by John Corwin
"I'm familiar with them," I assured him. "Good luck."
"May the Creator see you through, Destroyer," Nailan replied.
"That's something I never expected to hear," I murmured to myself.
Elyssa pulled me in for a long kiss. "I love you. Be careful."
I pecked her nose. "Love you too, honey-boo bear."
She sighed. "I'm so happy no one else here understands that."
Chuckling, I hopped on the rocket stick. "I'll be sure to include affectionate lingo in their next English lesson." With a twist of the handle, I guided the rocket stick up along the side of the vortex building until I crested the top. There was no roof, only a dark hole through the center. Like my previous visit to Tarissa, I didn't understand how people actually utilized these buildings. Did Seraphim have nine-to-five jobs like humans, or did they spend all their time being magnificent?
In a city where furniture and other items could be created magically, and where the bathrooms magically disposed of waste, it didn't seem there was much opportunity for making money.
Hovering over the dark pit, I eased my way to the other side of the building so I could peek over the edge. When I saw the target, the breath caught in my throat. "That thing is huge!" Glowing malevolently, the crystoid resembled a spiky sphere, crystal shards protruding from all angles. Those on top angled straight up toward the sky portal. As Nailan had reported during our planning sessions, rubble surrounded the meteor on all sides, blocking the view from those on the ground.
It was why he hadn't known how big this thing was. The crystal meteors that hit Eden had started small and grown as they soaked up aether. The largest I'd seen had been the size of an elephant.
This one was the size of a herd.
Measuring at least twenty yards in diameter, it dwarfed anything I could have imagined. Neutralizing even the regular crystoids was no mean feat. The smallest of those had nearly jerked me off my feet and sucked me dry.
Though I'd filled the crucibles full to bursting with Stasis, they'd do almost nothing to this monstrosity. Hell, it might take several of us channeling Stasis to stand a chance of neutralizing it.
This required a complete change in tactics. Simply flying overhead and bombing the crystoid would do almost nothing. I had to warn the others so we could reevaluate the plan. I dove for the ground, hoping to intercept Elyssa before they reached the enemy lines. I'd barely started my dive when flashes of energy lanced through the night. Our people had engaged the enemy.
I was too late.
Glowing white spheres shot high into the air from the enemy positions, lighting the battlefield. More glow balls launched from the tops of surrounding buildings until it was bright as day. That was when I saw what waited at the tops of the other tall buildings around the impact zone. Shiny black armor gleamed. Ultraviolet wings blazed. Dozens of Void fliers launched from the rooftops toward my unsuspecting companions.
Cephus had anticipated this attack from the start and staged everything. He knew Nailan and his scouts had no way to climb the buildings without being spotted by patrols. Even I hadn't seen the enemy lurking in the darkness.
"War is fought in three-dimensions," Elyssa's father, Thomas Borathen, once told me. "When anticipating attack, never forget to look up and down."
We hadn't looked up.
Thomas hadn't raised a fool. I saw Elyssa leading a retreat inside the vortex building. She already knew this mission had gone sideways, probably from the moment the lights went on. I ducked back behind the lip of the vortex building, using the hollow center to hide in. The Void fliers glided to the ground, apparently unaware of me.
Cephus's ground troops marched from their positions and joined the other units that now surrounded the building. A platform supported by the shoulders of four fliers descended from another building, bearing a seraph that made me see red.
My hands clenched so tightly around the rocket stick, I felt the metal start to warp.
A tall seraph with a flowing black cape embroidered with the Void symbol smiled confidently as his chariot drifted just above the heads of his soldiers. Cephus ran a hand through his pitch black hair, combed down in the Roman style and spoke. "My dear rebels, this fight has gone on too long. You may have the help of the Destroyer, but as you see, it was not enough." His voice boomed, apparently amplified by the gem on the collar of his cape.
I heard Flava shouting back at him. "The Destroyer will make you eat those words, usurper!"
"Justin, my friend, stop cowering and come outside." Cephus waved his hand in a sweeping gesture. "Join me in my quest to rid this world and all worlds of their petty religions. Let us reveal the truth and lead all the realms into an age of enlightenment."
He sounded so damned reasonable, I almost wanted to join him.
Flava returned verbal fire. "You spout nothing but lies, Cephus! You mean to kill us all."
"Most of you, yes," Cephus said. "I will, however, spare Justin and any he vouches for. I want him by my side when the truth is unleashed upon all the realms."
"You would not know truth if it penetrated your backside," Flava said.
I nearly lost it, hearing her talk like that, and had to hold in a laugh despite the deadly situation.
"In a matter of days the Void will open," Cephus said in a dream voice. "Our master, the Beast, will finally be free."
A cold, hard lump formed in my stomach, freezing fingers caressing my heart. This crazy mother effer wants to open a portal to the Void?
"How would you do such a thing?" Flava shouted.
"Surrender and perhaps I will show you," Cephus said. He waited about a minute, but Flava didn't shout back at him. He sighed. "You disappoint me, Justin. I suppose if you will not give up, I will be forced to kill you all."
Cephus looked back and nodded toward another seraph. "They have five minutes, Tain Prahven." He shook his head sadly and then the fliers supporting his chariot flapped their wings and swept him away.
Tain Prahven touched the gem at his throat and spoke in Cyrinthian, "By order of Lord Cephus, surrender or die!" His voice boomed, echoing through the dead city.
I followed Cephus with my eyes, calculating if I could reach him before his fliers killed me. I could end this right now. On the other hand, if I chased him, Elyssa and the others would die.
Without aether power in the building, they had no way to reach higher levels, trapping them in the narrow confines of the first floor. I had to help somehow, but what could I do against the small army below?
Once again, Cephus had outsmarted us. This time, it seemed he'd finish us once and for all.
Chapter 7
Options, Justin, options!
There had to be something I could do to save the others.
There were simply too many enemies for me to fight. A diversion wouldn't work for the same reason. On the other hand, I still had two aces up my sleeves. Since neutralizing the crystoid was out of the question, the Stasis bombs would have to serve another purpose.
The mutants were brainwashed to fight relentlessly until they won or died. The ground troops, however, were Cephus's loyal followers. To make the biggest impact, I had to hit the enemy where it hurt the most.
"By command of Tain Prahven, you have one minute," a seraph said in an imperious voice. Wearing black armor with extra-wide shoulder-pads and a breastplate molded like six-pack abs, he stood with the rest of the loyalists behind a shield of fliers. "Surrender peacefully and you will be spared."
"What a pompous jackass," I muttered. Thankfully, the enemy was breaking the rule that had gotten my allies into this mess. They weren't looking up. Depending on how the mutants were wired, they either took verbal commands or Cephus had some sort of remote control wired into their heads. If I had to guess, it was more likely the commands were verbal, even if transmitted using a communications gem.
Taking out as many loyalists as possible meant the fliers below wouldn't receive any orders until someone else took control. If I had to make another g
uess, the loudmouth down there was the one authorized to command the fliers.
"Thirty seconds until your destruction!" Tain Prahven, aka Commander Asshat, shouted. "Submit!"
That was my cue to stop thinking and start doing. I dove over the lip of the vortex, the relentless grip of gravity and the speed of the broom quickly taking me to terminal velocity. I detached the Stasis crucibles and let them fall. So focused were the enemy on the building, that not a one of them glanced up as I pulled out of the dive.
One of the ground troops looked up at the last minute, eyes flashing wide, arms going up in the classic My spaceship is about to crash into an asteroid! position. He didn't have a chance to shout a warning before the crucibles exploded and a boiling gray cloud of energy flooded across the square outside the building.
The fog swept through the back ranks of the enemy, freezing them into lifelike statues. I'd never seen Stasis directly kill anyone, meaning in a few minutes, those statues would come back to life. Though vicious enemies often forced my hand to kill in cold blood, I still hated it. The faces of many I'd slain still haunted me at night, and now I had to do it again to save my friends.
Considering what Cephus and his people had done to Eden, I was prepared to live with it this time.
Drawing upon the aether pack, I raked a claw of Brilliance across the stricken loyalists. They exploded like ice statues. I sliced the armor off Tain Prahven and destroyed the gem on its collar. Keeping him alive seemed prudent since he might prove valuable for questioning. Though rows of the mutant fliers closest to the building remained unaffected by the Stasis, they didn't move a muscle as I mowed down their ruthless controllers.
Several of the loyalists slumped to the ground as the Stasis wore off. Tain Prahven bare-chested and barrel-bellied without his muscle armor staggered upright and began screaming, "Kill him! Kill him!"
Without the gem to transmit, the fliers didn't move.
I bared my teeth. "You're not the puppeteer they're looking for."
Prahven flung orbs of Murk at me. I batted them aside contemptuously with a shield and then knocked him silly with a fist of Murk.
Screaming in fear, the conscious loyalists ran for their lives. Still not down for the count, Prahven ran away with them. There were too many for me to take on by myself, so I let him go. I found his armor and plucked the red gem from the collar. It looked similar to the one Cephus had worn when I met him. I channeled a spark of Murk into it, but nothing happened.
I took the gem for later study and turned back to the building. Wading through a forest of silent fliers, I reached the front of the building just as Elyssa and the others charged out of it weapons and magic at the ready.
I threw up my hands before they started blasting helpless soldiers. "Wait!"
Elyssa's eyes widened. "We couldn't see what was going on out here."
"We were trying to find the aether supply tunnel," Flava said. "Many of the larger towers have special underground corridors to channel aether energy for the building utilities."
"I used the Stasis bombs on the loyalists," I said. "Right now, the fliers don't have anyone controlling them, so we have to act fast."
"Agreed," Elyssa said. "Retreat!"
"No!" I jabbed a finger at the crystoid. "This might be our last chance to disable that thing. Cephus was probably watching all this through his commander's gem. He probably has more fliers on the way."
"But you dropped the bombs," Elyssa said.
"They wouldn't have been enough." I jammed the rocket stick into its sheath. "Who here besides Lanaeia can channel Brilliance well?"
Flava, Joss, and Otaleon raised their hands.
"Lanaeia, Joss, and Otaleon you're on team Brilliance." I needed equal numbers for what I had in mind. "Now I need three strong Murk channelers."
Out of all the raised hands, I chose Flava, Nailan, and Philas, then looked around at the eerily still mutants. "I want everyone else except for you, you, and you"—I pointed out three of the beefiest looking Darklings—"to remove the aether packs from these fliers and retreat back to the rendezvous point." I motioned to the three I'd singled out. "You'll come with us."
The other Darklings got to work prying off the mutants' armor to get to the aether packs. It would take them a while, but we needed to remove every advantage from Cephus's forces that we could.
I set off at a jog toward our objective. "Time to disable that crystoid."
Elyssa ran beside me. "Why did you ask if they could channel Brilliance?"
"This crystoid is massive, babe." I bit my lower lip. "I need every ounce of power I can get for this one."
When we crested the mountain of rubble and laid eyes on the crystal meteor, everyone let out a collective gasp, including me. Close up, the crystoid looked even larger than from the air. Considering the volume of raw aether flowing into this thing, I was surprised it wasn't the size of the city. Then again, Cephus might have made the ones here different than the ones that hit Eden. He could have limited their growth so he could neutralize them himself once he took total control of the city.
"How do we help?" Flava asked.
"I need those who are the strongest in channeling Brilliance on my right. The rest of you on my left." Once everyone assumed their positions, I continued. "Lanaeia and Flava, put your hands on my back. The rest of you put a hand on the back of the person next to you."
"We are linking," Flava said. "Like your mother showed us."
I nodded. "I need you to channel everything you can through each other and into me. Those on the right channel only Brilliance, and those to my left concentrate on Murk." I pointed to Elyssa and the other three volunteers. "I need you to hold onto me. Once I hit that thing with Stasis, it'll try to suck me in like a magnet."
Elyssa's eyes filled with worry. "A crystoid a quarter the size of this one nearly drained you dry, Justin."
"This is gonna work," I said.
"But your mother said linking too many people together is dangerous." She gripped my hand. "It could burn you out."
"It's the only way to focus enough Stasis," I said.
"What if the aether packs run dry?"
"Pray they don't." I gave her a stern look. "Do your duty, Templar."
Steel shone in her eyes and the worry vanished behind a stern façade. "As you wish." She motioned the other three Darklings into place and ordered them to hold down my legs. Elyssa wrapped her arms around my chest and whispered in my ear, "I've got you, my love."
"Wonder twin powers, activate!" I shouted.
Flava and the others frowned.
I cleared my throat. "That means to start channeling."
"Ah," they murmured.
"Destroyer, I have activated the wonder twin powers," Flava said.
"As have I," Lanaeia added.
One by one, my Seraphim allies began to channel the forces of destruction and creation through the chain and to me, the focus. Power ignited my blood and filled my flesh with the deep cold calm of Murk and the burning powerful rage of Brilliance. My flesh felt ready to evaporate with the raw energy roiling inside.
Raising my hands, I released the energy into my palms, coalescing a sphere of burning white in my right, and ultraviolet in my left. My hair felt as though it was standing on end, and my eyes watered from the sheer effort it took to keep my mind focused. My inner demon growled with delight and rammed against its cage, eager to grasp the power sizzling just out of its reach. My mind faltered, unable to maintain focus on both events. The door opened a fraction and my demon half surged.
It was like holding up the roof of a collapsing house with my hands while fighting off a tiger with my feet. If I concentrated too much on one or the other, I'd be crushed or eaten.
"Justin!" someone shouted.
Elyssa's strong arms gripped me tighter. "Justin, I'm here. You can do it."
You and I have had this conversation before, I sent to the traitorous demon half.
Power, destruction! It sent back.
W
hy is my demon half an idiot? I had to do something fast. Splitting my attention came hard, especially when dealing with this much power. My head ached. Half my body felt frozen and the other two thirds felt ready to burst into flames. I couldn't channel this much energy for much longer. Focusing everything I had into one swift kick, I booted the tiger in the nose and slammed the cage shut, then quickly returned my focus to the collapsing ceiling.
A croak of pain burst from my raw throat as I threaded the Murk and Brilliance into a massive sphere of Stasis. With a cry of relief, I poured a thick gray beam of energy toward the center of the crystoid. The agony in my body abated as it no longer had to contain the power. The moment the Stasis hit the crystoid, an invisible force jerked my body toward it.
Elyssa and the others grunted. We slid inches closer, but my anchors dug in their heels and our forward momentum stopped.
"It's working!" someone shouted.
The surface of the crystoid cracked, its violet and white hues turning a sullen gray at the outer edges. But the power flooding into me weakened, abating slowly but perceptibly.
"The aether packs," I shouted. "They're running out of power."
The gray spread slowly from the outside in, two yards, ten, fifteen. It was halfway there. My teeth ached and my throat felt as if it were on fire.
"Incoming fliers!" someone shouted. "The mutants who left earlier have returned."
The orbs of primal force unraveled and vanished. Where once there had been a rushing river of power, only a dry, cracked riverbed remained. I slumped in Elyssa's arms. "We're out of juice."
"Was it enough?" she asked.
The core of the crystoid pulsed ultraviolet and white. Ten yards across, it still looked as healthy and malevolent as ever though the outer two thirds were ashen gray. "I don't think so," I croaked from a raw throat. "It's still alive."
I looked up and saw squads of mutants on approach, fists glowing with Murk. Our aether packs drained, we'd be powerless to stop their attacks once they closed within range.