Sourcethief (Book 3)

by J. S. Morin

  The water around Jinzan hardened in an instant, forming a block of ice that encased him like a tomb from the chest down. It also formed a dam, forcing the aqueduct's flow over the sides and over him as well. The flow froze, and before Jinzan could even think of a counter, he was held fast, just as his trap had held Rashan.

  "I know you cannot talk in there," Rashan shouted through the ice to muffled ears. "So if you survive the fall, you can repay me with a pithy comment then."

  Fall?

  Jinzan had already thought to heat the ice with plain aether, inefficient but obvious, when he saw Rashan lift his sword.

  The demon thrust his blade into the stone side wall of the aqueduct, driving it deep. It was an astonishing show of brute force, swordsmithing, or both. Cracks spread through stone and ice alike, but not enough to free Jinzan from his captivity.

  Rashan scampered across the shattered section to the far side, where Jinzan lost sight of him. He recognized the strike by its sound: the same awful crack that had accompanied the first strike into the aqueduct.

  The sound of stone grinding against stone drowned out Jinzan's own desperate thoughts. The ice was melting, but not quickly enough for his liking. The whole section of aqueduct shifted and slid, finally falling free of the rest. Jinzan had seen Whitefield from the sky; he knew how far up he was, some seven stories above the city streets.

  He knew he had little time. Jinzan drew, using the Staff of Gehlen for all it was worth, pouring every bit of that aether into his shields. He knew a spell for light landings, but it would have availed him little with several tons of stone and ice dragging him along with them.

  The segment of aqueduct hit the ground with a force Jinzan had never expected to experience, let alone survive. It felt as if the world had rebounded. Jinzan tried to take stock of himself. He was buried beneath shattered ice and misplaced bits of stonework. The Staff of Gehlen had survived, but he had fared poorly. He had several broken bones, from feet to skull; one arm was dangling loose, no longer responding to his commands.

  Jinzan dragged himself to his feet, sensing around him what he most desperately needed: aether. Much was freshly dead—the corpses in the homes that the aqueducts had collapsed atop were of the splattered variety, not the reusable sort—but they had aether and it was plenty for his immediate needs. Jinzan looked up to the aqueduct as he replenished himself.

  Rashan Solaran looked down, watching him. Jinzan's eyes went wide as he saw the demon step off. Down, down the demon plummeted, landing with a crash just a few paces distant. He seemed unharmed, unconcerned, and still armed with a blade that Jinzan began envisioning buried into his own chest.

  Jinzan knew that he had still not overmastered Rashan Solaran, bitter though the thought was in his mind. His trap had proven insufficient. His attempts to destroy the demon's body were not enough. Loramar's techniques for attacking a victim's Source had proven futile. His only option was escape.

  "Like Loramar, I will return," Jinzan promised.

  Jinzan had never attempted a transference spell silently before, but a serenity of mind gave him confidence. Loramar failed twice against Rashan Solaran, and gathered himself once again. I shall do likewise. The words and gestures of the spell played through his mind. A sphere of aether formed around him, blotting out his view of Rashan and the Kadrin city of Whitefield. Unlike every other time he had used the spell, his thoughts did not escape into the deep aether. Something struck the outside of the sphere, straining against it. Jinzan could feel the spell weakening, the aether draining off.

  When he finally managed his escape, Jinzan found his reserve of aether for the journey all but depleted. He reemerged immediately, only a dozen paces away. The rubble that had been at his feet collapsed to the ground around him, spilling him onto the street. He turned about and saw Rashan fall into the hole he had just left, poised in a kneeling position, blade stuck down below him. That madman attacked my transference spell and broke it? How is that even possible?

  "You worried me for a moment there, when you reached the deep aether," Rashan said as he hopped from the rubble pit. "All well in the end though. Looks like you lack the aether to try that little trick again." Rashan leapt for him.

  "What are you?" Jinzan called out in despair.

  "Loramar's unbeatable foe," Rashan replied, slamming Heavens Cry down on Jinzan's shield. "To follow his path was folly." Another blow hammered at Jinzan. His mind was out of ideas; he kept his draw feeding into the shield. "My Source has no flaw. I became a demon in search of a way to protect myself from him." Rashan pounded against the shield once more, seemingly intent on nothing more than to wear him down. For Jinzan, there was no hope of victory, no hope of escape. "My first day of immortality was his doom." Heavens Cry sliced down again and cut cleanly through the Staff of Gehlen which Jinzan had thrust up at the last moment.

  There was no flash of light, nor explosion of uncontrolled aether let free, not even a thunderous crack. It snapped like a dry sapling under the force of the demon's sword. "All that craftsmanship ... wasted," Rashan opined, granting Jinzan a moment's reprieve from his onslaught.

  Jinzan felt something else: the demon's draw. Bereft of the staff's aid, the aether belonged to Rashan. Jinzan was no weakling himself, but he was no match, battered and broken of body and spirit, to draw against the demon.

  "Better no one has it, than you," Jinzan said. He collapsed to his back, staring up at his executioner. "Without it, your days are few."

  "Fine, you can have the rest of your little unlife to explain that one, but make it quick. You have ruined my mood already," Rashan said, holding Heavens Cry poised ready to strike. He kicked the broken fragments of the Staff of Gehlen free of Jinzan's unresisting hands.

  "In Zorren, I saw true power one night. I knew at the time, it had to be either you or Kyrus Hinterdale. I have taken your measure twice since then, and I now know you have no power to match what I saw that night," Jinzan said.

  "You promise me death by the hand of the one friend I know? I should leave you for the crows to pick at, but I grant you one final honor, in Loramar's own footsteps, you will be consumed by Heavens Cry."

  With that Rashan impaled Jinzan through the chest. I feel nothing. The wretched demon was not lying after all. I was already dead. The dead feel no pain. Green vapors poured forth from Heavens Cry until nothing was left of the body.

  * * * * * * * *

  Starlight shone down from the heavens, illuminating a clearing ringed in ancient pines that the mid-day sun deigned not to visit. A pond in that clearing served as a gathering place. Immortals, demons, creatures whose lives spanned ages, stood, sat, or floated about its periphery, rapt at the images that played across the pond's shining surface. One of them knelt, palms pressed to the muddy banks of the water, guiding their view.

  Among the immortals, few had ever been to war, and those who had bore only faded memories so old they might have been from another lifetime, experienced by another being. They were scholars, philosophers, explorers of the world and worlds beyond. Warmongers seldom had the breadth of mind to also seek out something more than death. They all watched as one such reveled in his awesome fury.

  Rashan Solaran had confronted the wielder of the Staff of Gehlen, and the shaking in the aether had roused the immortals' attention. They watched the conflict as would theatrical patrons of a certain rude bent. They whispered to one another, gasped aloud. Some speculated on the outcome, but that pastime grew stale quickly once they realized that the necromancer had no tool with which to break the demon's shell. Without such, his stolen mastery was good for naught but culling the mortal herd. In the end, none of them were surprised to see him laid down.

  "It is done," Illiardra announced as she watched the last of Jinzan Fehr's body dissolve in the mist of Heavens Cry. She allowed the spectators to linger a moment over the image before she dismissed it, and in that moment Rashan looked up. He gave a sheepish smile and a little shrug, and she knew that it was meant for her. She gasped, rea
lizing she had either been caught at her eaveslooking, or he had guessed her nature. The image disappeared.

  "One threat is gone," Illiardra proclaimed, recovering her dignity.

  "The wrong threat," Vijax shouted, ever the indiscreet one. "Who cares if the mortals are swept aside once in a while? Necromancers are like forest fires among the Source-weak cattle; it does them good in the long run to keep their numbers down."

  "The staff, not the man," Illiardra clarified. "Few are the threats to us, but that was among that scant number. It was the most unpredictable of threats as well, for any sturdy sorcerer would have become a deadly adversary by possessing it."

  "What good is one fewer threat? Do so few remain to us? Always we have the dragons to concern ourselves with, and the worry of Xizix and the mad ideas he gets. He taught magic to assassins that sought after Rashan. What if they had implicated Xizix? Would Rashan have thought us culpable as well?"

  "Rashan is a threat, of course. The dragons, they know their place, and value their scaly hides. Xizix prefers his bluster over violence, for all that he pretends otherwise," Illiardra replied.

  "You still worry about that mortal sorcerer," a new voice accused. There were mutters of agreement.

  "He is our greatest hope, and our greatest worry. Gods willing, he kills Rashan before Rashan’s mania consumes us all, and then he dies of age."

  Chapter 32 - Unwelcome Visitors

  Kyrus listened to the echoes of his own footsteps as he climbed the dungeon stairs. He counted them. He wanted something to keep his mind from what he had just done. Faolen's Source had been such a flimsy thing, a porcelain cup he dashed against the floor in a moment's temper.

  What if Varnus was wrong? Was being a tool of Rashan cause enough to kill him? Kyrus felt dirty, carrying the last of the illusionist's aether about inside him. He tried to tell himself that he had burned away the stolen remnants by enabling the wards that sealed the cell, but he knew he had taken far more than the simple locking magic had required. He said not a word to anyone he passed as he made his way up from the dungeon and through the palace halls. When he reached his own chambers, he poured aether into the wards until the runes glowed in the light. While those runes spelled out the terms of his personal protections, it seemed like he was posting Faolen to guard over him.

  Kyrus stalked over to his desk and threw himself into the chair. He shuffled his notes about until he found a nagging fact with depths he had not plumbed. He read, willing the words into his mind at the expense of all others. He examined one of the passages from The Warlock Prophecies.

  Broken vase spills blue-white blood

  The missing pieces are keys that lock the final door

  What if Rashan discovers Faolen behind that locked door, and knows that it was me, and not the cell, that killed him?

  Patch the wholes that are only halves

  Kyrus took a deep breath, and rubbed at his eyes. He tried again.

  Broken vase spills blue-white blood

  There was no blood, except on Varnus's neck.

  The missing pieces are keys that lock the final door

  Patch the wholes that are only halves

  Kyrus stood, and paced about the room. He looked at the notes accusingly, as if they put those thoughts in his head. Glaring at them, he settled himself and sat down once more.

  Broken vase spills blue-white blood

  The missing pieces are keys that lock the final door

  Patch the wholes that are only halves

  Rashan knew what he was missing. The Source analogy was the key.

  One vase, filling fast, spilling faster

  To see another, no mirror may reflect it

  Where to find its shadow, an absence not a copy

  Seek a way among the spirits

  Kyrus had been so caught up in the final line that he had brushed too lightly by the middle lines. The only vase that could empty faster than it was filled was a broken one. It might as well have been a part of the other verse. "No mirror," "absence," "shadow"—they all seemed to indicate an inverse, perhaps a mathematical complement.

  I have to have a look at my own Source.

  There were simple magics for doing so, he had been told. He had just never learned any of them. He scooped up his notes and thrust them amid a stack of books. He needed no reference to remember every line of them; their presence was only an aid to organize his thoughts. He no longer needed that aid.

  Kyrus rushed to the Tower of Contemplation and up the stairs to its libraries. His path opened up before him as people scrambled out of his way. Sir Brannis Solaran was clearly on some vital errand. If only they knew how vital it was.

  The librarian on duty found him the book he was looking for: Aetherial Introspection: a Treatise on Source and Self. Kyrus dismissed the librarian from the rest of his day's duties, and bid him return after the wedding the following day.

  He sat down at one of the research tables and remembered a time not so very long ago when Brannis had done the same. Brannis had been desperate, lacking in focus but not in determination. Kyrus had ample reserves of both. He flipped through the pages for the words of a spell, finding it only a few pages in, an essential tool for exploring the book's premises—none of which concerned Kyrus in the least, at that moment.

  "Tenmaak refu danakali vindou," Kyrus chanted. There was no gesture but to close his light-seeing eyes.

  The sensation was like that of the deep aether voyage of a transference spell. His perspective was dislodged, freed from its fleshy confines to drift about on its own. Unlike the transference spell, there was no disproportionality of distance and time. He could raise his hand and wave to himself, but most of all, he saw himself as a Source. In fact, he could see little else.

  He had never imagined the brightness of it, an inferno of blue-tinged white. Most other Sources were a gentle blend of the two colors, but his burned with visible intensity that seared away the blue tones. There was something indistinct about it, as well. Other Sources had defined edges, making them look like human dolls, or statues of aether come to life. There was nothing bounding Kyrus's own Source. It kept a general human shape, but like a child's painting.

  My Source is fully open. Brannis's nearly completely sealed. He must drip aether like a dew-blessed leaf, while mine pours from me like a waterfall. I lack exactly what he has, and also the reverse. One Source, split unequally between two worlds ... no, not just worlds, split between bodies! There is only one Source between us. That must be the secret. Rashan did not go to Tellurak to attempt to share the secret of immortality with his twin, nor to finish Agga's business for him. He went there to find the missing piece of his own Source!

  * * * * * * * *

  "Just look at those things," Juliana called out. "Pines the size of towers, oaks we could land this airship on. I had no idea the interior of Podawei was so ... ancient." Juliana would have named more of the trees, but had run herself out of species she could identify.

  "I shall take you at your word," Tiiba called from halfway up the stairs to the deck.

  "I think it's about time you got up here and started helping to look. If there's something down there, I'm guessing this is the part of the forest where it would be hidden," Juliana replied. She spared a glance back at him, and saw that he had not moved. "Get up here, you craven ox. Buckle yourself into a harness and watch over the railing."

  Tiiba ignored her. He turned and went belowdecks.

  Juliana activated the runes that projected her voice to the interior of the ship. "You'd best keep a sharp eye out those windows. I don't need ballast on this ship. Either help or I'll drop you somewhere."

  Juliana returned her attention to the viewing screen, the glass showing an endless blur of trees speeding past beneath them. She swept the view back and forth, the equivalent of swiveling the ship's head as it flew.

  An hour or so later, she caught a quick glimpse of a break in the trees as they passed over. It was a large clearing of some sort. She had seen nothing
on the ground, but it was the first major break in the tree cover that she had seen since they reached the denser part of the central forest. If there were creatures living somewhere within, that was as good a place as any to start looking for them.

  "Did you see that?" Juliana called down to the hold.

  "No, what did you see?" Tiiba called back. I am going to stab that good eye right out of your head, you cowardly whoreson. I know you aren't afraid of heights, so there's no excuse to be afraid of being on deck. She knew her flying exploits had spooked him, but he was carrying it too far.

  "There's a clearing we passed over. I'm going to bring us around for a slower look at it. Might even take us down," Juliana called back.

  Juliana switched grips on the ship's wheel, and the Starlit Marauder began to turn. She had been flying it long enough to realize that something was wrong when it reacted sluggishly to her command. The ship turned, but it was having difficulty about it.

  Merciful Tansha, I think we've almost exhausted the aether in her.

  Juliana had gone so long on the first aether with which Kyrus had imbued the ship that she had imagined it might run eternally. She ought to have known better—somewhere in the disused corners of her mind, she did. Ancient rune-forged bits like Avalanche scrounged up enough stray aether to keep themselves going indefinitely. Others, like Brannis's armor, replenished themselves so slowly that they often needed supplementing. But Soria's daggers ran themselves out in a few days' hard use, and Rakashi's blade lasted not much longer. The Starlit Marauder, it seemed, had just informed her of its limit.

  She managed to complete the turn, and put them back on a heading for the clearing, but the turn had grown slower even as it finished. The ship was drifting slower, as well, and began losing altitude. They were not terribly high above the trees to begin with, so any drop at all was alarming.