The Ravens of Death (Tsun-Tsun TzimTzum Book 4)

by Mike Truk

  I chuckled, pulling her in for one last hard kiss, her arms trapped between us, then stepped back myself. “Fine. We’ll save that celebration for after we’ve conquered the Fulcrum.”

  “Yes. Um.” Imogen was fucking adorable when flustered. “Then, ah, shall we…?”

  “Let's.” I took her hand and together we left the ruined cabin, walking down the hall and back out onto the bridge.

  My other companions were gathered to one side, watching the crew attentively as they made final adjustments to their mystical navigation banks. Aisha stood at the center, hands linked behind her back, staring at the hovering oval that had been nondescript before, but which now displayed swirling currents of blue and purple shot through with twinkling stars of gold.

  The sight was mesmerizing; I could almost sense some logic to the patterns that rippled across the oval’s surface. I could see the stars that went nova, gleaming brightly for a moment before fading back into the tapestry of undulating lights. A star map? A way to navigate the universe?

  “Savior,” said Aisha, tone curt. “We’re ready. Primus is at capacity, the Crookstone has reached its event horizon, and the hull has been patched up.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “The hull, that is.”

  “Better a small hole in the hull than the Contessa torn apart.” Her smile was clinical and didn’t touch her eyes. “You have our gratitude on that front.”

  I saw several of the crew members glower down at their obsidian panels. No doubt the irony of me saving the ship from the regent after hijacking it wasn’t lost on them.

  “Then let’s do it,” I said. “Take us to Tantaghrast.”

  “Very well. Navigator, lock coordinates on Gravehall, Tantaghrast.”

  One of the men to the side spread his hands over his panel, manipulating the flickering lights with deft gestures. “Coordinates locked, captain.”

  Lights swarmed out of his panel and along the Aztec-looking carvings on the wall. We all followed their passage as they traversed along deep channels, some pulses branching off to other panels, but most rushing to connect with the hovering oval, forming a net of glowing, pearlescent light that hung in the air.

  Aisha raised her chin. “Aisha Volaire, acting captain of the Contessa, 87th transference, authorization confirmed, begin thirty-second countdown.”

  “Target classification 4B, coordinate number 4321 by 12, position checked and confirmed, twenty-five seconds.”

  “Transference file number 20, additions, none, continuations, none. Transition final check completed. Twenty seconds.”

  “Primus energy unit reporting all is ready.”

  “Crookstone unit reporting event horizon stable.”

  “Amplifier unit reporting channels stable and wide.”

  “Aethereal interference monitoring unit reporting, within acceptable range.”

  Aisha gave a curt nod. “We've reached the point of no return. Fifteen seconds.”

  The Primus operator drew down something across her obsidian plinth, causing a deep and powerful thrumming to course through the body of the airship. "Beginning transference, all units continue to monitor."

  The oval’s surface was growing frenzied as the currents of blue and purple began to spiral, much as the clouds outside had done when Morgana began her ascent. The flickers of bright golden light raced past, originating as pinpricks near the center then flying out to the rims, disappearing as they enlarged.

  “Malfunction with amplifier channels,” said one of the navigators, tone clinical. “Primus energy dissipating before reaching the Crookston.”

  “Engage ancillary channels,” snapped Aisha.

  “Hull no longer registering as hermetic,” said another. “I’m seeing degradation.”

  I tasted something metallic across my tongue, and the air fairly sizzled with magical power. The lights on the bridge dimmed – or perhaps it was the oval that blazed out all the brighter.

  “We’re committed. Reverse Primus flow,” said Aisha. “Empty out the channels.”

  “Reversing flow.” The vibrations shaking the ship eased off. “Crookstone now idle.”

  “Emptying channels.”

  “Seven seconds to transfer.”

  “Flood channels,” commanded Aisha. “I want that blockage washed out.”

  Emma’s hand slipped into mine. “What’s happening?”

  “Channels flooding. Primus discharge exceeding optimum levels. Crookstone activating.”

  Aisha’s expression was stern. “That’s the best we can do. Everyone, hold on. Three. Two. One. Here we go.”

  I squeezed Emma’s hand hard, heart hammering as the oval’s surface warped. Brilliant crimson and yellow ribbons suddenly interwove with the blues and purples, the stars becoming streaks.

  The Contessa’s vibrations grew in intensity, causing my whole body to shiver and shake as the sensation of passing through a portal washed over me - that sense of implosion, of falling into an endless internal void.

  For the briefest of seconds, the world washed away into a blank nullity, then came roaring back.

  The chaos was immediate.

  With a violent lurch, the Contessa heeled to the left, dropping her nose as she started falling into a roll. I felt my weight rise off her deck, then drop into a slide. Navigators cried out, clutched at their consoles.

  “…hull no longer hermetic, we’ve lost pressurization -”

  “…channels are scrambled, Crookstone entering a loop -”

  “…Primus is sparking, looks like we’re losing potential, down to forty percent, thirty-five -”

  The lights flared brightly, died away. Aisha clutched at her podium, staring at the oval, whose swarming lights had been replaced with a camera’s view of some vast cavern outside.

  I didn’t have time to study what it showed. Emma was sliding down the floor along with the others. I tapped Manipura, rose, and drew Emma into the air, holding her aloft as the others fought for purchase and sought to arrest their descent along the bridge’s ever-sloping floor.

  Neveah scooped up Little Meow and Imogen, clutching them to her chest. Brielle had stabbed her burning blade into the ground, holding on as the Contessa dropped to a forty-five-degree angle. Navigators were shouting, grasping for holds, and within the ship a series of explosions and muffled crashes could be heard.

  “Altitude dropping! Seven hundred yards, six hundred seventy-five -”

  Aisha’s bark was savage. “I want that bubble on the level! Give me altitude, damn it!”

  Lights were flaring, flashing. Catastrophic things were happening within the length of the Contessa, distant detonations. The lights that coursed through the carvings along the walls were chaotic, growing ever more random.

  Then the whole ship slammed to the side as if it had been T-boned by the world’s hugest Mack Truck. Neveah and I, being aloft, remained in place, but the bridge jerked violently beneath us. Screams of panic filled the air, and I swooped to keep from impacting the ceiling and far wall.

  Aisha yet clutched her podium, hair fallen into her face. “Report! Report, damn it!”

  “I - I don’t know - we’re not moving under our own power, something’s got us -”

  “Got us?” Aisha turned to the oval, stretching out her hand, and the view skewed dizzyingly. The world without was illuminated by a soft blue luminescence, and I saw the interior of a vast cavern, the walls lined with huge ledges, plateaus, and yawning tunnels. But the oval’s point of view was whipping around, and suddenly a face filled its surface.

  The blank, slate-gray face of a statue, carved along classic lines with an aquiline nose, sensual mouth, and eyes blank, without iris or pupil. For a moment it didn’t compute; then I realized the scope of what I was seeing.

  The scale.

  An arm extended toward us, barely captured within the edge of the oval.

  “Lilith’s tits,” somebody croaked, and the Contessa shrieked as it was torn apart.

  Sparks of light bled in a rains
torm as the hull screeched, ripped asunder. Wind screamed into the bridge, humid and mineral, and I saw a half-dozen navigators tumble out into the void, sucked out by the pressure, falling away and out of view.

  The statue had us in its grasp. It had to be as large as the Statue of Liberty, a colossus of uniform grey stone; it clutched the forward third of the Contessa in its other hand, having torn it off as I might break a baguette.

  Meaning it held the remaining body of the airship in its other hand.

  There was no time for thought, no time for doubt. There was one way out, and it lay right before me.

  I took it.

  “Neveah!” I screamed, and dove forward, Emma and Brielle streaming behind me, clutching desperately at each of my hands. Out I flew, which meant diving right down at the vast statue’s blank face.

  I felt its attention focus on me as if a magnifying glass had moved to just the right distance between myself and the sun. It released the forward third of the Contessa, which, mangled and crushed, began to slowly turn as it fell toward the distant cavern floor.

  Which way? A quick glance showed me a cavern the size of Manhattan, epically huge, impossible. The walls? Down to the floor -?

  Brielle’s scream snapped my attention back. “Noah!”

  The statue’s hand, as large as a school bus, was scything toward me, deceptively fast; it was all I could do to plunge down. I struggled to keep hold of Brielle and Emma, pulling them into a twisting dive.

  Fingers closed above me, missing the three of us by a fraction; then we were diving down the length of its forearm, skimming a yard from its flawless gray skin, screaming toward its elbow.

  I could vaguely sense its head high above us like a moon, its attention still locked on our descent.

  Intuition, instinct, something bade me look to my right, and I saw its other hand coming down to crush us against the inside of its elbow.

  I spun, barrel rolling as I cried out, pain wrenching at my shoulders while I drank deep of Manipura, pulling up and around onto its bicep.

  For a few delirious seconds, our feet found purchase on its arm, and we ran, the three of us, up the swelling curve of its stone muscle, which changed pitch as it moved. It grew steeper as its elbow dropped; in a matter of moments we were trying to sprint up an impossible mountain.

  “Incoming!” screamed Brielle, and I pushed off its bicep just before gravity plucked at me, pushing back like a swimmer propelling themselves off the far wall of the pool. I dove outwards and back as its gigantic hand swatted at us once more.

  Emma shrieked, and an emerald ward flickered into existence just as its forefinger would have slammed into me. The force of the impact tore Emma from my hand - the ward was centered on her - and sent her flying high, up toward the statue’s shoulder.

  “Emma!” I twisted, falling out of her ward; Brielle whipped around, clutching at my wrist with both hands.

  I saw Emma recede, her ward fractured, hand outstretched toward me, mouth a silent “O” of horror as she screamed.

  Momentum was pulling me down, but with a grunt, I arrested my flight. I tapped the brakes just enough that Brielle flew up and would have passed right by me until I accelerated again, catching her arms and pulling her onto my back.

  “Hold on!” I screamed.

  The Contessa was falling. I saw magical fire raging from the front of its bridge. I thought with anguish of its crew, of Aisha - thought wildly how I could help them, save them, but I didn’t have a choice.

  I had to get Emma.

  Drawing Shard, I pressed my arms to my sides, and flew in a spiral up the giant’s forearm, whipping around as Brielle held on.

  Up toward the elbow I moved once more, my plan to swoop around its waist to its back and there search for Emma as she fell -

  But its other hand was coming in again, massive like a seamed tennis court of slate, impossibly fast. Swatting at me like I’d swatted at countless mosquitoes back home. Coming in to crush me against its stone flesh.

  Then Neveah was there, flying down like a bullet shot from a gun, hair streaming like the world’s most glorious war banner behind her. Her eyes were wide, expression utterly focused, coming in on a collision course.

  Morghothilim flashed, and I’d never been so glad for its obscene length. All six feet of its black blade sheared through the giant’s fingers, cutting through stone without so much as a sound; then Neveah was gone, flashed past.

  But she’d bought me just the time I needed to put on a burst of speed, spearing out toward the statue’s armored torso. Brielle was nearly choking me to death, a forearm across my throat, but I simply reinforced my neck with Manipura and fought what felt like a gravitational pull to skim around the statue’s chest. I was mere feet from the rippled stone, which turned with me, moving into my trajectory, forcing me to adjust, to strain, to fight to keep from crashing into its side.

  Faster. I’d never flown so fast. Manipura’s black sun screamed within me, devouring everything I poured into its revolving heart.

  “There!” screamed Brielle into my ear and pointed with her burning blade to where Emma was falling, looking so small, so fragile.

  She was plummeting toward the distant floor.

  I threw myself after, the wind tearing at me, pulling tears from my eyes. Faster. Emma faced me as she fell, one hand outflung as if to catch mine, blond hair streaming up and framing her face.

  Her gaze locked on mine, and I saw her smile.

  She knew I was coming for her, knew I was going to catch her.

  My ankle imploded as something crushed the living shit out of my leg. My descent was slammed to a halt, and Brielle screamed as she flipped over my head, flung out into the void as I came to a complete stop.

  Blood surged into my head, and for a second, I thought my leg was going to snap right off.

  The statue had caught hold of me, its fingers closing on my left leg with the delicacy of Mr. Miyagi catching a fly with his chopsticks.

  “No!” I poured magic into Shard, swept it through the two fingers, and cut through the stone.

  Fingertips the size of garbage bins fell past me as I cut myself free, tumbling down. Catching myself with Manipura, I leveled out my fall. The statue was striding into me, the stone expanse of its body rushing forward to slam me.

  I oriented around, and when the cliff of its torso came in, I caught myself in a run down its length, knees flexing to take the impact, ankle causing me to scream in pain.

  But fuck pain.

  I knew pain.

  I forced myself to sprint, straight down the vertical; six, seven, eight massive strides, and I hurled myself back out into the air, pressing my arms to my side, seeking out Emma.

  She was far below now. That single moment’s delay had cost us. We’d been some seven hundred yards up, but now she was more than halfway down to the cavern floor.

  Brielle? There! A burning brand in her grasp, falling as well, but higher than Emma.

  I closed my eyes.

  Manipura’s normal speed wasn’t going to be enough.

  I blotted out the world, the panic creeping up my throat, the fear I’d not make it. I sank deep into my reservoir even as my body plunged ever faster toward the cavern floor.

  The sensation of the wind fell away, the sight of the statue, everything.

  In silence, I hovered before Manipura. My magic was streaming into its black core, the bronze, wavy blades spinning.

  How to feed it more?

  How to overload the shit out of it?

  I took a deep breath and extended my arm.

  Pressing my fingers together to form a blade, and I thrust it into the heart of the black sun.

  A jolt of black fire raced into me; a conduit opened, and the magic which had been sluicing into the sanskara turned into a vortex, a funnel of power with me at its center.

  The sheer volume of magic pouring through me was stunning. For a moment I ceased to think, to plan, to hope - I was a conduit, and little more.

 
Then I screamed and opened my eyes.

  I was flying down so quickly my ward was distending around me, trailing behind me like a teardrop, warped by the sheer speed I was building as I shot toward Emma.

  It was so fast I had to narrow my eyes to slits. Down, ever faster, the world blurring, extending my arm as she reached for me, the ground rushing up, impossibly fast, ready to smash her apart, to destroy her utterly, tear her away from me for eternity.

  No.

  Flashes of black fire flew toward me. Most missed, hurling past, sizzling and searing the air. But a few slammed into the front of my ward, discoloring it, sending shockwaves of black rippling back along its streamlined form.

  I didn’t have time to dodge, to weave, to throw off the attacks. I could barely make out the horde that was clustering on the cavern floor. I had a dim awareness that huge portals were open along the cavern’s sides, open to vastly different worlds, and that armies were pouring into the cavern.

  Multitudes were staring up at me, and those closest, directly below Emma, were hurling enough magic my way to annihilate me.

  I blocked that all out. No time. Each second more than precious. My reservoir was a conflagration of magic. Emma grew closer, ever closer, until she was there, right there before me, and my hand clasped her own.

  Her fingers closed tight.

  I banked, pulling up, fighting the momentum, feeling as if I were trying to do a push-up with the weight of a mountain on my back.

  Emma’s heels came within yards of the hordes below us, and the sound of their screams, their bellows, was like a force wave.

  But that was nothing compared to the magic that was hurled at us. Emma’s emerald ward overlapped my own, but both were hit with a dozen blasts every second. Black fire, bolts of lighting, gouts of acid.

  I fought for altitude, climbing ever higher, but our wards were withering, torn apart by the barrage.

  We’d be destroyed before we cleared their range of fire.

  My magic was almost gone.