by John Corwin
"That is why we are not going there first," Flava said.
I gripped her arm and turned her to me. "Where the hell are you taking us, then?"
She jerked her arm from my grasp. "To find all the help there is in this world."
"Legionnaires?" Elyssa asked.
Flava nodded. "There are a few left. Perhaps enough to clear the way to the crystoid." She cast a scathing glanced at me and opened her mouth as if to throw another insult my way, but turned and resumed walking.
The hike seemed to go on forever, taking us in a southwestern route that curved to the outskirts of the city. Short domiciles sprinkled the land, varying shades of crystalline structures like the insides of a geode—a far cry from the towers of the city center. Small roads wound back and forth between the seemingly random placements of the buildings.
"How beautiful," Elyssa said, kneeling beside a bed of blue roses.
"Not so lovely if a flying patrol spots us," Flava said. "Hurry."
The buildings were tall enough to provide some cover, but not like the high-rises back the other way. "Seems harder to hide around here," I said. "Why not stay in the city?"
"Because nothing works in the towers," she said. "There is small aether well that supplies some of the houses here."
I switched to incubus vision and spotted a nimbus swirling in a courtyard dead ahead. Logic dictated that was where we'd find the remnants of the Tarissan Legion. The updraft rose for several yards before swirling away, drawn to the north by the crystoid. It seemed Cephus's big purple fortress—a pulsating zit on the fair skin of Tarissa—held a monopoly on aether in these parts.
"We are here," Flava said, motioning to what looked like an igloo formed from blue crystals. "Our last hope waits inside."
I really wanted to call her out for being melodramatic, but the scowl on her face told me she'd probably punch me in the mouth. "Lead on."
She removed a gem from the inside of her uniform's collar and touched it to another on the side of the igloo. A section turned to mist and she stepped inside. Elyssa and I ducked through the opening and followed. An empty, round room with a domed ceiling lay on the other side. The mist solidified into a wall behind us.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," I muttered. "Where is everyone?"
Flava touched the gem to the floor and it misted away as the door had. We followed her down into a tunnel. A few yards later it opened into a wide cavern. The rocky walls, stalagmites, and stalactites, were a welcome relief from the overuse of crystal in the city above. It was as if the city designers went out of their way to make everything look completely different from the good old bricks and mortar we used in Eden. Then again, most of these people had probably never seen the mortal plane.
A sera with glossy white hair, porcelain skin, and elfin ears stepped from behind a rock formation and looked at me uncertainly.
"Lanaeia," I said in a hushed voice, uncertain how enthusiastically I should greet her.
"Oh, Justin!" She flung herself at me, embracing me so firmly I felt the breath explode from my lungs. "We are saved!"
Elyssa cleared her throat. "I'm here too."
Lanaeia kissed my cheeks and moved to Elyssa, sparing no enthusiasm. "The tyranny of Cephus will finally end!"
Flava bared her teeth. "Why are you so happy, girl? He abandoned us."
Lanaiea's silver eyes flashed. "You dare call me a human child, zhuka? I lived thousands of years before you were even a spark of life in your father's groin!"
I held up my hands. "Whoa, people. No reason for name calling."
Several more Seraphim stepped from concealment. I recognized two of them right away. A tall blond seraph with fair skin swiftly crossed the room and embraced me. "Justin, I have prayed so long to see you."
"Joss, it's great to see you." I released him to exchange grips with his best friend, Otaleon, a tall seraph with dark hair and eyes. Elyssa and I, with the help of Nightliss and Jeremiah Conroy, had rescued them from the evil wonder twins, Qualan and Qualas, both thankfully killed during the war.
Otaleon offered me a grim smile, but didn't seem nearly as giddy to see me as Joss. "I know we already owe you much, Justin, but we had hoped to see your faces much sooner. Now Tarissa is laid waste, our comrades in arms lie dead, and Cephus grows his forces every day."
His grim assessment punched me in the guts, but I tried to keep things positive for my own sanity. I'd been in seemingly hopeless situations before and overcome them. Hopefully this would work out somehow. "Remember Daelissa's army? Remember her Goliaths and the mighty archangels?"
"I could never forget," Otaleon said in a calm voice.
Lanaeia gripped Otaleon's arm. "What Justin is saying is that even in the face of insurmountable odds, there is hope."
"Where there is hope lies victory," Joss said.
"Then why do I feel the weight of defeat?" Flava said. "I feel the hole in my chest where once my proud legion gave me all the hope I needed. The Destroyer has returned, but his soldiers are few."
"You're really starting to piss me off," I growled.
"I am beyond anger!" Flava shouted. "You left us all to die when you should have led us to victory!"
"You are too late," spat another seraph I didn't know. "Go home and leave Tarissa to die."
My inner demon surged and pushed my anger over the edge. "Enough!" I roared. An orb of Brilliance crackled in my right palm and Murk ensconced my left. The cavern glowed with the sudden light. "I will not let their deaths be in vain. We will organize and we will strike the guards around the crystoid. No matter what Cephus puts in our way, we will overcome it as we did the horrors Daelissa unleashed."
My inner demon lusted after the power of destruction, throwing itself against the prison of my will. Its thirst for Brilliance was what caused me to lose control my first time in Tarissa. I'd learned to control it since then, but quenched the blazing orbs in my hands so as not to tempt fate, and continued in a calmer voice.
"I understand your doubts." I stared down Flava. "Perhaps if I'd come with the legion immediately, we would have quickly defeated Cephus, or perhaps his trick with the crystoids would have destroyed the greatest supernatural army ever assembled. I ran my gaze over the others. "The crystoids nearly destroyed all magic on Eden. Thankfully, we were able to neutralize them and send our army after one of Cephus's allies."
I jabbed a finger in the direction I hoped was north, and pretended I was addressing the mighty army of elves from my live-action role-playing days of Kings and Castles. "Out there lies the final obstacle to the army that will sweep through this land and destroy the usurper. Cephus thinks he has the upper hand, but we'll show him the depths of defeat."
Cheers broke out from the thirty or so people in the room. Even Flava's scowl faded, replaced by uncertain hope.
I gripped her shoulder. "You saved my life in the final battle with Daelissa. You brought Elyssa back from the brink of death. I am so sorry I wasn't here when you needed me most, but I'm here now, Flava. After we destroy the crystoid and restore the skyway, I will return with our army and destroy Cephus. Will you fight with me?"
Flava blinked and tears rolled down her cheeks. "I am furious with you Justin, but I still believe. Of course I will fight with you."
Lanaeia raised a fist overhead, Brilliance blazing around it and declared, "We will all fight with you!"
Another roar rose from the group.
Elyssa and I had flubbed our mission and flown straight into a crap storm, but we'd finally reached an oasis of air freshener. Time to flush Plan A down the toilet and come up with an alternative.
"Does anyone have a map of the city?" Elyssa asked.
"I believe so." Joss dug through a case of multi-colored gems and withdrew a small green one. Holding it in his palm, he channeled a trickle of aether into the gem and a three-dimensional holograph of the city sprang up, displaying the city center with the government buildings.
"It is out of date." Otaleon pointed to the buildings in the image which were now
rubble.
Joss waved a hand across the image and scrolled it west to the skyway. He pointed to a section near the edge. "The crystoid is here. Most of the surrounding buildings are no longer standing."
Elyssa studied the image for a moment then zoomed out to an overhead view. "Where are we?"
Joss pointed to the southwestern sector of the city.
"Looks like a five-mile hike to the crystoid," I said. "Any idea how many patrols Cephus has between us and it?"
"You can be sure he has as many as he can muster," Flava replied. "Since you defeated his nefarious devices in Eden, he no doubt knows you possess the key to undoing him here."
"Where's the other crystoid?" I asked.
Otaleon brought out a table so Joss could place the gem on it instead of holding it, and the blond Darkling zoomed out further to display the entire city. He pinpointed a spot near the eastern edge of the city.
"Where are the skyways leading out of the city?" I asked.
Joss touched the legend on the map and lit it with flowing lines running in all directions heedless of any buildings in their path. The first time I'd ridden the city skyway, basically a road of clouds, I'd nearly crapped my britches. If you needed to get somewhere not in the direct line of the skyway, a cloudbank broke from the main path and carried you there. It was the best mass transit system I'd ever seen.
"Are any of the skyways working?" Elyssa asked.
"Only parts of the southern route," Joss said. He drew a line with his finger to highlight about four miles to the far south. "That is only because of the Creator's Well."
I raised an eyebrow. "What the heck is that?"
"An aether fountain dedicated to the Primogenitor," Flava said. "It taps into the Tarissan Vortex."
Elyssa paced around the map, drawing symbols on it with her finger, seemingly oblivious to the muted conversations springing up in the room.
I walked up beside her. "You see what we have to do, right?"
"I don't like using an outdated map, Justin." She rested her chin on a hand. "It'd be nice to have at least one all-seeing eye to give us live intel on numbers and patrol patterns."
"We didn't have any of that to help us during the crystoid incident in Eden."
Elyssa blew out a breath. "Yeah, but we also had Templars intelligence operations to rely on." She waved me off before I could speak. "Yes, I know what we have to do." Her finger jabbed the eastern crystoid. "Take that out and restore some aether to the city."
"Do you think it'll draw away any guards from the western crystoid?" I asked.
"At first, but then he'll just double-down on the western one." Elyssa zoomed in on the southern area and traced a route through the lower part of the city. "Even if the skyways work down there, we should avoid them."
"I think eliminating the eastern crystoid is a waste of time," Flava said. "Cephus will be able to concentrate all his forces to the west if there is nothing left to guard in the east."
Elyssa frowned. "If the eastern crystoid is gone that means the skyways in those parts should function again. Where do they go?"
Joss fiddled with the map and the hologram began to fill in the surrounding land masses. "It would open up the eastern route to Karjun, and possibly the northern route to the Vjartik Mountains."
"Are there any legions in Karjun that could help us?" Elyssa asked.
Flava gasped. "Of course! The Second and Third Legions are in the north. They could possibly send troops to help if the skyway is functional."
"Unless Cephus has more crystoids to throw at us, he wouldn't stand a chance against another legion," I said. "Right now he's focused on the west because that crystoid disables the western skyway to the Kdosh skylet and the Alabaster Arch. He must have another crystoid on the skylet itself to keep the arch from working."
"How long would it take for troops to reach us?" Elyssa asked.
Flava increased the scope of the map until all of Pjurna was visible. It resembled Australia but the southern coastline bulged into the ocean and a large river split the southern part of the land mass. The Vjartik Mountains ran the length of the north, and the Great Barrier Vortex, a cauldron of boiling ocean water, guarded the western ocean from attack.
Darkling legions protected the mountain passes to the east. I knew all this because Cephus and Flava had briefed me the last time I'd been in town.
"The troops are here." Flava drew a red line on the map. "It would take no more than two weeks for them to reach us."
"Two weeks?" I stared at the map. "I thought skyways were faster than that."
"Two weeks, a month, who cares?" Joss said. "They will overwhelm the dictator and return the city to us."
"I have an army waiting in Eden, ready to come through the Alabaster Arch on Kdosh and invade." I found Kdosh just off the western coast on the fringe of the Great Barrier Vortex and jabbed it with a finger. "The minute that crystoid is down, I can fly to the arch and neutralize the crystoid affecting it. Once the skyway and arch are working again, I can have an army here in hours instead of weeks."
"Patience," Otaleon said. "We have waited months for you. Another two weeks will not matter."
"It might." Elyssa's statement drew a few arched eyebrows and wrinkled foreheads. "Flava, you told me that there were hardly any patrols just a month ago and that the flying soldiers began appearing a week later."
"Yes," Flava said. "First only a few, but more all the time."
"A week ago I counted less than twenty flying out of the Ministry of Research," a seraph said in Cyrinthian. "As I scouted the enemy yesterday, I counted nearly a hundred and fifty."
I saw where Elyssa was heading. "You think Cephus is mass producing these soldiers—but how?"
"I suspect he's kidnapping citizens and turning them," Elyssa said. "In a week he went from twenty to nearly eight times that amount. Within two weeks he could have hundreds or even a thousand flying soldiers. It's imperative we stop him as soon as possible."
I did the math in my head and realized if we didn't act now, even bringing in the other legions wouldn't be enough.
Chapter 4
Murmurs filled the room. Some of the Seraphim less-versed in English asked Flava to translate Elyssa's words.
"There are fewer than thirty of us total," Otaleon said. "Without magic we cannot fight even a hundred or more of these fliers who will surely be guarding the western crystoid."
Lanaeia frowned. "If we disabled the eastern crystoid and wait on the other legions, the fliers will overwhelm us, but we are already too few to fight the fliers that exist."
"That's why we need to reduce enemy numbers any way possible," Elyssa said. "Right now, Cephus has only enough troops to post an overwhelming force in the east or west. If he thinks the eastern crystoid is under attack, he'll likely send his fliers to protect it, leaving only his ground units in the west."
"Yes, a feint to the east might work," Flava said. She turned to a seraph I didn't recognize and spoke in Cyrinthian. "Nailan, how many crucibles do we have left?"
"A dozen," he replied.
Flava nodded. "We'll need a noisy diversion to the east. Can you manage it?"
"Of course!" He slapped another seraph on the back. "Philas and I can charge the crucibles and plant them overnight."
"How large are the crucibles?" I asked, my tongue reacquainting itself with Cyrinthian.
Nailan made a wide circle with his arms. "Four feet in diameter."
"Can I have two of them?" I asked.
He looked at Flava who nodded and then turned a questioning gaze on me. "Surely you don't plan to use them directly on the crystoid, do you?"
"Yes, but not in the way you think." I channeled small orbs of Murk and Brilliance and directed tendrils from each to weave together into a fuzzy gray ball. "This is Stasis, as I'm sure those of you who fought Daelissa know."
"Yes, and many of us still have the prisms that help us channel both Murk and Brilliance," Flava said.
Darklings usually couldn't eas
ily channel Brilliance, and Murk was a challenge for Brightlings. Some, like me, had an inherent ability to channel both forces while others needed the boost crystal prisms gave them to amplify their latent abilities.
"The crystoids soak up Murk and Brilliance, but are susceptible to Stasis." I channeled a thin beam of gray energy into the floor. "I'll fill crucibles with Stasis, and if we can hit the crystoid with one, it should neutralize it."
"You'd have to do that from the air," Elyssa said, brow furrowed with concern. "We only have one rocket stick which means no one could watch your back."
"I hope our diversions will draw away most of the fliers." I released the channeled energy and the elemental globes faded away. "I should be able to swoop in, drop the bomb, and get out quickly."
Flava bit her lower lip and stared at the crystalized rock where Stasis had hit it. "We'll need everyone." She turned to Nailan. "Issue a general recall. We'll plan tonight and strike tomorrow at dawn."
Elyssa shook her head. "We need to act sooner and hit them in the early morning hours." She paced a few feet forward. "Even the enemy needs to sleep, and in the dark, Justin stands a better chance of slipping through their lines."
"We don't have time enough to prepare," Flava insisted. "I agree with your idea, but we should postpone it by a day."
"Cephus is off-balance right now," Elyssa argued. "Though he anticipated our arrival, he hasn't had time to consider that we might attack the eastern crystoid. The more time we give him, the better prepared he'll be."
"I don't agree," Joss said. "Cephus has had months to prepare for every situation. Another day won't significantly alter his defenses."
"On matters of strategy, I have rarely found Elyssa to be wrong," Lanaeia said. "She is as brilliant as her father."
Elyssa's cheeks blushed.
I agreed with Elyssa, but also saw the need to prepare our own meager forces. They'd be the ones off balance if we called them back in and suddenly thrust them into action. "I think a delay would be best."
Elyssa pursed her lips and gave me a displeased look. A shrug broke the tension. "I hope you're right."
Flava turned to Nailan. "Send your scouts and recall everyone. Fill the crucibles and we'll decide which areas to target."