“Noted.”
Crag moved swiftly but quietly through the Fortress, at one point taking me under it through a set of stairs I’d never seen before. We reached a large, fortified door at the foot of the stairs, and Crag stopped in front of it. Two small sconces sat in the walls to either side of us, providing a little illumination. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to highlight the many iron bolts and deadlocks keeping this thing shut.
“What’s behind door number one?” I asked.
“You’re about to find out.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Looks like you’re really trying hard to keep something locked inside.”
“Or trying really hard to make sure a stupid prospect doesn’t break in and get themselves killed.”
He walked up to the door and planted his palm against it. There was a soft flash of blue light that traced the outline of his fingers and then spread away from his hand to create flowery patterns. Then the light then dispersed into fine, blue mist, and I felt a cool chill run up my spine.
One by one, each of the massive iron locks began to pull apart with a series of loud thuds until, finally, Crag was able to simply push the door open, only the room beyond it was dark, and cold. I couldn’t see beyond the small slit of light from the sconces slipping past the door.
“Follow me,” Crag said, “Don’t touch anything, and try not to breathe too loudly, while you’re at it.”
“Don’t breathe. Got it.”
Crag stepped through the door, and after taking a breath to still my rapidly beating heart, I followed in after him, pulling my hood down and curling two fingers into strands of my hair. Slowly, my hair started to glow. The light comforted me, and made sure I wouldn’t fall over myself as I walked.
I noticed the faint glow from my hair touching the extreme edges of reflective surfaces hidden in the dark; some metallic, others crystal. The air got colder the deeper we went, but that wasn’t all; magic was starting to fall around me like I was stepping into a water tank, pressing all around me, squeezing me. Whatever this place was, it was like a magic pressure cooker. There was so much of it, I thought at any point the roof of this place would pop and it would all go flooding out.
Maybe that’s what all the locks on the door were about?
I was about to ask what this place was, when I remembered Crag’s instruction not to breathe. I figured that meant don’t talk, too, so instead I waited until he took me wherever he needed me to go. Despite the utter darkness we were in, Crag seemed to be able to navigate it just fine. That was great, seeing I had no idea where we were going.
Finally, we reached the door to a small chamber. It opened without the need for any magic, creaking only slightly despite probably being pretty old. Inside, suspended between two stone pillars—one rising from the ground, one hanging from the ceiling—was the singing stone. I hadn’t seen it since Abvat and the explosion, but there it was, that little amber rock, spinning gently like it was in zero gravity.
“Holy shit…” I said.
Crag walked into the room and stood beside the stone, and as he walked, soft lights sprung to life—magic runes, set into the wall and glowing silver. “You remember this?” he asked.
“How could I forget? That thing almost killed me.”
“Except it didn’t. Not even almost.”
“All I remember from that moment was an explosion that I somehow held inside of myself, then I woke up in the infirmary, like, hours later.”
“Were you hurt?”
“No… but that’s because the doctor healed me.”
Crag shook his head. “Nobody healed you.”
“What are you talking about? Draven told me—”
“Draven lied. He wanted you to know as little as possible to make sure you didn’t go around running your mouth, boasting to all your friends about how awesome you are.”
I moved one of my hands to my hips. “Do I look like that kind of person?”
“He didn’t want to take a chance.”
I shook my head. “So, wait, you’re saying the doctor didn’t heal me? Then what happened?”
“Nothing. You absorbed the whole explosion and then you passed out with the stone in your hand. Only reason we were able to get it here was because you were holding it.”
“You’re telling me someone carried my unconscious body down here and… what?”
“Not someone. Me. I carried you down here, then I pulled your limp hand over that column, opened your fingers, and let the stone float up into the magic field. Then I took you to the infirmary.”
“What if I had been dead?”
He shrugged. “Then I’d have taken you to the morgue.”
I pressed my fingers against the bridge of my nose. “Okay… whatever. Look, I’m nursing a bit of a hangover and I’m still hungry. Could you tell me why I’m here?”
He pointed at the stone. “Touch it.”
A pause. “Get the fuck out of here.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “What did you say?”
“No way, I’m not touching that!”
“Why not? It won’t kill you.”
“Because! It’s easy for you to say it won’t kill me, but you don’t know that for sure.”
Crag shrugged, rolling his massive shoulders. “Think of it as a science experiment, then.”
I shook my head and backed up. “No. I’m not doing it.”
With a wave of his hand, Crag made the door at my back slam shut. My stomach turned cold. “I’m not asking you to do it, I’m telling you to do it.”
“And I’m telling you right now, if you don’t let me out of here, I’m going to fight my way out; and I know where to hit you so that it hurts.”
Some of the light reflected off the top of Crag’s bald head. He rubbed it, then sighed. “Touch it, and if you survive, I’ll tell you what happened last night.”
“If I survive… you’re not making this a really appealing choice to make. What did happen, anyway?”
Crag didn’t say anything for what felt like a full minute but was probably only a few seconds. It was hard to tell down here, in the dark. “Something we need your help with,” he said, “But only if you can touch that stone and not die. You’ve done it before, I know you have. Just go up there and touch it.”
I stared at the small, spinning rock, remembering what had happened to me the last time I’d come into contact with it. My wings had spread, that’s what happened. Only they hadn’t been physical wings, they’d been ghostly, almost as if they were entirely made of golden, magic light. I’d never felt more complete than I had in that moment, and I’d never seen them since. Maybe touching the stone again would bring my kithe back?
Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the stone. My pulse raced even harder than it had been up to now, my palms were starting to get a little clammy, and my lips were feeling dry. I licked them, then reached for the stone with my hand, my fingers inching slowly toward it. The closer my hand got, the colder the air around my fingers felt, until it was like sticking my hand in a freezer box.
Fuck it, I thought, and I reached for the stone and wrapped my hand around it; that was when everything turned white.
My body was buzzing, vibrating rapidly. I could feel the magic of the stone moving rapidly through me, from my fingertips, to my chest, to my toes, its energy filling me, uplifting me. I could hear something, birds maybe, and I could also smell… flowers? Grass, trees. These scents and sounds were all around me. When I moved my feet, the ground underneath me was no longer solid rock, but soft, wet earth.
A garden?
Lush greens, vibrant pinks, and brilliant yellows intertwined with each other in crazy ways, seeming to almost sway with the wind I could feel on my cheeks. It was a mad thought to have, but I almost believed I was standing on a field somewhere, with the sun beating down hard on the top of my head, and the gentle breeze cooling my skin.
The more I concentrated, the more my vision cleared to reveal the shapes of the flower
s around me. They were massive, easily as tall as I was, with buds the size of human heads and fruits the size of tennis balls hanging from some. I turned my eyes up at the sky and saw it clear blue above me. The harder I looked, the more clearly I could see the impression of a half-moon hanging in the distance. No, two moons… one slightly larger than the other. Sisters.
“Nuruna…” I said, “And Kennia…”
“Resh var sik?” someone called out. My entire body froze. I spun around hard, and the world spun with me. I was able to catch the impression of someone moving through the field. “Resh jo vich fam?”
A hand grabbed mine and I was sent flying back; back into the darkness, and flat on my ass. I was breathing hard, my pulse was hammering now, and I was dizzy as all hell, but this wasn’t the hangover anymore. The hangover was gone. This dizziness came from somewhere else. I tried to stand but managed only to topple over again and fall on my side.
Crag wrapped an arm around my waist and hoisted me aloft. He then walked me to a wall and helped me stand upright. “Are you okay?” he asked, staring right at me. “Can you hear me?”
I grabbed his face between my hands tried to squish his cheeks together, but it was like trying to squeeze two rocks. “Why did you rip me away?” I snarled.
“You need to relax.”
“No, you need to let me go back!”
I tried to struggle, but Crag had me, and unless I wanted to throat-punch him, I wasn’t going to get free. He pressed me against the wall a little harder, enough to keep my arms pinned, and waited until the moment passed and clarity returned to my mind. I’d snapped at Crag, and I hadn’t meant to. My breathing returned to normal, as did my heart. I felt Crag’s grip slacken a little, and that allowed me to relax.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know… I could see things, and hear things.”
“What are you talking about?”
I shook my head, the memory of what had just occurred already slipping from me. “I don’t know, okay?” Then I caught a fragment of that memory as it tried to escape, and I held onto it as tightly as I could. “Did you say something to me?”
“Now? Yes.”
“No. Before now.”
“I was watching you… you touched the stone and then… it happened again.”
“What happened again?”
He swallowed. “The wings.”
“Shit…” I let my head fall against the wall. I didn’t know what was more mind-blowing; that I thought I’d actually been on the other side even if only for a brief moment, or that my kithe responded more to the stone than they did to me. I was alive, at least, so there was that. And there was every possibility I’d just hallucinated someone talking to me, or maybe triggered some kind of memory.
“Draven was right,” Crag said.
I looked at him. “Right about what?”
He let me go, and I found I could stand on my own power again without wobbling like a baby giraffe and falling over. “He was the one to told me to come and find you. He thought you, more than any of us, would be able to touch the stone and survive.”
“Well, I mean, I’d done it once before, right?”
“Yeah, but that was… that had been an isolated incident; any number of factors could’ve helped you contain the explosion without dying.”
“Heh, that’s funny. You just moved your mouth, but Draven was the one doing the talking.”
“I’m quoting him, alright? I’m not afraid to admit I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to shit like this.”
A pause. “Okay… so, how about you tell me what happened last night? Draven’s alright, I take it?”
“He’s fine now. Aaryn… we’re not so sure.” He sighed. “We found another stone.”
“Another one? Where?”
“Not important right now. Draven’s been on a mission to find them ever since we took possession of this one. It’s been a long, hard month, but finally we managed to track one down, only… it didn’t go as he’d expected.”
“What do you mean?”
“Draven thought he or Aaryn would be able to touch the stone. They couldn’t. Aaryn didn’t even get close enough to it, Draven did a little better but he went down fast. I thought he’d been killed outright. I used Aaryn’s orb to bring us back. He’s recovered, mostly, but something happened to Aaryn. She went… a little loopy. We’re hoping she’ll recover, too, but the doctor’s still watching over her.”
“Crap… why did you need me to do this?”
He shook his head. “It was something you’d said to Draven. You told him you couldn’t hear the stone sing, or something, right?”
“Yeah… should I be hearing it?”
“I can hear this one sing right now. It’s like a hum… well, that stone wasn’t singing—it was screaming, like, I wanted to rip my own ears off. And there was this field around it that was like invisible knives were shooting toward us, cutting, stabbing. We never stood a chance.”
I was shaking my head slowly. “Why in the hell would you even get close to that thing? I mean, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because Draven wants it… he knows the one we have is powerful, he also knows there are more out there, and he wants to find them.”
“You saw what that stone over there nearly did, and you’ve experienced what this other stone has done. What makes anyone think they’re good things to have?”
“If we don’t have them, some other asshole with an agenda will get them, and then we’re all screwed.”
I was scowling, but Crag had a point. The stones were massively powerful, and as long as there were more out there, it was only a matter of time before some douchebag crazy enough and strong enough to tame one, succeeded. Then what?
But there was something else, too. I couldn’t remember the specifics of what I’d seen on the other side, but I was sure—unless I had been daydreaming—that I’d seen what I’d seen, heard what I’d heard, and more importantly… had been seen by someone else. Maybe Draven knew more about these stones than he was telling his lieutenants.
Maybe there was a little more truth to Abvat’s theory about the stones’ power to take us back home than we’d given him credit for.
“Okay…” I said, my voice trailing off in the dark. “So, now what?”
Crag took a deep breath. “Now you suit up,” he said, “We’re going on a field trip.”
Suit up was right. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting when Crag took me to the Black Fortress’ Armory, but almost as soon as I arrived a gold prospect I hadn’t met yet was waiting to strap a tactical harness to my bodysuit like I was some kind of commando. She fitted belts, straps, clips, and more pouches to me than I’d ever had on my body at any one point in my life; I felt like a utility belt.
A small flashlight was attached to my right shoulder, a sheath for a dagger was strapped to my right ankle, and a gun holster was fixed to my belt—though sadly, no gun. Finally, a reinforced vest was pulled over my head and clipped around my waist to protect my torso from bullets, or knives, I guessed. Once I’d been fitted, Crag approached with a dagger for me to use, handing it over handle-first.
“What, no gun?” I asked.
“Prospects don’t get guns,” he grunted.
“Hey, I’ve lived in New York for ten years. I can shoot a gun.”
“Not on my watch.”
I took the dagger and slid it into the sheath around my ankle. “So, this field trip… does it happen to be in a war-torn country, perhaps? What’s with all the gear?”
“Just a precaution.”
“Really? Because that guy’s rocking an assault rifle.”
I wasn’t the only person in the armory. Besides Crag and the girl who had fitted my tactical harness to my body, there were two other guys, both wearing the same equipment I had on but also sporting long, black coats over their black clothes… and sunglasses. There was a whole rack of them there, and while one guy checked his rifle’s slider
s, and triggers, and sights, the other was checking himself out in different sets of shades, pouting and nodding like a real tough guy.
“So, this is where the rest of the douche squad gets their uniform,” I said, “Do you get your haircuts here, too?”
“We do,” Crag said, leaning a little more closely to me. “I’m happy to give you one.”
“I’m good, thanks. I’d like a rifle, though.”
“No.”
“Glock?”
“No.”
“Katana? I’ve always wanted to use one.”
“No.”
I paused. “Okay, how about just a pair of shades, then?”
“After that douche squad thing? Get lost, pipsqueak.”
Scowling, I slowly spun around and got a good view of the armory. This place was packed weaponry, and not all of it medieval. I’d been training with swords, knives, axes, and shields for so long, I was starting to wonder if these people had ever even heard of modern weapons. Turns out they had. There were rifles, boxes of them, shotguns, pistols, sub machine-guns, and even grenades sitting on shelves, and that was as well as all the medieval stuff. Full body tactical suits hung from mannequins standing side-by-side to other mannequins wearing full-plate armor. This place was insane, but at the same time, unexpected.
Draven had always talked about the wars the Order was fighting; wars on this side of the rifts, wars on the other side. I’d never seen them, though; I only had my own personal experience. Seeing this place was my very first taste of the wars—dipping my toes in the pool, almost—and I wasn’t sure I was totally comfortable with the temperature.
“Is everybody ready?” Draven called, appearing from out of nowhere, as if by thinking about him I’d somehow summoned him.
“Good to go, boss,” Crag said.
The other two members of the douche squad fell into line. Rifle guy slid a magazine into the gun, and shades guy finally deciding on a pair and joining his buddy. Draven, who was only wearing a coat over his clothes—no tactical suit—picked a sword sheath up from a table, pulled the sword out an inch or two, and then slid it back into place before slinging the strap over his shoulder, letting the sword rest on his back. His eyes then fell on me, and for an instant I felt like I was all he could see.
The Obsidian Order Boxed Set Page 23