Thread Skein (Golden Threads Trilogy Book 3)

by Leeland Artra

  Nodding, Vesta said, “Ticca has gotten away from the Nhia-Samri before, but this wasn’t a direct attack. I hope they were able to move fast enough to get away. We’ll know when the hawks Electra sent there have a chance to check it out. I agree that it wasn’t an attack on us, just bad luck. If Lebuin was directing the energy up, without any specific direction, while converting it, it would’ve acted like lightning and jumped to the best conductor around.

  “Ticca and the team will likely head for the nearest town. They’ll want to report to Duke what they discovered. If they survive, we’ll reestablish our tracking of them when they get to Algan.”

  Electra was filing many new words away to be looked up, but was proud she was able to follow the conversation.

  Vesta spotted the confused look on her face. “Have you seen lightning rods?”

  “Sure. All the large buildings have them. They attract the lightning and safely channel the energies to yur.”

  “Correct,” Vesta said. “So, in this case, the lightning was Lebuin trying to expend as much power as possible to prevent an explosion, and he just happened to aim up, which was good thinking, really. Unfortunately, our satellite was directly over them, so it acted like a lightning rod.”

  A couple seconds later, Arkady piped in. “And the next things in the path were likely a few more satellites, followed by the moon. Luckily, he didn’t hit anything critical.”

  Electra felt the joy of learning more about technology wash away as her quick mind also served up another fact. “Lebuin can attack the moon?! How powerful is he?”

  “Not precisely,” Vesta said. “Like anything else, he needs the power. In this case, the Nhia-Samri provided the power, and he drained it away. Like when a lake with a dam starts to flood, and you have to open the sluice gates to prevent the water from destroying the dam and everything downriver with the flooding.”

  “Yes, I understand that. But this Journeyman Mage and young immortal stood in front of that dam and controlled the flood. How much power can these immortals control?”

  Vesta looked at Arkady for an answer. He finally shrugged back. Turning to Electra, Vesta said, “We were never able to measure their upper limits. Our time in their universe before the Great Migration was limited, and we’d only started to develop the additional technologies to measure and experiment with mana. They measure mana in units of rellums. Argos tested beyond the measurement capabilities of our initial equipment for magic before he was altered, and that was at 2,200 gigarellums. That level of mana is generally no longer available.”

  Electra typed out the numbers onto her pad. “Vesta, Arkady, I’ve been studying your records for the Elraci accident, trying to see if there was a legal argument I could bring before the assembly on the grounds of reviewing past orders, to get them to reconsider the order to keep your kind asleep.

  “At that time, all of your systems and satellites were fully operational, people knew far more, and the equipment for measuring magic improved. I’ve been wondering about some of the readings. According to this data, the power system explosions initially registered 1,500 gigarellums.

  “I didn’t fully understand what that meant to the immortals until just now. The energies peaked as all the cities’ energies were combined and reflected back at just under 9,000 gigarellums. Shouldn’t five or six immortals be able to contain and redirect that level, working together, kind of like Lebuin just did? Why did so many immortals die when Elraci’s power plants failed?”

  Vesta turned to Electra, and a moment later, Arkady was also staring at her. Then the two sentients looked at each other with the intense exchanging data stares.

  At last, Arkady said, “That question was never brought up. It was always framed as beyond their control. Of course, there was also the atomic element to that energy wave. Still, they’d demonstrated an ability to deal with physical energy using mana.”

  “You two,” Vesta said, shaking her head. “Honestly, I’m not going to fall into conspiracy theories. That much energy sloshing around chaotically is different from a huge surplus contained in a device like a gate.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Arkady said, “I’m not so sure. I’m going to poke at this when I get a chance.”

  Electra was looking over the last, fuzzy data from the satellite before it vanished. Something bothered her, so she played with the visual inputs, zooming around.

  The empress was left with the few remaining Daggers and horses just inside the edge of the glowing light from the Nhia-Samri base that Electra, Vesta, and Arkady had attacked weeks before, which made a clear picture impossible. Lebuin ran back towards the base. He came out of the radiant light far enough for a clear picture. He had moved at an amazing speed, a great distance away.

  Looking at what was visible of Lebuin’s path, she wasn’t surprised to see he’d left a serious dust cloud; he had been moving faster than a horse.

  Probably motivated to try to keep his friends safe. I hope he succeeded. He must have used magic to move faster.

  At the end of the recording, Lebuin looked up as he raised his two massive arms towards the sky. Electra’s finger jerked on the controls, freezing the image at the exact instant he was releasing the energies that would destroy the satellite and burn a crater in the moon.

  Lebuin stared at her from the frozen picture. His body had swollen to almost double its normal size, shredding his shirt and trousers. His large eyes hadn’t changed size, but were glowing a bright gold. His face was barely recognizable as the handsome man she’d come to know from observing him for weeks — his face was elongated, covered with golden scales that reflected shimmering rainbows from the other light sources. His nose was flattened, with a small white horn sticking out of the tip. His jaw was pushed out and his mouth was open, showing two rows of polished, pointed silver teeth that appeared to be capable of ripping through heavy armor. His hair and narrow beard had turned silvery. His arms had also become much bigger, with rolling muscles under the same golden scales, ending in a pair of clawed hands, each with three fingers and two opposable thumbs.

  White energies emerged from Lebuin’s mouth and palms, but it was the power in his eyes that sent a chill down her spine. It was as if he was looking at her right then and there.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Nothing, dear. Why?” Vesta asked.

  Pointing to the monitor, she said, “That’s not Lebuin. What is that?”

  Vesta’s eyes met Electra’s, and after a brief pause, she said, “You mean you don’t know what an immortal looks like in natural form?”

  Turning back to the console, Electra asked, “You mean all the Gods look like this normally? He looks like a fairytale creature called a dragon; something from a romantic fable. But dragons are just fantasy. They don’t really exist.”

  “Of course they do. The immortals are capable of changing their shape with magic. They find the human form extremely pleasing, and have preferred that appearance since the time our races first met. When they change shape, they almost totally become their new form. But Lebuin couldn’t possibly control that much magic in his human state. He had to switch to his natural form in order to do that.”

  The universe seemed to shift beneath her as Electra tried to align her views with this new knowledge. The stature of the immortals shrank and she felt sadness at the passing of her belief. They are not our Gods. It was like learning that one’s cherished childhood beliefs were just your parents trying to make the world a more wondrous and joyful place. And, like your parents, you perpetuated the belief in the very young, trying to let them keep some of that childhood innocence as long as possible. The immortals did not deserve the reverence of being called Gods, as the creature to its creator. They had powers and abilities near to gods, but that was all. They were beings equal in rights to everyone else on Yur.

  Electra sat back, slumping her s
houlders. “As far as I know, no one knows this. Everyone I know thinks they look like their gods, but you say it’s the gods who are making themselves look like us.” Electra heard it herself; her tone would never again hold the reverence for the immortals it had just one minute before.

  A few seconds later, Arkady coldly commented, “Now, that’s an interesting change we didn’t know about. Don’t you agree, Vesta?”

  Dohma

  Dohma moved cautiously. Cundia and Orahda circled him, searching for an opening. They lunged in together, and he parried Cundia while dodging Orahda’s attack. Spinning around, he riposted at her. She managed to bring her blade up in time to parry.

  Orahda slipped past, moving faster than Dohma expected. Orahda dropped into a crouch, swiping his leg under Dohma, trying to trip him. Dohma danced over the leg, scoring a hit across Orahda’s chest, but Orahda’s blade slammed into Dohma’s chest at the same time. The force knocked him backwards.

  Putting her knee out, Cundia caught Dohma in the back as she dropped one blade to grab his head, bringing her dagger around to his throat.

  “You’re dead, m’Lord...again. You needed to kill us both.”

  He straightened up, rubbing his chest. “Thanks. Advice I shall heed fully.”

  Orahda pounded his shoulder. “Worry not. The surviving officer would’ve only slaughtered the rest of your battalion,” he said in a steady, ominous tone, glancing at the practice field where hundreds of Daggers were trying to drill some weapons skills into the recruited soldiers.

  Wiping the sweat from his face, Dohma said, “Be charitable. They’re learning. We succeeded in trouncing the last Nhia-Samri base.”

  “A thousand dead against a few hundred Nhia-Samri is not an acceptable loss,” Cundia said.

  As Dohma looked at the training going on, he sighed, “I know. They’re making progress; some take longer than others.”

  Orahda’s eyebrows furrowed, and he glared at Dohma.

  Dohma waved his hand at the training ground. “Very well. Go cull the ones with no chance. Reassign them to safer duties. There’s no shortage of jobs needing hands.”

  “Thank you,” Orahda said. He turned and strolled out into the training field, unbuckling his chest armor and tossing it to an aide.

  Picking up her sword, Cundia wiped it clean before sheathing it. “If you’re not careful, he’ll boot all the new soldiers out of combat duty.”

  “No, he won’t. He knows well we need fighters. Also, I agree we shouldn’t throw young kids without a chance into the fight. I swear, this will not become a war of attrition.”

  Elades rode up. “Lord Dohma, you should come see this. Your horse is being prepared. Duke is already en route.”

  Jogging towards the horse rope-pens, Dohma asked, “What has happened?”

  “You must see it to believe it. I don’t know what to make of it. Perhaps Duke will be able to sniff out what occurred.”

  Several officers left with Dohma, Cundia, and Elades. Elades rode hard towards the Nhia-Samri outpost the division was approaching; it was only a half-day’s ride away. It was a large installation near the eastern edge of Duianna, directly east of Gracia. They were sweeping west from the elven lands. Once that area was cleared, they were going to move farther west rapidly, combining with other units before moving to attack the largest outpost in Duianna, located southwest across the Vendis lakes. The plan was to attack this particular base the next morning. “Elades, is it wise we ride at the Nhia-Samri base with so few?”

  “There’s no danger. Duke is likely already there.”

  “What do you mean, there’s no danger?”

  “It’s empty.”

  “What?”

  “I swear — our scouts reported the base is empty.”

  They rode through a thicket of trees, coming out on a small hill to look down on the valley in which stood nearly a thousand small homes and buildings. The entire area was well-tended, and farm fields surrounded the core of the base. It looked like any other Nhia-Samri base, only larger.

  All of the structures had solid brick foundations with white plastered walls and red tile roofs. The roof lines were decorated with carvings, and the corners swept up.

  The buildings all surrounded a central structure that should have dominated the entire area, but it was evident even at that distance that a burnt shell was all that remained. Blackened support beams stuck up into the air like the skeletal remains of a dead beast. Smoke still plumed into the air from the pile of remains.

  Dohma spotted many of his division’s Daggers riding around the valley, to the farmhouses.

  A Dagger scout rode up to meet them. “Lord, all of the farms have been stripped of almost everything useful. There are no animals, no people. They even took the anvils from the blacksmith’s shop.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Very few clues, sir. There are no major tracks out of the valley. All of the animals were driven into the central building.”

  “You mean they stuffed all their animals into there and then burnt it down?”

  “No, sir. There are no animal remains in the ashes. It was empty when it was burnt down. They likely evacuated through one of their mage-gates.”

  They spent the rest of the day exploring the valley. Everything was in pristine condition; there were no broken windows, no signs of devastation. There were also no possessions left behind. Every structure had been neatly stripped of everything it contained, including the furniture. They were cleaned, windows closed, shutters locked, and then the doors closed.

  The only building that had been damaged was the central command, which the outpost’s commander and officers would’ve lived and worked out of.

  Dohma found Duke looking at the practice field.

  Duke said, “They evacuated through one of their mage-gates, essentially vanishing into thin air. Do you see what I see?”

  As he scanned the area, Dohma saw nothing was there but some empty built-in weapons racks and a large stone-tiled field. “An empty training field?”

  “Exactly. They even took the practice dummies. I don’t like this. Every man, woman, child, animal, tool, weapon, utensil, and food store has been removed. They even cleaned up the homes. Hell, they dusted all the shelves! It’s like they’re giving this to us as a gift. We could move a few hundred families here right now and have a happy new town instantly.”

  “Where did they go?”

  Duke turned to the burnt central structure. “They all went into that. I’ve tracked a thousand different people today, and they all walked calmly in there three days ago. This was at least a week’s worth of effort. I thought it might be a trap of some kind, but Orahda says it isn’t, and I’m inclined to believe him.”

  “Why burn the central building?”

  Duke growled. “To destroy the mage-gates. They aren’t coming back.”

  “Do you think they moved to another base?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t track through those diurdin gates,” Duke said as he stood and started walking away. “And right now, I’m pissed we couldn’t tear them out of this place by tooth and blade. I need a drink and some meat. I’ll meet you back at camp.”

  Dohma turned and jumped backwards. Orahda was standing there.

  “Diurdu, don’t do that!”

  “Sorry, m’Lord.” His tone was completely unapologetic. “Duke is right. This took considerable work. They treated all the exterior wood and fences with preservative oils for the winter. I found roof repairs that were completed only a few days ago. This is an honor gift. Even one blemish would be considered dishonorable to the family responsible. They meant for us to take possession. This wasn’t a small base — there were at least 500 families living here.”

  Kicking a rock, Dohma said, “Hmmm, well, send a communication to the
Duianna regents. There’s a free town for the taking. I’m joining Duke in that drink.”

  “I’ll take care of it. At least we have another couple of weeks for training before we get to the next base.”

  “That’s the really big one, right?”

  Orahda nodded. “Maybe ten times larger than this one.”

  Chapter 5

  War Destroys

  Maru-Ashua

  First Warlord Maru-Ashua stopped halfway down the stairs, calming his mind and controlling his breathing. He shifted the large, heavy tray, balancing it in one hand, freeing his other. He gripped his odassi and directed his blades to shield his mind and wrap him in a cloak of silence. A warm, tingling energy flowed from his blade’s hilt, through his hand to the rest of his body.

  He held the platter, heavily laden with food, perfectly still, a feat many of the warriors under his command would marvel at for its display of strength. Any lesser man would’ve had a hard time lifting the tray, let alone holding it out in front of himself singlehandedly, like it was just an empty plate.

  Feeling the energies from his blades settle into a smooth, even flow, he knew it was time. He summoned the image of the captain of the troops on guard to mind and laid the image over the energies his blades were providing. To almost anyone he knew, he would be taken for the captain, instead of himself.

  He took the last steps down into the corridor, his feet making not even the slightest sound to betray his approach. He was pleased that the thirty guards in the hallway stood ready for a fight, odassi drawn. Ten were facing him, ready to cut him into small pieces. The remaining stood ready, but still close to the large iron door, with its heavy chain inlaid with silver and gold.