Pawn Of The Planewalker (Book 5)

by Ron Collins

  They were afraid of him now, but it wouldn’t be long before that fear turned to anger, and that anger turned to action.

  How long did they have?

  Minutes? Hours? Days?

  The chamber they were in was large, and well cared for. The bed was soft and padded. A mirror covered one wall, reflecting Pru’s image as she slept.

  Despite her height, she was a slight woman. Her skin was soft and dark, olive with just a hint of purple. All three eyes were closed, and the cut of her jaw line was smooth and relaxed. Her breathing was gentle.

  Karasacti’s robe hung on the hook where Garrick had thrown it. He took it to a basin to clean the dirt and grime from its weave. The fabric writhed in his hands. The cuffs of his shackles were still around his wrists and ankles, and they clanked with dull retort as he scrubbed the material.

  The robe was how Karasacti controlled the plane.

  He knew that, now.

  Garrick wanted to wear it.

  He felt it whisper to him.

  If he put the robe on, it said, he would almost certainly be able to access his link and cast something that would remove the shackles. If he put this robe on, he might understand more about this plane and maybe even learn the magic it took to move through others.

  Put it on, he thought. Wear it.

  But he had been around Braxidane often enough to be wary of such things and the prices they carry. Actions and consequences, he thought. There was more here than he understood.

  Soap lathered as he scrubbed the garment.

  Three times he washed, rinsed, and dumped fetid water.

  Then he hung the robe to dry, dribbles pooling with a prismatic sheen on the dark floor below it.

  He returned to the window beside the bed.

  The crowd had grown as the night progressed. It twisted in the darkness like a black whirlpool of madness. Voices rose more firmly now. Oily fire burned from torches, and the people carried weapons that before were simple shovels and rakes. Karasacti was dead. The power on this plane had shifted.

  They were coming.

  The citizens of Rastella had enough of Karasacti’s brand of magic and they were coming to take back their city.

  He had to do something.

  He looked at Pru.

  Green moonlight flowed over her. A lump grew in his throat. She reminded him so very much of Sunathri. What was her role here? The Lord’s sorceress? His consort? His queen? Would they bother her? She had, after all, been touched by Karasacti’s magic. Would they trust her, or would they burn her like any other thing they saw as Karasacti’s?

  He scowled, realizing his selfishness.

  Garrick was trying to convince himself to take Pru from her home, to kidnap her while she slept. Merely because she had helped him, and because she reminded him in some strange fashion of a woman he may once have loved.

  He should be better than this.

  Pru would be fine. This was a plane that understood sorcery. Still, he bent and placed a soft kiss on her forehead, then left her to sleep through the effects of her recovery.

  A ceramic explosion came from outside the window, a bowl or decanter crashing against the stone wall. A throaty cheer rose. Another crash came, the sound of baked clay shattering. Then glass. A lower-level window was broken.

  Garrick’s life force swelled.

  It would prefer to heal at this stage, but he had learned now how to make this power bend to his own needs. He could use it if he had to.

  He looked out the window one last time and noticed a place down lower where a battlement rose to within leaping distance. If he could get there, he would be able to escape. But that meant he had to descend the tower. Without second thought, he stepped out of Pru’s bedchamber and ran to the central staircase, chains jangling from his wrists and ankles.

  The entire castle was dark now. Paintings hung from the walls like pure black rectangles in a land of shadow that smelled of cloves.

  He took the stairs down. His hand trailed over a banister that curled at the end of each flight, doubling back again and again to lead further downward. He slipped once, tumbling to the bottom of a well. Panting, he picked himself up and scrambled downward.

  Voices echoed up the stairwell.

  Footsteps caused Garrick to lean over the railing and see men coming forward. He took the doorway at the next floor, hoping he had descended far enough.

  This room, too, was dark. The stench of sorcery hung here like a drape. Security wards, he thought. He had sensed them before. He ducked and rolled in an instinctive, workmanlike move that was made efficiently and without concern. His chains clattered against the floor as he rolled.

  The blow aimed at his head missed.

  The beast came from the shadows, black and purple. Eyes ringed its head, glistening with malignancy. It was a remnant of Karasacti’s magic, a spell cast to protect something the mage wanted protected. The beast roared and pressed an attack

  Garrick cast a shield of life force over himself.

  Black talons met the cone with an explosion that scattered sparks of blue and red into the air. But the beast’s magic penetrated his shield, and a sliver of cold steel froze Garrick’s being.

  He drew a breath, sliding himself backward.

  He had to get out.

  The stairwell was behind him. He slipped toward it, hoping Karasacti’s magical beast was tied to the room rather than free to follow him. Voices boomed from a floor below. Torchlight illuminated the area with yellow-green shadows.

  He was trapped.

  The beast gave a pained roar as it stopped at the doorway. It was penned to the room—at least that much was in Garrick’s favor.

  “Holy Father!” a voice bellowed from below as the man in the front of the column saw the creature.

  “The monster is creating more demons!” a woman’s voice called.

  Garrick climbed stairs three steps at a time. The gang clamored, a tide pool of their need for vengeance swirling around them. A dagger whirled past, crashing against the wall before clattering to the floor.

  He sprinted up the next flight.

  “Come on,” he heard a familiar voice above.

  Pru stood at the lip of the stairwell. Her hair was disheveled from sleep, and she held her arm at a tender angle.

  Garrick ran to her as she spoke words of magic.

  Crimson fire flowed from her outstretched hand to form a barrier between Garrick and the people of Rastella. Confused voices filled the stairwell. He grabbed the dagger that lay at the top of the stairs, and came to her side.

  “The townspeople’s cries woke me,” she explained, still holding concentration on the spell.

  “Thank you.”

  “You had best go.”

  “They’ll vent their anger on you.”

  Pru smiled wearily. “It will be all right. I know the city. They’ll shun me, but I don’t want to be here, anyway.”

  Garrick nodded, seeing resolution on her face.

  “There’s no way out but down,” he said.

  “Use the lord’s robe.”

  He hesitated. How could he tell her he didn’t want to risk trifling with such powerful magics? How could he tell her about Braxidane?

  A man pressed forward with his torch. Embers flared as the fire touched Pru’s magic. Someone threw a weapon. The shield rebuffed it.

  Pru looked at him, eyes glittering in shadow.

  “You had best go,” she said. “I can’t hold this for much longer.

  “All right,” Garrick replied.

  He put a light hand on her shoulder, then raced up the stairs.

  The robe was where he left it. He held it for a moment, turning the fabric over with his fingertips. It was still damp, cold in the evening chill.

  Voices came from below. Footsteps rumbled on the stairs.

  With no time to waste, he slipped it on.

  Chapter 18

  Garrick found himself in a place of nothingness.

  There was no ground beneat
h his feet. No horizon. No sun, no moon, no wind, no land. There was only color and fragmented space, blobs of green and blue, and red and yellow that formed shifting patterns like the view inside a kaleidoscope. His stomach lurched. He put his hand before his face, and was pleased to gain some small sense of balance.

  It seemed comfortable here, alive.

  The robe he wore pulsed with color, molding around his skin.

  He found the dagger still in one hand. Its plainness in this place of extreme queerness gave Garrick inordinate comfort. He wrapped his hand around its hilt and tried to stand more firmly.

  As he focused, passages formed from nowhere, twisting this way and that, growing in hazy outlines at the periphery of his vision. The place was chaos formed of infinite structure—passages and more passages, an arcane maze of tunnels and shafts that shifted in an amorphous mass.

  “Garrick,” a voice said. “I didn’t know if I would see you again.”

  “Braxidane,” Garrick replied as he turned to face a formless blob of gray material.

  “At your service.”

  “Unlikely.”

  His superior seemed to sit up, his edges folding over themselves as if they moved of their own volition.

  “You’ve done well bringing the robe here,” Braxidane said. “The planes are once again open to Rastella.”

  “What is this place?”

  “It is my home. We call it All of Existence. It’s the place we live, the construct that connects all of the Thousand Worlds.”

  More colors churned, making Garrick sick to his stomach. His life force was quiet here, subdued and calm. He was comfortable. Yet, Garrick looked at Braxidane and felt nothing but anger.

  “You sent me there because of the child, didn’t you?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I’m tired of playing your game,” Garrick said. “Why am I here? When can I go home?”

  “You still don’t understand what I’ve given you?”

  “You’ve given me nothing.”

  “I’ve given you the ability to change the course of the universe.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  Braxidane turned the color of condescension.

  “You’ve touched the child on Rastella, haven’t you?” Garrick said. “It will grow up with this same curse I have.”

  “Yes, Garrick. Now you’re seeing things like a true mage. The child will grow to be one of my champions, just as you are. Only it will not know any different life. For this woman, being god-touched will be all she ever knows.”

  “You’ve sunk to a new low, then.”

  “How so?”

  “At least I had some form of a choice. The child is having this foisted upon it.”

  Braxidane’s form shuddered with something Garrick interpreted as a shrug.

  “That is life, Garrick.”

  “No it’s not,” Garrick said, feeling his anger rise. “You singled me out because I was young and weak. But I’m tired of it. I’ll not be your lap dog anymore. You can’t just put me someplace, and expect me to jump.”

  “Down, boy,” Braxidane said, his color deepening.

  “Stop it!”

  “Oh, grow up, Garrick.”

  Garrick turned away, wanting space between himself and Braxidane, but every path led to more paths and he could not determine the best way out. He picked one at random and strode toward it—or, rather, he flowed toward it.

  Movement in All of Existence was different. It was ambulation via thought, more like swimming than the mindless motions of walking. As Garrick moved, the energy around him came to a boil, rushing, racing through him as if trying to crash into his body. The passage sizzled with invisible currents, swirling like storm winds against his skin.

  He felt Braxidane behind him.

  “It’s all life force,” Garrick said, realizing now why his hunger was so comfortable here. “Everything here is life force.”

  “I think of it as reality.”

  Braxidane hadn’t followed him so much as appeared beside him.

  “Stop with your overbearing gibberish.”

  “No, Garrick. It’s your turn to stop.”

  Garrick sensed his superior’s anger.

  “Most people have to interpret life, Garrick. Most people do the best they can to understand the purpose of their existence. And most people limit themselves because they don’t see how powerful they really are.” Braxidane’s form pulsed. “You, though—you’ve been given the privilege of seeing your essence for what it actually is. And you’ve been given the ability to use that essence to create something real.”

  “A lot of good it’s done me.”

  “Only because you refuse to use it.”

  “Why should I steal energy from its rightful owner, and funnel it into whatever strikes my whimsy?”

  “What a quaint question, Garrick. What gives me the right to change the world? In the end, the only answer that matters is that you can.”

  “But I shouldn’t.”

  “A purely subjective judgment, don’t you think? And subjective judgments require a basis.”

  “Yes,” Garrick snapped. “Actions and consequences. I get it.”

  He could sense Braxidane’s childish grin.

  “I only suggest you use both your conscience and your intelligence to shape your concept of life.”

  Then he was gone.

  It was a leaving done in a single, instantaneous moment. No flare. No scintillating cloud of glimmering color. Braxidane was just there one moment, and gone the next, leaving Garrick alone in All of Existence.

  Life force pulsed around him, pushing, moving between planes like water flowing from mountaintops. He steeped himself in it, feeling its motion, sensing its depth in the same way a sailor feels the ocean.

  He thought about moving, and he did.

  He thought about the planes, and the entrance to each of the Thousands Worlds was suddenly open to him, spread across All of Existence but easily within his reach. He felt the eternal, never-ending flow of life force in, and life force out. He sensed connections, and nodes, and places of calm like the location he had spoken to Braxidane in.

  He chose a node with a random thought.

  The robe pulsed, and Garrick found himself there.

  It was a quiet place.

  A calm place. A place with no pressure, no deadlines, no arguing mages, and no mobs of people banging down doors to get at him. He sat in this place for a long time, thinking, learning, feeling the heady flow of energy that wrapped around him, sensing the true nature of the worlds that comprised All of Existence. He didn’t know how long he sat there. It could have been centuries, or it could have been a single heartbeat. It could have been a lifetime.

  Did time even exist here?

  Were the planewalkers, those beings that moved through this connective world, truly all powerful?

  Was he now a god?

  Chapter 19

  “Do you understand?” Braxidane said at last.

  Garrick sat at an otherwise empty node, his “hands” spread into the flow, his eyes closed, his head thrown back, and his mind filled with pieces of lives he had never known. The robe pulsed an unending stream of color as it protected him from the flow. He smelled power. All of Existence—the planes, the connections, and the planewalkers—throbbed in his mind.

  “You feed off energy,” Garrick said.

  “We feed off the flow,” Braxidane said. “Energy in stasis has no purpose.”

  “Hezarin blocked Rastella’s flow, so you had me fix it.”

  Braxidane’s form grew a feeling of parental pride. “You’re learning.”

  “If current is all important, why did Hezarin block the passage?”

  “She was upset because I wouldn’t alter the work you did to entangle the orders’ god-touched mages. But when a god takes control of a plane, she owns the entire flow within it.”

  “Meaning only she can grow from it? Meaning others wither?”

  “Yes.”<
br />
  Garrick thought about this.

  “We once fought over planes for just that reason,” Braxidane said. “Until finally it came to war throughout All of Existence.”

  “Starshower?” Garrick asked.

  “Elsewhere it was known by other names.”

  A wave of understanding rolled over Garrick.

  Storytellers made good coin telling of the cataclysmic event in Adruin’s past that, until now, Garrick had viewed with healthy doses of skepticism and disdain. But he saw just how big the world was now. And now he saw how much like a spider’s web it was, too, a sticky mass of choices and events that were all inextricably intertwined. The world was beautiful in its simplicity, awesome in its complexity. Garrick thought of the Shariaen ancients he had faced in the hills when he first traveled with Darien.

  “War in Existence can happen again, can’t it?”

  “Some say it is happening already. Though our council of Joint Authority was another consequence of that first battle, it does not function as it once did.”

  “Why are you showing me this?”

  “It seems to be the right time.”

  But Garrick felt Braxidane’s lie pulse through the flow. He moved his body and felt the robe surrounding him. It was the robe that had brought him here, the robe that had given him access to this place. And Braxidane’s story had given him nothing beyond confirmation of history he had already sensed. The planewalker loomed before him, shimmering silently with blue and green pulses. Was he hoping Garrick couldn’t see through him? Was he still expecting Garrick to follow him like the puppet Braxidane was treating him as?

  “There is much to think about,” he said.

  “Yes,” Braxidane said. “There is much for you to think about, but you have little time. You’ve got to go back to Adruin.”

  Garrick nodded.

  Being here had changed him, though. It had given him sight into the minds of the planewalkers who controlled the world. And being here had given him something else, too. Sitting in the flow, feeling the power these creatures wielded had taught him that the people of his plane—of any plane, for that matter—were subservient to the planewalkers in ways they could never see. They were puppets. Pawns. The planewalker’s power was an invisible weight tied to every being in the plane. It meant that no one was truly free to live their lives to their own plan, and having seen this truth meant that he, Garrick, was the least free of them all.