“Blast you!” Lord Charn cursed, swinging the hammer in rage. He pounded on her absorption symbol as if trapped inside a cave. Quickly, she wrapped the symbol around the rest of her.
The pounding drained her somewhat as she reinforced her symbol, but otherwise didn’t hurt her. Even better, it gave her time to prepare another symbol during the rampage. Crystalyn sat up. Blow after blow did pound on her symbol, but not with abandon as she’d first thought, but with expert skill. Each blow landed on or near the same spot near the top of her head. Jagged cracks, purple in color, had begun to spread. Alarmed, she cast away the net symbol and shored up her shield with another protection symbol. The cracks vanished. She pushed her way to her feet, wincing from a stab of pain in her leg.
Breathing harder, Lord Charn lowered the hammer. “I may not be able to reach you yet, but there is someone else here mentioned in the codex.” Whirling, he threw the dark hammer. Its double head leaving a trail of deep purple in the air, the hammer flew toward her wide-eyed sister’s heart. Shocked, Crystalyn couldn’t even shout a warning.
A shape appeared in front of Jade only to vanish behind the far end of the conference table along with her sister as the hammer collided with a loud thud.
Jade! NO!
Lord Charn laughed. “The scrolls mean nothing now.”
Anger pulsed, clouding Crystalyn’s vision red as it soaked into her coherence. Lord Charn would pay! The red haze blew away as coherence reestablished in her mind. Her anger dissipated leaving behind an empty place devoid of emotion. The pain in her leg dulled beyond notice. She knew what to do. Holding nothing back, grounding be damned, she released the knockback symbol.
Accelerating faster than the eye could follow; her symbol’s concentric circled struck the Great Lord full in the chest. Lord Charn smashed through the wall of glass, soared into the warehouse, and landed heavily on his back, where he lay still.
Five beats of her dull heart passed. Perhaps she’d finished him.
Lord Charn jumped to his feet, vanishing deeper inside the warehouse.
Crystalyn’s anger pulsed back, swamping her vision with the red haze. How could she have been so stupid? Her angry heart thumped, cold clarity settled in. Crystalyn clung to the coldness, following the shattered trail toward the Path of Gloom. She would destroy Lord Charn, no matter the cost to herself.
As she stepped through the broken panes, a dark cone streaked toward her. Leaning to one side, the cone zoomed over her shoulder, shattering some of the tempered glass, peppering her with sharp shards. Blood blossomed on her bare arms, a warm wetness on her cheek trickled into a corner of her mouth. The taste of blood brought the red haze back.
She’d tasted her own blood before during an act of aggression against her. The Hartwig kid had been the one then, hitting her repeatedly after she’d refused to lie down with him. Ramming her med cylinder into his eye had been instinctive then. She’d lashed out in a rage.
She hadn’t meant for him to die.
This time was different. Lord Charn had killed Jade and her one true friend, Broth. He would pay!
Crystalyn released a symbol, the one she’d not wanted to use again. Whirling faster than a hover engine, the splinter symbol threw its wicked spikes throughout the room, punching through crates. Wood, metal, it made little difference. They ripped into it all. A walk-in transport container’s steel bent outward emitting a loud, metallic groan, as it shredded into large, pointed strips. Lord Charn hid behind it; a shadowy glow surrounded him. Destroying a good portion of the room, her symbol wound down and then broke into wisps of smoke that dissipated quickly.
The glow around Lord Charn winked out.
Crystalyn brought out her wall symbol, barely in time. A string of Lord Charn’s dark cones mixed with fireballs smashed into it, forcing her back a step. Pushing her wall outward, Crystalyn moved forward one difficult step at a time, remembering to ground it to the floor. The Great Lord’s onslaught lasted several drawn-out moments, stopping abruptly as the last few missiles bounced off her barrier and exploded into containers.
Lord Charn moved from behind the ruptured transport, dragging a leg behind him, a wide strip of shrapnel protruding from his shin. Your bloody armor did you no good there, murderer, Crystalyn thought.
Lord Charn hopped over to a rectangular container and flung the splintered lid to one side. Inside, polished silver lances gleamed. One of the few containers in the area she’d dot mapped long ago. Her blood ran cold. The symbol she had out was set to repel magical attacks. The lances wouldn’t have anything magical infused in them. Anything mundane could penetrate her symbol wall. Crystalyn halted her advance.
Snatching a lance from the crate, Lord Charn cocked his arm and threw. Wobbly, the lance missed its mark by a wide margin. Taking his time, Lord Charn reached for another.
Crystalyn was at an impasse: she couldn’t dissolve her wall to launch a symbol or Lord Charn would attack with the Flow, nor could she stand by and wait for his aim to improve either. She had to finish him off somehow, but even wounded he was as strong as she was. Perhaps stronger, given he had armor and a container full of weapons at his disposal.
She was at a loss what to do.
YELLOW-ORANGE EYES, DARK HEART
Jade ceased trying to push Burl off her. Fireballs and some other black bolts shattered the glass panes above her. High and low, glass exploded on the side of the office Crystalyn had strode through. One of the largest panes nearby crashed to the floor, shattering into sharp cubes. She crawled out from under Burl as soon as the fallout stilled. He rolled over, using the table to help pull himself to his feet. Jade did likewise. Her breath caught in her throat at the rectangular hole the double-headed hammer had left in his chest, the black, tarry substance oozing out in great quantities.
Crystalyn needed her.
So did Burl.
Expending precious time, she ripped off a strip of her dress to the thigh. Wrapping it around him, she tied it off in a knot at the back. The oozing slowed substantially. Booming and crashing sounded close by; she’d given him all the time she dared. Jade stepped over the massive hammer, the purplish flames now quiescent, leaving it where it lay.
Atoi was nowhere in sight, but Crystalyn stood close by. Glowing like a displaced entity from an astral dimension, her sister towered behind a symbol, facing a hunched Lord Charn, his leg mangled grotesquely. Jade raced to her sister’s side, gripping her hand. Crystalyn stiffened, and then smiled, tears flowing down her cheeks unchecked.
Jade was suddenly afraid. Crystalyn bled profusely from gashes on her arms and neck, soaking her to her breasts. Deep cuts reddened her cheeks to her chin, the wounds begging for immediate attention.
“So your sibling survives. It is but small consequence, for it provides another recipient for my spears,” Lord Charn said with a sneer, the effect lessened by his hoarse voice. He hefted the spear in his hand easily, and then lowered it slightly. “What is this? You brought the Dark Creation in here. I had thought my hammer destroyed you both,” he rasped. Then he laughed.
Jade looked behind, Burl marched inexorably toward her. Gripped in his good left hand, Lord Charn’s wicked hammer gleamed dully. “No, drop it, Burl!” Jade screamed.
Extending his left arm, Lord Charn made a closed-fist gesture at Burl.
Burl froze in mid-step. Jade was suddenly afraid for him, he looked so helpless. “Did you think to control a Creation made in the Citadel? I am a Lord of the Citadel, and now master of the Creation.” Lord Charn’s voice boomed louder and stronger. “Creation, bring the hammer to me!”
Burl shuddered as if struck with an axe. Resuming his march, he altered direction, moving toward the dark-armored arm extended toward him.
“Burl, no!” Jade screamed.
There was no sign Burl heard. High stepping past her, her loyal companion’s eyes never left his new master.
“Halt!” Lord Charn commanded. Maniacal laughter escaped from under the dark helm. “I have a better use for you, D
ark Creation. Destroy them both with the hammer!” Lord Charn said, raising a lance.
Pivoting on one heel, Burl spun. Advancing toward her and Crystalyn, Burl lifted the hammer high, the double-head shining with an ominous, dark gleam.
The rush of energy through their clasped hands was all the warning Jade had. “Crystalyn, NO!”
The black and white pattern protecting them traced quickly to gold as it snaked outward to a triangular point then swirled into a twisting, golden cyclone of sharpened, gold fragments that spun into her companion. Countless blades sliced through Burl, his tattered form dropping to the floor. The hammer thumped dully against the plasicrete flooring to lay still.
“NO!” Letting go her sister’s hand, Jade ran to him, falling to her knees next to the largest recognizable lump. Burl’s yellow-orange eyes regarded her brightly for a moment and then faded.
*****
Releasing the golden cyclone symbol on Jade’s companion had the adverse effect of dissolving her protection symbol, which Lord Charn may have intended when he sent the Creation after them.
Crystalyn was ready; whichever way the lance flew, she would dive the other way, installing the magic barrier as she did. True to form, Lord Charn cocked his arm back, but his angle was wrong. The lance aimed at…Jade! Crystalyn prepared a shield symbol and sent it to hover in front of Jade. Too late, she realized she’d used the spell absorption.
Lord Charn stiffened as the lance left his hand, his barrier dimmed as he released a burst of black cones.
Time slowed. Crystalyn watched in horror as the lance, gleaming with a deadly brilliance, sailed toward Jade’s unsuspecting back. Time sped to normal. JADE! Crystalyn screamed in desperation.
Jade’s vision locked on her, an accusing look in her green eyes.
The lance sailed over Jade’s shoulder with a petrifying inch to spare. The cones exploded upon Crystalyn’s symbol bursting it apart with the last hit. Losing momentum, the lance dropped and clinked along the floor.
Lord Charn collapsed in a heap.
Exercising the same dispassionate demeanor as when Crystalyn had first encountered her, Atoi reached down and pulled her dagger from the hole in Lord Charn’s armored shin. Glancing around, she looked for something to wipe it clean. Finding nothing but plate armor and plasicrete containers, the white-faced girl strode off toward the Big Ugly.
Dazed, Crystalyn staggered past Jade, squeezing her shoulder gently, hoping to ease her sobbing, as she walked by. Her sister would need time to grieve. Jade had grown close to her…magically animated companion.
Kneeling beside Lord Charn, Crystalyn found him alive, though his breaths had grown shallow. Feeling for the release under the chin, Crystalyn slipped a hook from its catch and slipped the helm from his head.
Then she sat back stunned.
Her indenture service provider, Ruena Day, stared up at her.
“How can this be?” Crystalyn managed to say.
“I see your confusion, though you’ve always been a bright student…much like your mother. Perhaps I followed a false promise,” Ruena said, her voice weak, though it sounded as it always had, like her and not Lord Charn.
Crystalyn frowned. “What do you know about my mother?”
Ruena coughed. Pink, foamy blood oozed from one corner of her mouth. “Your father met me here, looking for you. Did you know that? I activated the obelisks, pushed him through, and then I traveled to my…Citadel later,” Ruena said, the corners of her mouth rising slightly. Another cough, deep in her chest this time, pushed dark red blood from her upturned mouth.
Crystalyn cradled the dark-haired woman’s head in her hands. “Where did you send him? Please, tell me!”
Convulsing up and away from Crystalyn, Ruena Day’s throaty voice rang strong and clear throughout the warehouse. “I am not dying!” she shouted, and then fell back in Crystalyn’s arms as her dark heart stilled.
RAGTAG GROUP
We make a ragtag group, but a rich one, Crystalyn thought. Broth clinked and chinked like an olden-times prospector’s mule carrying the mother lode of diamonds, which she supposed he was in relation to the bags strapped to his long, sleek back. Better yet, the mother lode of jewels, nearly every kind of precious gem lay inside the bags. She was glad he was so resilient; he’d responded to her healing, though it had been another narrow heal. The hammer had crushed many of his internal organs, but he was still drawing ragged breaths when she’d gotten to him.
Jade carried the two sapphire obelisks they’d discovered in the warehouse slung over one shoulder along with the confounding surprise of Lord Charn’s great hammer; rather, Ruena Day’s brutal weapon of choice. The hammer hung from a silver ring on Jade’s waist. When she’d picked the hammer up from where Burl had dropped it, the purple flame vanished. In its place, a brilliant white shone from head to haft. Jade claimed the hammer was light, no heavier than a metal goblet. Crystalyn still found it hard to believe, since she struggled to lift the white hammer beyond her own waist. Jade’s bag bulged with exquisite, finely wrought jewelry.
Crystalyn looked at the youngest-oldest member of her little family. Atoi carried a bagful of artifacts strapped to each side of her tiny hips, which nearly reached the ground. The little girl claimed they would come in useful at some point. Crystalyn hadn’t argued about the booty, though she did require the little girl to bring the topaz gate. The artifacts Atoi had gathered would, by themselves, set them all up handsomely in a fair-size kingdom, yet the gateway was beyond their value considerably.
Crystalyn’s own pack weighed heavy on her back. She’d packed two other symbol books; perhaps she could discover along how Ruena had come by them, where they had originated. Crystal candles, amulets and rings, carefully stowed so as not to bang against one another stuffed the rest of her space inside. One never knew, perhaps the amulets and rings would enhance their abilities the way the candles and Jade’s arrow amulet did. She couldn’t wait to experiment with them.
Ahead, the early evening lights of the Muddy Wagon Inn grew into view. With any luck, Hastel would have made his way back to his tavern by now, and they could enlist his help. It would be nice to see the crusty one-eyed man again, she admitted to herself, along with those in the Vibrant Vale.
They would visit Brown Recluse after that, at Jade’s insistence. Crystalyn had agreed without too many reservations. The more friends they could gather, the better chance they had of finding their father. Jade’s druid and monk friends would help immensely there. And, word of their mother? Crystalyn still wasn’t certain what Ruena had meant when she mentioned her. It might not be too farfetched to believe that their mother had found her way here. After all, hadn’t the rest of her biological family traveled to another world?
Shifting the heavy pack straps back onto her shoulders from where they’d slipped; Crystalyn pushed open the back door to the Muddy Wagon Inn and strode inside.
THE SPEAR
Garn dived past the Alchemist, executing a forward roll that brought him to his feet behind the closest red robe. Pinning the man’s arms behind him with one hand, he pushed him forward as a shield, unsheathing his long sword as he went. Both the remaining red robes dropped any pretense of looking away. Forming fists of angry fire, they flung them at the Alchemist. Flinging the first red robe in front of the black-hooded man, Garn’s whirling blades cut down both men before they could release a second bolt.
The Alchemist calmly stepped around the burning corpse, barely slowing. Garn hurriedly wiped his blade on the less messy of the two red robes. Sprinting, he fell into his former position behind the man. His captor moved with a purpose, choosing the left fork of the great halls intersection. Garn kept pace with minimal effort, in tune with his new body. Technically, the same old body, but magically enhanced with potent chemical attributes courtesy of the Alchemist’s experiments. He was in better shape than he could’ve dreamed in his twenty-fifth season.
The hallway led past a large group of Users surrounding a dark stone basin of s
ome sort. Thankfully, the Alchemist went past without stopping. Security in such a large crowd would’ve been difficult, if not impossible, particularly if every User present fired one of their fireballs or some other magical attack.
Once past the stone basin, the Alchemist stayed with the left passage at the next intersection. Though ornate, this hallway wasn’t as high or as wide as the great hall and less people strolled about. Garn relaxed slightly, glancing around. The few persons milling about wore colored robes of silk or some other supple material. Most wore black, red, or brown, though an occasional gold robe interspersed in the mix. Red, brown or gold, all bowed before any black robe in this quarter. Garn wondered what the difference was between this section and the Great Hall. Perhaps the number of black robes in the Hall meant one would spend his entire day prostrating and never get anywhere.
Ahead, two massive doors loomed so dark, they seemed to swallow light and exude darkness back into the eyes of the beholder. They stood closed and foreboding. Garn found them disconcerting to look at for long.
The Alchemist slowed almost imperceptibly. The two black robes positioned in front of the double doors scrambled to push them inward before he had to pause outright. The doors opened without a sound. Garn followed his master inside, not liking the looks of the room’s interior. Rectangular in shape and lined with silver statuettes, the room had intricate paintings hung on the walls like signs leading to a massive fire pit ringed by ornate chairs and sectional, curved stone tables. Every set of ringed tables had Users seated around them. Hung from the high ceiling, a half dozen ornate chandeliers provided light from countless glimmer shards. Two stone stairways, one to each side, climbed above the paintings and thick walls to become walkways running halfway along the room’s length. Several darkened archways led deeper within. The landings and archways presented security concerns, assassins could be hiding with crossbows, or Users could fling fireballs from the archways. At least in the room two days ago, he’d had a view of nearly all of it beyond the huge, rounded obsidian table, though he’d disliked not being able to see where the hulking one in the black armor had entered. Garn had almost been to the point of breaking the command to stand guard at the door, though the Alchemist would’ve most likely attacked him for it. But it had turned out to be a non-issue. The Alchemist had wisely vacated the room when the man with the horned helm had shown up.
Beyond the Sapphire Gate: Epic Fantasy-Some Magic Should Remain Untouched (The Flow of Power Book 1) Page 51