Fractures (Facets of Reality Book 2)

by Jeremy Bullard

  He jerked to a halt, suspended in midearth by his curiosity. The Oddity? The one that the Highest had had quartered in Schel Veylin Prison, only to escape and join the rebels? Rumor had it that he had ascended about the time that the Rank had lost that rogue granite. The more daring rumors suggested that he was the long-prophesied Prism. Glyn had scoffed at that, but now, he was not so certain. He willed himself upward slowly, observing as he drew close to the turret's foundation. If it really was the Prism...

  At the very edge of his awareness, he sensed the weak but insistent pulse of granite magic, for all the world reminding him of a shout echoing out across a canyon. It felt as if it were born of strong magics, but stretched so thin that only the barest whisper of it actually reached its destination. With the sheer power of Granite raging like a torrent around him, the granite murmur felt... alien, and it drew his attention like a moth to flame.

  Alien, and rhythmic. The pulse thrummed out a pattern -- slow and simplistic, but a pattern nonetheless. Three beats. Pause. A lone beat. Pause. Two beats, a more sustained pulse, and another beat. Pause. Each beat was precise, each sustained pulse exactly the same length. It was no doubt intentional, but Glyn was at a loss for what its purpose might be.

  Turning his attention fully to the pulse, he noted that it stretched from one spot on the wall east of the turret to some point in the far distant north---

  No. In fact, quite the opposite was true. The pulse started far to the north, and ended at the wall, terminating right beneath an amethyst aura.

  As he studied the pulse, he felt the granite magic lull. The thread of granite magic was still present, but inactive, dormant. In its place, the amethyst aura at its terminus began to beat out a pattern -- not through casted magics as the granite pulse had, but with the mage simply making contact with the earth and then breaking it, slapping the floor of the battlement...

  In code.

  Awareness dawned on Glyn. The rebels had a granite collaborator.

  He launched himself toward the amethyst, riding the structure of the city walls like a conduit. Questions thumped around in his head, begging to be given consideration. The magics of the rebels raged around him, punctuated by the shadows of both their mundane allies and the Prideful Spawn that they were fighting. He blocked all of it out, intent only on reaching his target and taking the mage unawares.

  A few yards away from the amethyst, Glyn emerged from the top of the wall, breaching the stone like a bottlenose, leaping for a sailor's pleasure. He took care to pull his feet from the stone before the amethyst took note of him. He'd heard of granites losing their lives, simply because they underestimated an amethyst's abilities to nullify a mage's magic. The skill was rudimentary, of course, and entirely discouraged by both the Rank and the Academy beyond the most basic applications, but it could still be lethal to a granite that was ignorant of its inherent dangers.

  Glyn kicked out with both feet as he came near, catching the rebel under the chin. The amethyst landed hard on his stomach, and Glyn partially on top of him. The rebel gasped, the air having been driven from his lungs, and drew mana into himself to ready a defense. Glyn didn't give him the chance. Rearing back, he punched the mage in the back of the head, just above the base of his neck. The amethyst went limp in his arms, and his aura winked out.

  * * *

  Patrys raced along the battlement, icy spear in her right hand, lobbing icicles with her left as she ran. She considered each combatant only long enough to take aim with her magics and let fly, moving on to the next target without pausing to see if she'd hit her mark.

  She was filled to the brim with Sapphire-laced mana, and extended her influence before her as she ran. If anybody saw through her camouflage, they gave no indication. Patrys was forced to bob and weave through the obstacle course of bodies on the walkway, some living, some dead. Sometimes the crowd was so thick that she had to take to the parapets to find an avenue forward.

  It ain't enough we got dragons t' fight, she grumbled to herself. The sapphire Menkal was calling them the Prideful Spawn. She supposed that he should know, himself astride a dragon of his own... who was apparently his wife as well. Patrys shook her head at the thought, and absently threw another icicle toward the waiting throat of one of the Spawn's riders.

  A man married to a dragon? An old man, married to a scaly, acid-spitting reptilian beast? Crafter shelter the fool.

  No, it wasn't enough to have dragons to deal with. Now we got granites, she complained, angling toward one such aggressor, locked in battle with an emerald Unmarked. Tribean? she thought.

  At the sound -- or impression -- of his name, the Onatae turned to see who had said it, giving the granite a moment to gain ground on him. The emerald cursed and rejoined the battle, no longer caring who had called for him.

  Patrys swore inwardly. With her influence extended as it was, the same magic that cloaked her very likely carried her thoughts as well, and made all the more forceful by her raging blood. So it was no wonder that Tribean would hear his name and be distracted, even from the heat of battle.

  She had only planned on lobbing a half-aimed icy missile toward the granite, but she couldn't leave her fellow Unmarked at a disadvantage, and certainly not one that she'd caused. As she neared, she leapt high into the air and raised her spear, opening her mouth wide to loose a battle cry. Nothing came out, of course, and she wouldn't have been able to hear it over the din of battle regardless. But bellow she did, if only in her own mind.

  And in the minds of others, apparently, for both Tribean and his granite opponent fell to their knees, holding their heads against the force of her mindshout. Patrys drove the spear downward as she reached the granite, its tip piercing the soldier's neck just above his backplate. He screamed, blood spurting in gouts from around the icy shaft. She jerked on the spear and the granite fell in a nerveless heap, twitching as he bled out.

  Tribean whipped his head around, his emerald eyes passing back and forth over Patrys as he searched for her. "Patrys?" he called hesitantly, blindly. His eyes never locking onto her, he smiled and waved his thanks in her general direction, then rejoined the battle.

  Her face cracked in a grin of her own as the emerald's triumphant expression infected her. Yer welcome, she Whispered before moving on.

  Patrys cut a swath through the enemy as she tracked east along the battlement. Often, her efforts brought confusion to her brothers and sisters in arms as they searched for their invisible benefactor. More often, though, her compatriots didn't care about how or why their enemies died. They were just glad for the reprieve, and the chance to regroup and return to the fight.

  As she passed the central turret above the Mainway gate, she spied a Mandiblean mage on the block pathway, down on one knee and propping himself up with one hand. He wore cloth rather than boiled leather armor, pegging him neither as a Rank mage nor an Unmarked. He brought his head up quickly, casting his eyes about him. It was Gaelen, the amethyst from Caravan, the one who had stood as proxy for the du'Nograh woman who'd left them.

  An instant later, the path before her rippled. A granite emerged, squirting from the stone like a fish on a line and angling straight toward Gaelen. The granite kicked out and caught the amethyst full in the face. The two tumbled awkwardly to the ground. With Gaelen at a disadvantage, the granite attacked, hitting Gaelen from behind.

  In all this, Patrys hadn't slowed down a step. She was on the granite as soon as Gaelen crumpled. She drove with her spear tip, barely missing his temple but catching his cheek. The granite screamed his rage and spun to his feet, reflexively drawing his longsword from its sheath at his back. He scanned the area that the attack had come from, his opaque eyes darting back and forth, looking for his target.

  Patrys smiled humorlessly. I'll give ye an honor ye denied me friend, Granite, she Whispered, dropping her camouflage.

  The granite's eyes immediately shot to Patrys. His face betrayed no emotion, but he didn't need to wear his thoughts openly for Patrys to glean them. He wa
s amused that a mere slip of a girl would dare to attack him. He was furious, for the same reasons. He was amazed at the level of skill she demonstrated at so young an age -- her talent for controlling the mind was virtually unheard of, even for mages nearly a century acquainted with Sapphire.

  But all those thoughts stood in the shadows of the foremost thought on his mind. Licking the blood that trailed from his parted cheek to the corner of his mouth, he grinned wickedly at her. He held his sword aloft, pointing directly at her, then pulled it close and dropped into a ready position.

  Raising her spear, Patrys gauged her opponent, and leapt.

  Chapter 24

  "No!" Jaeda screamed at the dais as the amethyst aura of her brother tumbled to the ground, the brownish blob of a granite landing lightly next to him. Nestor scrambled for words of calming, anything that might help her rein in her emotions before she...

  He felt her gathering her mana for a spell. It wasn't too difficult to figure out what that spell might be, given her state of mind. "You'd never get there in time," he asserted firmly. "He may look close enough to touch on this map, but he's hundreds, thousands of miles away."

  "I have to do something," she countered loudly, tears filling her temporarily translucent eyes. "I Sampled the granite's aura when he kicked Gaelen. It's Glyn Farhaven. I'm sure of it."

  "Knowing who it is doesn't close the distance between Aeden and Ysre. If we're to help Gaelen, we'll have to do it from here. Look," he said, pointing to Gaelen's dimly glowing violet form on the map. Glyn was on top of him... and a brilliant blue figure was coming up behind. As they watched, the sapphire pounced on Glyn, driving him back from Gaelen. "Your brother has help. What we have to do is help them help him.

  Jaeda stared at the map a second longer, then faced him squarely. "How?"

  "I'm still working that out," Nestor admitted. "Can you still feel him?"

  Anxious and confused, Jaeda melted her feet into the flooring, Merging with the earth running between herself and her brother. Nestor felt the sheer strength of her awareness as it extended due south, feeling for all the world like a solid bar beneath the surface, connecting the siblings. "Yes," she said finally.

  "Good," he replied. "You work on trying to wake him up. I'm going to... experiment."

  Not waiting for her acknowledgment, he drew mana into himself and wielded. As his feet Merged with the flooring, Jaeda's connection with Gaelen grew infinitely more evident. Sampling her aura, Nestor followed it southward out of the complex, out of Aeden. As he grew more comfortable with this experiment, he found himself able to push faster. Entire villages passing "overhead" barely merited his notice. He felt a largish town on the horizon ahead of him, only for it to disappear just as quickly into the distance behind him.

  It took a few moments, but he began to feel the intensity of arcane warfare at the edge of his awareness. He was approaching Bastion. Sighting down the bar of Jaeda's awareness, he felt the amethyst that he was headed for -- Gaelen. He Sampled the mage as he approached. Yes, he was still unconscious. It was just as well. With the condition he was in, Nestor would just as soon have Jaeda's brother as far from the action as possible.

  Finally, Nestor's awareness was in Gaelen's presence. The amethyst drifted still, nearing consciousness but still not quite aware of his surroundings or his circumstances. Nestor's eyes firmly on the map, he extended his awareness around Gaelen like a ripple on a pond, waiting for the waves to hit something and bounce back.

  Then he felt him. Glyn.

  The granite's aura carried a curious blend of impressions. He was arrogant, yet cautious, amused, yet deathly serious. These emotions no doubt had everything to do with the sapphire that he was engaged with -- a girl, by the taste of her aura, a mere slip of a lass. That she should challenge the elder and obviously more experienced granite... it was beyond laughable. But she had a confidence about her that seemed at odds with youthful invulnerability. No. This girl knew who she was and what she was about. She tasted of both a scholar and a warrior, well versed in what she was capable of, and more importantly, what she wasn't.

  Her aura extended, closing the distance between herself and Glyn, touching the granite in a way that reminded Nestor of Sampling, but was nevertheless foreign to him.

  Whatever she was doing, she was on Gaelen's side. That meant that she was on Nestor and Jaeda's side. Turning his attention back to Glyn, Nestor prepared to aid his newfound ally.

  * * *

  Chill wind brushed Glyn's hair back as the sapphire pressed her attack, her glacial spear passing mere inches from his nose. The granite parried and flipped his sword back, cutting for her midsection, but she brought the shaft of her spear down just as it came close. She canted the spear slightly, and Glyn's sword plunged as it skittered along the icy surface.

  Glyn spat an oath. He should've dispatched this git long ago, but for the life of him, he couldn't seem to get any of his strikes to connect. He'd felt her mind pressing against his early on in the fight, but he disengaged his conscious mind, working to keep his thoughts empty so as to not give the sapphire anything to latch onto.

  It was standard practice against a sapphire who had the uncommon talent for mind control. He would never have expected to need it against an Unmarked git like this one, but he'd refused to underestimate his opponent, and this sapphire was a prime example of why.

  At first, it seemed as if the tactic was working. It should have worked. However talented she was with magic, she was an Unmarked, as inexperienced in the arcane arts as she was in the martial arts. Glyn had been able to fend her off with ease, positioning their fight so that when he finally took her out, it would have the greatest impact on her compatriots. But the longer they fought, the more fluid her attack became, the more refined. He started to see a precision in her attacks that he would have expect from a first year Marked, then second year, then third.

  She swept with the tip of her spear and Glyn batted it away, but only to find its momentum carried to the opposite end of the staff. The sapphire slapped him with the butt end of the spear, catching him high on the cheek. Glyn stumbled back, dazed and angry, and just a little concerned. She shouldn't have known to do that. That was a mark of refinement that Marked sapphires rarely reached, and certainly not Unmarked. But that style, that fluidity, it bore no resemblance to the style of the Sapphire Rank, skill or no. In fact, if Glyn had to label it, he'd ascribe the style to...

  The Granite Guard.

  She's Absorbing me!

  He was thunderstruck by the thought, but shock quickly turned to true fear as the sapphire git standing opposite him paused, her lips stretching in a feral grin. She'd heard him. She knew he was afraid, and she thrilled at the idea.

  Without thought, Glyn wielded, Merging the mere soles of his boots with the ground. He dared not do more than that, lest an amethyst cast a null field about him -- such as the Mandiblean on the ground behind the sapphire, slowly stirring. Glyn moved to pulse to his Guard about the sapphire, but felt the granite aura at his feet, an aura not his own, but still familiar...

  Nestor Veis!

  Ah, Glyn Farhaven! came the reply, almost imperceptible and quite bland, tasting of the countless miles it must have traveled between source and destination. What an unexpected pleasure. How have you been?

  Glyn, still dazed, fumbled for a response. He very nearly paid for it with his life. He didn't see the granite spearpoint coming straight for his eyeball until it had almost struck home. At the last second, Glyn ducked and swept upward with his longsword. It parried much of the strike, but the stone tip still struck a glancing blow on his forehead. Blood flowed freely from the gash, painting his vision crimson.

  He needed to regroup.

  Not giving the sapphire time to press her advantage, he dove to his right toward the northern parapet. He tripped as he came near the low wall, the stone beneath his feet giving way like so much sand. Nestor. He had no idea how the former Chief General was doing it, but it was him.

  Glyn st
ruck the parapet awkwardly and tumbled over. As he fell, he reached out to Granite, but had trouble remembering the proper concepts for Merging. It might've been his surprise over the situation, but he bet it was the sapphire, and it was going to kill him if he didn't do something about it.

  The flat ground at the base of the city wall rushed up to meet him as he struggled to draw on Granite. It almost felt like pulling on a rope that had been coated with minta'hk fat -- it kept squirting through the fingers of his mind.

  Crafter be praised, the closer he got to the ground, the more distant the sapphire's influence seemed. He could feel its azure grip slacking as his death approached. Almost... Almost...

  He pulled on Granite, and his grip dug in. Desperately, he wielded. Time seemed to slow as his spell took shape, the formed mana flooding his body just as his forehead touched the ground. He could feel the pinprick of the pebbles and pea gravel driving forward into his skin, his bone, threatening to find their way deeper.

  His skull exploded in pain, but he held doggedly to his spell. The stars in his vision cleared slowly, and were replaced by lights of a different kind -- the structures of the earth, the minerals and metals that made up the matter. As he traced their intricacies with his awareness, he relaxed. He was still alive. Hurt, to be sure, but still alive.

  He shook his head to clear the cobwebs -- a vain effort, as he and his head were one with the earth, but he did it nonetheless. He needed to regroup, to gather the strength of his forces. He'd determined to not underestimate the rebels, and yet here he was, broken and bleeding, having fled from a teenage whelp of a lass. It wasn't his predecessors' mistakes that he had to avoid now. It was his own.

  Curling his unsubstantial lip in contempt, he willed himself forward, turning options over in his mind, looking for solutions under them.