The Academy Journals Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 3)

by Garrett Robinson

  Now they could not worry about being discovered. Indeed, Ebon hoped someone would spot them, because then they could give warning of Isra’s presence. But there was no one in the halls. No instructors, no other faculty. They would have to survive on their own.

  Just as they turned a corner, making for the front hall, there came a crack of shattering stone. Shards of granite flew through the air. One struck Ebon in the arm, forcing a cry of pain. Isra must have just caught a glimpse of them as they fled around a corner. He thanked the sky that she had not seen them in full view. But then he saw Nella and Kalem. Their pace flagged more and more with each step—Kalem from weariness, and Nella from carrying the dean’s son.

  Without warning he shoved them off down the next side hallway they passed. “Go!” he cried. “Get Erin to safety and get help. She will not kill all of us, at least.” Then he took Lilith’s arm and ran on with her. Nella cried out in protest, but she did not come after them, and soon he heard the sound of her footsteps hurrying off beside Kalem’s.

  Ebon and Lilith reached the end of the hall, and he pulled her to a stop before they turned the corner. Together they faced the way they had come, ready to dive out of sight the moment Isra came into view. Lilith glanced at him. “That was bravely done, Drayden,” she said.

  “The least I could do,” muttered Ebon.

  Isra rounded the corner at the other end of the hall. She was so surprised to see them standing there, facing her without running, that she skidded to a stop and nearly fell over. For half a moment she paused, too shocked even to use her magic against them.

  In that half-moment, Ebon took her in. Her hair was all dishevelment, sticking out in many directions. Her clothes were filthy from collar to hem, and grime covered every bit of her skin. Hiding in the vaults had given her little opportunity to bathe, it seemed.

  “Run!” he cried, and dove out of view with Lilith. Too late, a black glow sprang into Isra’s eyes, and stones in the wall behind them shattered as she struck.

  “She will chase us now, I think,” said Ebon, breaking into a sprint.

  “What wonderful news,” said Lilith. They shared a grim smile.

  They reached the next corner half a moment too late. Just as Ebon thought he was about to pass it safely, an invisible force picked him up and slammed him into a wall. For one moment he floated there, feeling Isra’s magic crush him. But Lilith turned back, and with magelight in her eyes she struck. A blast of wind slammed into Isra. She fell to the floor, surprised by the attack. Ebon slumped, and Lilith dragged him up after her.

  “It is only a matter of time before she catches us,” said Ebon. Then he cried out, screaming as loud as his burning lungs would let him. “Help! Help! An enemy within the halls!”

  Lilith seized his sleeve and slapped him, then shoved him on to run again. “Be silent, you fool! You will only bring more into the fray—more for Isra to kill. And I have an idea.”

  They were near the front hall now, but Lilith turned from it. Soon after, she skidded to a stop before a door Ebon recognized. It was the entrance to the bell tower.

  He balked. “Here? But atop the tower, we will be trapped.”

  “Not if we can throw her from it,” said Lilith. “It is the only thing I can think of.” Light sprang into her eyes, and a massive ball of flame erupted from her fingers. The door exploded with a heavy BOOM, falling inwards as smoldering kindling.

  They ran to the stairs and up, and now Ebon’s lungs screamed in earnest. His pace flagged, but then he heard Isra’s shrieks of rage beneath them, and fright lent his legs new strength. The stairs behind them crumpled, and one piece of railing after another exploded into splinters. Ebon raised his arm to shield himself as they pounded up the stairway. But it blocked them from Isra’s view, and she could only lash out at the space around them, not ensnare them in her mindwyrd.

  When at last they reached the top of the tower, Ebon fell to all fours. He forced himself to crawl forwards, heedless of Lilith when she seized his shoulder and dragged him on. Fighting to his feet seemed like the hardest thing he had ever done.

  “I will hide in one corner, and you another,” she said. “Whoever she finds first, the other will be behind her. If it is you, you must strike. You cannot stay your hand. Do you hear me?”

  He nodded, too breathless to speak. She shoved him behind many coils of rope piled high and then ran to the same place she had hidden when he first saw her in the tower.

  The place went silent. Ebon gasped and gulped, trying to control his breath, fearful that Isra would be able to hear him.

  Then he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He clapped his hand over his mouth.

  Each step made the stairs creak and groan. The wood was old already, and Isra’s assault had battered it so that it was now even more unsteady. But then she reached the top, and the sound of her footsteps vanished. Ebon froze, trying to press himself deeper into the coils of rope.

  When a few moments had passed without a sound or sight of her, he dared to poke his head out to peer with one eye around the rope coils.

  Isra came into view. The black glow raged in her eyes. She held both hands raised, ready to strike. Her frame was nearly skeletal. Her hair seemed somehow thinner than he remembered. Skin clung to her bones so that her face was little more than a skull.

  A noise came from the crates where Lilith was hiding. Isra whirled. Ebon looked desperately around. There was a large metal hook on the ground, as big as both his hands. He stooped and lifted it. With a cry he jumped out of the ropes, swinging the hook at her.

  She turned too quickly, and a wall of force met him in midair. It pitched him back against the ropes, which scattered in all directions. He slumped to the ground and fought to rise again. But behind Isra, he saw Lilith step out of hiding. Magelight was in her eyes, and she screamed a word of power. Isra turned and held up a hand. Lilith’s magelight died. Isra seized her and threw her sideways with terrible force.

  Lilith struck the stone floor ten paces away, slid under the railing, and vanished screaming over the edge.

  “No!” cried Ebon, leaping up. He swung the hook again. This time Isra did not strike him, but seized him with her magic and lifted him into the air. Invisible fingers clutched at his throat, and it felt like two steel plates pressed his body flat. He struggled for breath, but could not even raise his hands to clutch at his neck. An image flashed into his mind of his battle against Cyrus on the southern cliffs of the Seat. But now Adara was not here to save him.

  “Drayden,” hissed Isra. “The goldshitter whose shit is most golden of all. I wish I had killed you in the kitchens, but it will be sweeter after waiting for so long.”

  Ebon tried to answer her, but he could only wheeze.

  “You will not speak except to answer my questions,” said Isra. She tightened her fingers closer to a fist, and Ebon cried out in pain. “Now tell me: who was the man with you in the basement of Xain’s house?”

  Spots danced at the edge of his vision, and for a moment Ebon could not understand her words. Snarling, she let her hand relax a bit, and the pressure on his chest relented. “Mako,” he gasped. “His name is Mako. He works for my family.”

  “How did he withstand me?” said Isra. “I had the amulet. Even if he was a wizard, he should not have been able to stop me.”

  “He is no wizard,” said Ebon. “I do not know why your magic was powerless against him.”

  She gave a frustrated shout and clenched her fist. Ebon tried to scream, but could only choke. He felt his spit catch in his windpipe, but he could not even cough it up. He began to suffocate.

  The black glow increased in Isra’s eyes, and her nostrils flared. “Tell me how he withstood my magic,” she said. Her voice was suddenly thick and rich with power.

  Ebon felt something close over his mind. It was like a fist gripped his thoughts with a force just as powerful as that which held his body. She had used her mindwyrd upon him. His muscles went slack, and he stopped his struggling. He coul
d no longer force his vacant eyes to focus. In his mind he screamed, but his mouth made no sound. He was watching his body act now, and all thought of control had gone.

  “I do not know how he withstood your magic,” he said, his voice toneless. He had not summoned the words.

  “You are under my command!” cried Isra. “Tell me how he did it!”

  “I do not know,” said Ebon. “I cannot tell you.”

  She bared her teeth. Trapped within his own mind, Ebon knew he was about to die. He could not give her any answers. And without answers he was of no value to her. He braced himself and readied to be crushed or thrown from the tower’s edge.

  But the glow in Isra’s eye faltered. She shuddered, and the force clutching Ebon vanished all at once. He came crashing to the ground as Isra sank to one knee.

  At once she fumbled in her robes, reaching for something in one of her pockets. “I am so close now,” she muttered. “You will not stop me. You cannot stop me.”

  For a moment Ebon was stunned, too surprised to act. But he recovered just in time, just as she pulled forth a brown cloth packet. Just as she pulled a black, translucent stone from within it, he bore her to the ground. The cloth packet spilled from her grip, and the stones scattered on the floor.

  Isra scrabbled for them, fighting him with the strength of a madwoman. But her limbs were thin and wasted, and Ebon forced her hands away. One of his hands went to cover her eyes so that she could not use her magic against him. The other went to her throat. Almost unbidden, he felt his power flow into him, and the tower grew brighter as his eyes began to glow.

  He saw her. All the tiny parts of her that made up her skin, and the flesh beneath, and the blood that flowed through it all.

  Almost, he changed it. Almost, he turned it to stone. But he froze at the last second.

  He saw Cyrus plunging into the Great Bay. And he heard Matami’s screams in the sewers beneath the city.

  She will kill you, he thought. He remembered Lilith pitching over the tower’s edge, and his jaw clenched.

  He changed—

  A glow flooded Isra’s eyes, and she flung him off with desperate strength. He flew back, landing flat on his back on the stone, and all his breath left him. Even as he gasped, he saw Isra scoop one of the black stones off the floor and shove it between her lips. Her whole body spasmed, back arching and then curling in on itself. She screamed, but the scream turned into a laugh, terrible and long and cruel. The black glow returned to her eyes, and she rose to her feet on the strength of her magic alone. Once more her teeth showed in a skull’s smile.

  “Now die, you Drayden shit,” she growled.

  Ebon flinched—and then flames erupted all over her body, and she fell to the ground, screaming.

  He looked past her. There, beyond all hope, was Xain. The dean stood at the head of the stairs, and a mighty glow was in his eyes. His teeth were bared in a grimace just as terrible as Isra’s, and he screamed dark words as the flames leaped higher on Isra’s skin.

  But Isra had the strength of magestones, and she recovered herself before he could press the advantage. She snarled, and the flames upon her skin winked out in an instant. Still smoking and smoldering, she turned and battered him with spells. Xain tried to fend them off, but she overpowered him and he fell back, landing hard on the stone floor. Still he raised a hand, warding off a blow that might have crushed his head to a pulp.

  Somehow Ebon found the strength to rise. He tackled Isra from behind, and again he covered her eyes with his hand. Crying out, he tried to press harder, digging into her eyelids. But her fingers gripped his, and with terrible strength she began to pry off his grip.

  “Ebon! Get away from her!” cried a voice.

  The shout dragged up his gaze. Lilith knelt at the tower’s edge. Fury was in her eyes, and her lips spasmed in anger.

  He rolled off and away. Almost before he was clear, Lilith sent forth a bolt of lightning. It flew straight and true, and struck Isra straight in the eyes.

  Isra screamed, a scream so terrible that Ebon feared his eardrums might burst, and her head struck the stone as she flew back. She thrashed back and forth, clawing at her eyes, but between her fingers Ebon could see the damage: beneath her brow was a ruined pulp, a mix of burned and melted flesh and flowing blood.

  Lilith stepped forwards, lifting her hands again. Her screams matched Isra’s own, as full of fury as the mindmage’s were of pain. Flames sprang to life on Isra’s body again, white-hot, so that Ebon had to shield his face from them. He scrambled away from the roasting fires and the sudden sounds of melting, popping, sizzling flesh. Lilith did not relent. The flames grew in strength, rising higher and higher. Even when Isra stopped moving at last, Lilith kept the fires blazing, kept screaming, tears streaming from her glowing eyes as the corpse turned to slag upon the floor.

  THE TOWER FADED TO SILENCE. The only sounds were the crackling of the flames on Isra’s remains and Lilith’s ragged, heavy breathing. Her hands began to shake. She looked at them, fear dawning in her eyes. Quickly she shoved them into her sleeves and huddled her arms against herself as if for warmth—and indeed, now that the terror had begun to leach away, Ebon was again aware of how cold the air was. Outside the tower, a light snow had begun to fall, and it skittered in little eddies around the belfry.

  Behind Lilith there came a groan, and Xain struggled groggily to his feet. Ebon’s heart skipped a beat as the dean straightened and looked at him. When Xain walked towards him, Ebon fought to crawl away—but Xain only reached down a hand to help him up. Ebon stared at it a moment before reaching up to take it. They clasped wrists, and in a moment Ebon was on his feet.

  “Are you all right?” said Xain gruffly.

  Ebon tried to speak, but did not know what to say. In the end he shook his head.

  Xain snorted. “Fairly said.”

  Lilith was now shaking where she stood. Ebon stepped past Xain and went to her. Just before he reached her, her knees gave way—and to his surprise, she clutched his shoulders and held him in a sort of embrace. His hands hovered in the air, unsure of what to do, before he gingerly placed them on her back. It lasted only a moment, and then she stepped away, refusing to meet his eyes. But she left a hand on his arm, gripping him tight for support.

  “She threw you from the tower,” said Ebon.

  Lilith’s brow furrowed. She pointed to the edge over which she had been thrown, and together they went to it. Just below the edge, Ebon saw one of the great hanging banners with the Academy’s sigil upon it.

  “I caught hold of the banner,” said Lilith. “If I had not, I would be dead.”

  They turned to see Xain staring at both of them. Ebon could read nothing in his expression.

  “You found her in the vaults,” said the dean. There was no question in his voice. “How?”

  Ebon shook his head. “Ever since we saw her in the kitchens, my friends and I have been searching for her—and my family as well. Even when the corpse was found. But our best efforts turned up nothing, and we thought she must not be on the Seat. It was only tonight I realized that the vaults were the one place on the island she could hide where no one would find so much as a trace of her.”

  But thought of the vaults reminded him of Astrea. His eyes went wide. “In the vaults, hiding with her, we found—”

  Xain raised a hand to stop him. “Astrea. She is in the healing ward now, and under Jia’s care. My son is with them.”

  His voice grew thick at that, and he blinked hard as he looked away. It was a moment before he went on.

  “Kalem found me almost at once, for I had been roused by the sound of your flight. Then I followed the trail of destruction here to the belfry.”

  His eyes fell upon Isra’s corpse—or what remained of it. Ebon did not even wish to look at the body, it was so twisted by the flames. Xain recoiled, though Ebon saw it was not from the sight of melted flesh. He had focused instead on the black stones scattered upon the ground.

  “The magestones,”
he said. “Gather them.”

  Ebon glanced at Lilith. She nodded and released his arm. Ebon went to do as he was bid, scooping the magestones up into the brown cloth packet from which they had fallen. Some had been caught in the flames that had consumed Isra, but Ebon saw that they had not been burned.

  “Destroy them,” said Xain, once Ebon had gathered them all up.

  Ebon raised them before his eyes. “Should I … should I crush them?”

  Xain shook his head at once. “No. Not here. Not where we can … not here.”

  “Shall I throw them from the tower, then?”

  “No, you fool,” snapped Xain. “Some student will find them and go mad, or worse, someone else will find them, and then all the Academy will be purged as abominations.”

  Annoyed now, Ebon thrust the packet forwards. “Fine, then. Destroy them yourself.”

  Xain recoiled as though Ebon had thrown an adder in his face. “No! Get them away from me. Fire. Only fire will do it.”

  Ebon pointed to Isra’s corpse. “They were caught already in the flames. It did not harm them.”

  “Not magical fire,” said Xain. “True fire.”

  The belfry’s torches were all cold. Ebon thought for a moment, and then with a flash of realization, he reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around Halab’s firestriker. With a few quick squeezes, he cast a flurry of sparks upon the brown cloth packet. It caught like parchment, blazing with surprising heat and forcing him to step back—but the flames were dark and twisted, and seemed to reach for him.

  Xain quivered, his whole body shaking as a long and ragged breath slipped from him. He closed his eyes for a moment, and Ebon thought he saw the dean sniff. When his eyes opened again, they were clear, and fixed upon Ebon’s.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Now, the two of you should come with me. We must fetch your friend Theren from prison, where she should never have been in the first place.”

  Ebon’s heart thundered in his chest. “We are pardoned, then? I thought you might not, for we held the amulet in secret.”