to stop them reclaiming this path for the wilderness.
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