by M. S. Dobing
‘So what’re you saying?’ Seb circled the ring, cracking one knuckle inside the other fist, a habit he’d picked up from Cade.
‘I am saying, mageling, that you need to learn control. There is anger inside you. You bury it now, but there is something there, something even I do not understand. You need to control it, or it will be your undoing.’
‘That’s easy enough to say. But when that thing is in your face it’s another story.’
‘If you cannot control your emotions, the fiend will prey on them, and use them against you.’
‘So what do I do? How do I beat it?’
‘This again is your problem. It’s not about how fast you are or how hard you hit. It is your state of mind that is key. You are a mage. Reality is yours to control. This fiend is a construct of the Weave, created by another mage.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘You measure things in terms of strength, or fitness or power. All of these things are just constructs of reality, of the Weave. What makes reality, Seb?’
‘All of us.’
‘Exactly. So what limits our abilities? What limits our strength, our speed?’
Seb thought on that. ‘The same. All of us?’
‘The pain you feel now. Who makes that?’
From somewhere far away, a penny began to fall. ‘All of us,’ Seb whispered.
‘The fatigue you feel. Where does that come from?’
‘All of us.’
The simulacrum nodded. ‘Good. Now, remove the pain. Do not use your Avatari. This is beyond that. There is no pain.’
Seb raised his arms.
Nothing.
‘Stand up.’
Seb obeyed.
‘Your legs. How do they feel?’
No way. He looked up. ‘They feel fine. What have you done?’
‘I have done nothing, Seb. It is you who has taken a further step on your journey. You are freeing yourself from the shackles of the schools the magi have placed upon you.’
‘What? You mean I don’t need Runic Script?’
‘I mean you have taken a step. A step few have walked before. In time you will take another step. You are different, Seb, there is something fundamentally different between you and the rest of humankind. It is beyond my abilities to discern, but it is there nonetheless. It was for that reason you have taken the step you have today.’
‘I feel different,’ he said, and meant it. A strange current was rippling through his mind, sending an icy shiver down his back. He couldn’t place what it was, there was nothing specific he could detect, but change was happening. That was inescapable.
‘It will not last. Your mind is conditioned, not just by your mage training, but by your experiences in this realm before you learned of the Weave. You must work on this, keep taking those steps on this road you are on.’
The sensation was already fading. It had been fleeting at best, but he felt re-energised. The aches had gone. He could breathe again without wheezing. An image popped into his mind.
The serpentine warrior. The Parathi. Its armour unfurled and reformed. Its wounds knitted together and healed.
Seb opened his eyes. The simulacrum’s eyes turned up. If it had a face it would’ve been smiling.
‘You are ready to continue?’
Seb cracked his knuckles and stepped into the ring. Purple electricity rippled up his arms.
‘I’m ready.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Seb sighed and rolled over. It was no good. His mind was fully awake now, and the last thing he could do was sleep. He sat up on the edge of the bed.
The unease had been growing for the past few hours. A nagging itch at the back of his mind that began during his last training bout with the simulacrum. He’d put it down to the knowledge, whatever it was, that he’d absorbed. The sensation had been alien, unfamiliar, but it was physical in nature. He’d left the training circle, bruised but intact. But now, as he sat on the edge of the mattress, the unease had grown into a silent scream that echoed inside his mind.
Something was wrong.
He’d tried sensing out on a couple of occasions already, but without any concept of where his friends were in relation to him it was like finding a very small needle in a giant haystack.
‘You still not feeling right?’
Caleb was stood leaning against the archway, his thin fingers grasping the near-constant mug of green tea that he drank nowadays, the old cask ale a distant memory.
‘No, I don’t like not knowing what’s happening.’
‘You think something bad has happened to them?’
‘Yes. No. Maybe,’ he shook his head. ‘They’re alive. I think I’m sure of that, I just know, you know?
‘Yeah, I know, at least I did.’ Caleb gave a resigned smile.
‘Sorry, Caleb, I didn’t mean to --’
‘I know you didn’t lad, don’t worry.’ Caleb drank down the rest of the draught. ‘I’ll get used to it, it’ll just take time.’
‘You look better, if that’s any consolation?’ Seb said, and meant it. In the past day or so he was sure Caleb seemed more alive, more alert. He was still in the body of the ancient caretaker, but there was a colour to his cheeks now. His eyes no longer seemed as sunken as they did, even hours earlier.
‘I feel it, actually,’ Caleb agreed. ‘My bones don’t feel like they’re full of ice all the time.’
‘Must be the tea,’ Seb said.
‘Sure, the tea, must be.’ Caleb nodded to the bed. ‘You should try and get some rest. We can set off tomorrow morning if you like.’
‘That’d be good.’
Caleb left. Seb lay down and listened to the comforting sounds as the old man went about his nightly routine. Candles were blown out, the light from the archway diminishing with each action. Eventually he heard the creak of a mattress spring, and then the light went out completely.
It was good to be home.
Seb tried to sleep again. He really did. But his mind wouldn’t let him. That sensation just wouldn’t let up. In the end, after checking his watch for the umpteenth time and seeing it was still only one in the morning, he made the decision.
He had to find out.
***
Leaving the Drain was easy. Caleb’s snores would’ve silenced a herd of rhino approaching. Seb crept up the stairs. The wards were crackling with energy as he reached the top, and not by his presence.
Sheol.
It was no surprise. The Consensus was not as oppressive during the night. The ferals would’ve hidden during the daylight hours, the sun sucking the life from them. But now they roamed free. As he stepped past the crackling air around the ward he heard them, jabbering and snarling in the grounds.
He thought for a moment of turning back. What could happen tonight that couldn’t wait until the morning? He looked back down the stairs. He would be safe there. The wards Caleb had scavenged were doing a good job. But that instinct, that one that he’d followed all his life, wouldn’t let go. It drove him on. He refocused his shield, confident that he wouldn’t be detected, and stepped out into the corridor.
Keeping to the shadows, the moonlight like a spotlight illuminating the corridor, Seb moved under each open window. He resisted the urge to simply blur to the end of the hallway. It would save time, yes, but the sheol would pick it up in an instant. A few he could handle, but there were many out there, and more would surely come.
A few agonising minutes later and he was in the reception hall, or at least, what was left of it. He stopped for a moment, surveying the ruins of where Cian had made his last stand. Seb’s gaze lingered on the pillar where Cian had finally passed on to the Weave, a hundred dead sheol at his feet.
What I wouldn’t give to have you around now, Cian, he thought to himself.
He cast the melancholy thought to one side and forced himself on towards the open doors that led down to the scene of his final confrontation with Marek, where he’d smashed the Spoke Stone to activate the sen
tinels.
He crept across the hall, stepping between blocks of fallen masonry. A sheol, or perhaps a pair of them, were near, too near. He could almost feel the movement in the air caused by their activity. He couldn’t see them, and his sense was bouncing back from all angles, distorted by the magical artefacts that no doubt lay strewn throughout the mansion.
He reached the double doors. The stairs extended down below, into the darkness.
Towards the Magister’s Inner Sanctum.
He breathed a sigh of relief and leant against the cracked remains of a sentinel that resembled a medieval knight.
The delay nearly got him killed.
A sheol ambled round the corner without a care in the world. A rotten, half-eaten rabbit hung out of its mouth as it rounded the bottom of the stairs and turned.
It looked straight at him.
Shit!
The rabbit dropped out of its mouth. The sheol bared fang-like teeth. Black eyes glinted. It drew back its lips, drawing in breath.
Seb’s sense screamed. It was going to warn the others.
Seb blurred, smashing a knife-hand imbued with Avatari into the fiend’s throat. He stared into its black eyes as it expired, the creature falling soundlessly into his arms before he lowered it to the ground.
That was too close.
Seb dragged the creature into the shadows, dumping it on the other side of the door.
It took only a few moments for him to descend the steps that led into the Sanctum. The earlier fear that the chamber would be submerged entirely in rock came to the fore as he encountered a pile of rubble that extended nearly the entire width of the passage. Only a narrow sliver on the far left seemed to allow any chance of entry.
Up close, the fissure seemed wide enough to get through. He’d bulked up in recent months, more muscle than bone now, but he was still confident he’d be able to make it through. The only problem being that he’d be exposed as he crawled through. If a sheol came running now he’d be done for.
Why hadn’t he woken Caleb?
Because he would just slow you down.
The thought, cold and callous, came through. It was right of course. Caleb’s presence was reassuring, but in his non-imbued form he couldn’t offer Seb anything but an extra pair of eyes.
And he wouldn’t let him die. Not again.
Seb took a deep breath and edged into the fissure. For a second he thought he’d miscalculated. The rock pressed hard against him, his head forced against the rotten wood that had once been a burnished panel. As he pushed further in, the pressure grew, the pain in his head growing. He chose to ignore Avatari, sometimes its pain-suppressing abilities were more hindrance than good, hiding damage being done to his body that he needed to be aware of. If his skull was cracking, he needed to know about it.
Then, almost as soon as it was started, it was over. The initial vice-like fissure opened up slightly, allowing him to breathe easy and move freely. He still couldn’t turn face on, but he could manoeuvre through the crack with ease. He popped out on the other side, only a few scrapes at the back of his head to show for his trouble.
It was almost exactly how he’d remembered it. The pedestal that had housed the Spoke Stone still stood in place, the structure having served as the focal point for the Weave within Skelwith. Shards of the stone still remained, strewn about the floor, but they were lifeless now, devoid of magical energy.
Not that this mattered. It wasn’t the stone he’d come for. It was the fact that this room had the strongest affinity for the Weave within Skelwith. It was why the Magister had placed the Stone here in the first place, and it was here that he’d come, two years earlier, when he’d done his first astral walk.
Seb channelled the Weave. He had to find the right balance of maintaining his shield and pushing power to Sentio. The latter had to take precedence if he were to have any chance of finding his friends. If the sheol found him then at least it would be quick.
Seb sensed, drawing on the extra power the sanctum gave him. The world faded away. He stretched himself out, searching along the strands of all things. They were out there. Alive. That much he knew. But the echoes that came back overwhelmed him. A tsunami of minds crashed against his shield. He tried to pierce the din, homing in on the unique auras of Cade and Sylph that he knew almost as well as his own, but it was too much.
There was just too much noise out there.
Seb reduced his sense. He filtered out the noise.
He sensed out again. Gentler touches this time.
‘Seb.’
The voice boomed inside his mind. His hand rushed to his face and he slumped forwards onto the floor, one hand stopping him just before he smashed his face onto solid marble.
The voice came again.
‘Seb, is that you?’
‘Who is this?’
‘It is I, Gough. I’ve been trying to find you for many hours.’
‘Prove it.’
An image popped into Seb’s mind. Sanctuary. Cade, Gough and Sylph sat round the older man’s study.
‘You were here, with us, before you had to leave.’
‘What do you know?’
‘Sylph made it back, along with Barach and several acolytes.’
He let out a sigh of relief.
‘What’s happening? I had a sense that something was wrong.’
‘Cade and the others have travelled on a mission of utmost importance.’
‘Where? Where have they gone?’
‘Osgog, Siberia.’
‘The home of the Ninth? What are they doing there?’
‘I don’t have much time to explain. It is difficult maintaining a link of this distance. There is much disturbance. What I can tell you is that Sedaris is planning to use the Spoke Stones to harness the power of the Consensus. He plans to bring the sheol through some kind of portal called the Manyway which exists underneath. It is a horde millions strong.
‘A horde,’ he whispered out loud, thinking back to the vision from the tower.
‘Seb?’
He shook his head and refocused. The link he’d somehow formed with Gough was fading by the second.
‘What is the plan? What are Cade and the rest trying to do?’ Seb said.
‘Destroy the Manyway. It lies deep underneath Osgog. It was closed for centuries. The Ninth didn’t have the power to open it, until now.’
‘I need to get there. I need to join them.’
I cannot help on that, only where they are.’
‘Okay, thanks, Gough, I mean that. I hope to see you again soon.’
‘So do I, Seb, we have much to talk about.’
The crackle in his mind vanished. Gough had gone.
Something growled.
Seb opened his eyes. His heart hammered in his chest.
That growl again.
Again?
Sentio flared. Seb threw himself forwards. A blade sliced the air where his head had been. He rolled to his feet, Cian’s staff materialising in his hands.
Five sheol surrounded him. Another was stepping out of the crack.
‘Mage-flesssh,’ the nearest said, the one that clutched the rusted Brotherhood sword that had nearly taken Seb’s head a moment earlier.
They surrounded him. Growling and snarling, readying to strike. One stepped closer, talons outstretched towards him.
Seb channelled Novo. He hardened the shield around him, and then blasted a concentrated cone of force into the weak ceiling. The chamber shook as the rock dislodged and began to fall. The sheol screamed at the last minute, realising what was happening, but it was too late. As the rocks fell, Seb blurred upwards, aiming for the air above and beyond the lip of the newly-made hole. Cold air filled his lungs as he appeared a few feet off the ground. He landed with a splat in a patch of mud and set off into a run.
***
Caleb was at the bottom of the stairs, clutching a flare gun, by the time Seb managed to get back to the Drain.
‘What the hell have you done? The sheo
l are going crazy!’
Seb raced down and past him and began gathering his things.
‘We have to go Caleb. Cade and the others. They’re in trouble.’
‘Trouble, where? What have you seen?
‘Some place called Osgog. They need me. I need to go.’
‘Osgog. It’s the home of the Ninth family,’ Caleb said.
‘That’s the other magi. The one’s who attacked Domus. Sedaris, or whatever he is, is working with them.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Caleb had begun to collect his things too, moving with a speed that hadn’t seemed possible even a day earlier.
‘You know Sanctuary? It’s their leader. Gough.’
‘A mage?’
‘No, not really. He’s got some abilities, more than I thought, actually.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Basically what we already know. Cade and the others have gone to Osgog to destroy some kind of portal.’
Caleb’s mouth fell open. ‘The Manyway?’
Seb stopped. ‘You know it?’
‘Before I died I visited all the Families at some point, even the Ninth. The Manyway is an open-ended Way, the end point is controlled by the originator, but it’s been dormant for centuries.’
‘Well, sounds like it’s been activated again. Sedaris is planning to use it to bring the sheol here from the Void.’
‘Danu, be merciful,’ Caleb whispered.
‘I need to get there.’
‘Sure, but it’ll take a few hours. The nearest Way--’
‘I don’t have hours. I need to get there now. Cade and Sylph are in danger.’
‘Seb, I’m sorry about Cade, but what can we do? We can’t get there, not in the time you need anyway.’
Seb turned back to face the old man. ‘We can.’
‘How?’
‘The same way I got here.’
‘What? Teleport?’ Caleb followed him round the room, ‘How? You don’t even know how you did it the first time. You did it by accident, didn’t you?’
‘I did, but…’
‘…But what?’
What had he done? He paced the room, racking his mind. Teleport. He’d seen Anna and the others do it, but they’d just been in close proximity. They had to see the location.