The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept

by Michael Arnquist

  He had seen fear.

  The men on the docks paused in their work, craning their necks back toward the city. Borric looked at the upturned faces. Their eyes were wide with apprehension, and shadows played across their smudged features, snared between the cold light of the moon and the warm light of the flickering torches. The captain turned to look as well.

  He let out a slow breath. There was nothing to see yet. The city streets ramped down to the docks in a series of wide switchbacks and stairways carved into the slope, and the buildings and boulevards all stood dark and empty. The steady stream of humanity had slowed to a trickle and then stopped altogether, but many still stood flocked together on the quays, seeking places on the remaining ships. As Borric watched, a ripple of motion passed through the throng of people as the citizens of Keldrin’s Landing turned to gaze back into the city’s heart as well.

  The eastern gate could not be seen from the docks, but all could hear the approach of the swarm. A low, unearthly sound had been building as a background hum for long minutes, and it was rising to a fever pitch. It reached a crescendo, and the crowd held its collective breath.

  Something slammed into the distant gate with thunderous force, and the sound rang out in the night like hammer upon anvil. Metal screamed and wood split with a cracking report, and it seemed to Borric that the very ground beneath his feet trembled from the blow. The sound of the advancing swarm of creatures, muted before by the mighty city wall, was freed. The shrieking roar of countless bestial voices, raised together in mindless fury, echoed over the city.

  Borric’s blood ran cold at the sound. There was nothing of nature or reason in that sound, nothing even of predators hunting for survival. Rather, it was a chorus of torment and madness, of pain and blind, lashing rage. The primitive part of his mind that screamed for self-preservation wanted only to find a deep, dark hole and hide in it until death had passed him by, but he shook himself with an effort. He looked around and found the people rooted in place, frozen with terror.

  He climbed onto a nearby crate, drew a breath, and boomed a wordless shout as loud as he could manage over the crowd. The men and women blinked, startled from their stupor, and turned to him with blank stares.

  “Faster now, people!” he bellowed. “Make your choice between the belly of a boat and the bellies of those fiends up there. One or the other will have you by the morning light!”

  The crowd surged forward, pressing onto the docks.

  He shouted, “Keep it orderly and help your fellows, or you will be swimming instead!”

  Borric jumped down from the crate and pushed one of his men into motion, then stooped to help a citizen who had stumbled back to her feet. He strode down the docks, shouting orders and casting frequent looks up at the darkened city looming above.

  Amric peered through a crack in the stone, watching the tall figure of the Adept move through the ruins with a wary stride. Without warning, Xenoth whirled and sent fire lancing into the mist. The warrior’s heart skipped a beat, fearing one of the Sil’ath had been found. After a moment, however, the Adept turned back with an angry oath, and Amric let out a breath of relief.

  Xenoth stalked back and forth, scanning the ruins for his prey, but he did not roam far from the stairway leading to the Gate. Amric cursed. He had allowed the man to catch fleeting glimpses of his movements between piles of rubble, and though he had drawn occasional fire, the Adept had refused to be lured away from the platform. He had to find some way to divert Xenoth’s attention to such an extent that Syth and Halthak could slip behind him and up to the Gate. This was proving difficult enough, but it was only the first step. Assuming those two could find a way to shut down the Gate, the Adept would doubtless react by slaying them both and reactivating the device. Fundamental to the success of the plan was preventing Xenoth from taking such action, and Amric had to find the way.

  He raised his voice and shouted, “This is madness, Adept. What gives you the right to end an entire world?” He then spun and glided away, staying low and out of sight.

  Xenoth cocked his head, orienting upon the sound, and turned his steps in that direction. His hands twitched and clenched at his sides. “You know why it must be now, wilding,” he shouted. “The Nar’ath threat must be contained. They cannot be permitted to gain a foothold in Aetheria.” He tilted his head, listening. “But that only made the matter more urgent. This pitiful world has been scheduled for destruction for some time now, and therein, I think, lies your true question.”

  Xenoth neared the tumble of rock and raised his hands in anticipation, but spun around in shock when Amric’s voice came from a different direction. “And your answer, fiend?”

  The Adept gave a cold smile and a rueful shake of his head, and altered course. “Are you a fiend when you hunt game, boy?” he called out. “Are you a monster when you draw nourishment from the flesh of a lesser creature?”

  “It is not the same,” Amric snarled in response. “You are planning the death of an entire world. Countless lives snuffed out.”

  “So that countless others may live,” Xenoth insisted, his eyes narrowed as he searched the mist-shrouded darkness. “Aetheria is home to the greatest civilization in all the stars, and the wonders it has achieved throughout the millennia do not come without cost. Our world alone cannot support our needs. Sacrifices must be made. This world is not the first to give its life to the greater good, nor will it be the last.”

  Amric knelt in a tall patch of damp grass, peering around a fallen column. There, near the foot of the stairs leading to the Gate, a flicker of movement. A pair of dark figures crept toward the foot of the stairs, hiding in the mantle of shadow in the lee of the platform.

  “The greater good?” Amric demanded, putting all the scorn that he could muster in his tone. “All your achievements are steeped in the blood of innocents. No amount of noble intent can justify such a price!”

  Xenoth barked a laugh. “Your perspective is skewed, boy. Doubtless the game you slew for sustenance would put a higher price on its own life as well, if it could.”

  “It is not the same,” Amric repeated, flushed with anger. “A hunter takes what he needs so that he and his family can survive, but he takes one of many, and the herd replenishes. You speak of taking in order to achieve greater wonders, and of leaving behind a world barren of all life. There is no comparison.”

  “Perhaps not,” the Adept growled, sliding around the end of the column to face Amric. “Then again, to us, perhaps your world is just one of the herd to be culled for our use.”

  He lunged forward with a triumphant shout, and fire roared toward Amric. The warrior, awaiting his appearance, rolled to one side and sent a lance of light at the other in return. The blow shattered on a glittering shield raised at the last instant by Xenoth, and Amric sprinted further into the ruins. Xenoth spat an oath and started to follow, then caught himself and glanced back at the platform. Syth and Halthak were scrambling up the steps, twin shadows against the pale marble.

  With a scream of outrage, Xenoth ran for the platform, unleashing strike after strike as he went. Lashes of fire tore great gouges out of the stone, and Syth and Halthak darted back and forth upon the stairs in a frantic effort to avoid them. A blazing whip sheared through a section of the stairway beneath Syth, and it began to fall away. He sprang from the falling segment in a prodigious leap, and sudden wind caught him at the apex, propelling him toward the stairs. Before he could land, however, a snaking blow hammered into him and sent him spinning over the side, into the darkness.

  Amric reappeared in a mad sprint. He had doubled back when he realized that the lure had failed, and he struck out with a sledge of force that threw Xenoth from his feet. The black-robed Adept rolled into a crouch, facing the warrior with a snarl. He swept out with an arm, and a huge boulder ripped free of the turf and catapulted toward Amric. The latter dove to one side, raising a hasty shield to deflect the giant missile, but it collided with such force that he was sent flying back and to the side.
He slammed into a marble boulder, and his world exploded in pain and flashes of light as he fought to retain consciousness.

  Valkarr and Sariel appeared as if from nowhere, twin specters darting at the Adept from either side with flashing steel. Rather than try to stop them individually, however, Xenoth brought both fists together and slammed them to the ground, sending a circular wave rushing outward that threw them back into the mist. The Adept stood and extended one hand toward Halthak, still clambering up the stairs. The step beneath the Half-Ork’s foot exploded in a spray of rock and he fell, tumbling end over end on the punishing stone until he came to a crashing halt at the bottom.

  Halthak spat out blood and pushed to all fours as Xenoth strode toward him. The cuts and bruises on his craggy face faded and vanished, and his breathing grew steadier.

  “Ah yes,” the Adept sneered. “One of the insects. The scrub talent, the lay healer. I warned you once not to cross me, that I would make your end far more agonizing than you could imagine. Insect, you will find now that I am a man of my word.”

  Xenoth put his hands together before him, and his brow furrowed in concentration. A ball of sickly green and black energy gathered there. It blazed and grew like a tiny sun of malevolent purpose. Xenoth growled with the effort, and his hands began to shake.

  Amric rose to his feet, his legs wobbling beneath him. He found his sword a dozen feet away, its flame extinguished. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, as his wilding magic railed within him.

  Halthak bared his tusks in defiance, and gathered to spring at the Adept. Xenoth lashed out, and the sphere of dark energy struck the healer full in the chest. Halthak was blown back onto the stairs with crushing impact. He slumped there for a moment, dazed, limbs splayed out on the marble steps. Then he lifted his head to stare at his torso in shock. The robes covering his midsection had been blasted away to form a gaping hole, and the edges of the cloth were blackened and smoking. Underneath, a circle of the same foul green and black energy was boiling and churning as it gnawed away at the Half-Ork’s torso. It grew, widening and deepening, chewing an ever larger hole in his bare, grey flesh. Halthak slid to his knees at the base of the steps and screamed, a wrenching sound of exquisite suffering, and his head fell forward in concentration. The growth of the cavity slowed, and it began to shrink as the flesh knitted around it. The green blazed even brighter in response, however, and the energies within swirled faster. The void began to expand again, more swiftly than before.

  Xenoth gave a harsh, pitiless laugh. “It feeds on magic. The more you draw upon, the more you pour into healing yourself, the faster it will grow and consume you. And the more pain you will feel. A fitting punishment, I think, for a meddling insect like yourself.”

  Halthak screamed again and fell to his side in the grass, curling around his injury. The Adept stepped back with a cold smile.

  “I warned you fools,” he said. “I deal out retribution and death at the behest of the Council. It is all I do, and there is nothing on this pathetic world that can stop me.”

  “Xenoth!” The shout brought the Adept around in a swirl of black robes. Amric stalked toward him, down the center of the tunnel carved from the mist. There was a slight limp to his gait, but his stride was purposeful. His sword jutted from one fist, and his storm-grey eyes were hard as steel. His gaze flicked to the struggling form of Halthak for an instant, and then returned to fix upon his foe. White flame, bright as the sun, burst out around the blade and kindled within his eyes.

  “Bold words,” he growled. “Come prove them.”

  Morland stood alone at a towering window in the great hall of his mansion, his hands clasped behind his back. His dark eyes were unfocused and saw nothing of the majestic scene wrought in colored glass before him, or the lush, exotic gardens beyond.

  Distant, muffled shouts and a soft thump against the great double doors at the end of the hall broke into his reverie, and he turned toward that end of the room with an expectant scowl. The doors remained closed, however, and the sounds were not repeated. He muttered an oath under his breath and turned back to the window.

  What was taking those incompetent fools so long, anyway? He had been very clear about the need for haste, but such reinforcement of the obvious should not have been necessary, in any event. His watchmen had brought back word that the townsfolk had returned, having somehow eluded the grasp of the Nar’ath, and that the city was being overrun by some new, overwhelming force. That news had spread like wildfire through his men, and there had been no hesitation to comply when he ordered them to prepare for flight.

  The escape plan was simple, and one he had prepared well in advance in case this tumultuous night came to the worst. His stewards and private guards were to collect the most necessary of his belongings, and then escort him to the docks. There, he would signal in the clipper that was anchored out in the bay, a very swift personal vessel that would carry him away from this wretched place. It was time to pursue his fortune elsewhere.

  The clipper was large, but it would not carry all those still in his employ. No matter. Many swords would need to remain on the docks anyway to keep the rabble from viewing his ship as their own salvation. He permitted himself a small, cold smile. He would simply tell those left behind that they would be well compensated for their bravery, and that he would send in the next ship once his was safely away. They were coarse men with credulous minds, after all.

  Morland flinched as one of the torches sputtered and died in its sconce at the far end of the room. That corner of the hall fell into deeper shadow, and Morland stared for a long moment. Nothing moved there, and the tension eased from him. A sudden shiver caught him by surprise. When had it become cold in the room? He eyed the cavernous hearth, devoid of its usual fire at the moment, and then shrugged it off. He would be leaving soon; there was no time to bother with such worries.

  He forced his attention to other matters, and wondered if Nyar and Nylien had completed their mission. It was a pity they had not returned yet. He had become somewhat accustomed to the twin Alfen assassins lurking about, and they had a way of turning up at just the right time, but it seemed unlikely this time. They were utterly mad, the both of them, but they had proven to be very useful tools, peerless at dispensing death at his command. They would be difficult to replace.

  The merchant crossed the room, his silk slippers whispering on the vast, intricately woven rug. He stood before a window opposite the first, one that looked out onto a portion of his estate grounds rather than onto his gardens. He squinted into the darkness, and then sighed. He found himself wishing he had been less efficient about disposing of the farseer once the Nar’ath had retreated. The young fool’s talents would have proven useful in monitoring the progress of the creatures now invading the city, and in choosing his escape route. But alas, the lad had known or guessed too much regarding Morland’s arrangement with the Nar’ath, and he could not risk such rumors following him to more civilized regions. Plan for every eventuality, leave nothing to chance.

  Another torch died with a hissing pop, and Morland whirled about. Three more followed in rapid succession, and he took an involuntary step back. The far end of the room descended into darkness so absolute that he could no longer discern the gleaming brass that bound the doors.

  “Is someone there?” he asked.

  Laughter, soft and rich, drifted out of the darkness. Morland jumped at the sound and then remembered himself. He was the lord of this manor, and there would be hell to pay if one of his men was interrupting him with anything other than news of readiness for their departure. He drew up to his full height with fists clenched and demanded, “Who is there?”

  The blackness drew together like an eddying pool and formed into the shape of a man. With one long step, the man broke into the light, but wisps of shadow seemed to cling to him still, as if the darkness was reluctant to be left behind. He was a tall man, sharp-featured and broad of shoulder. He was clad in dark greyish robes, with hair as black as polished jet. He r
egarded the merchant with a faint smile upon his lips.

  Morland opened his mouth, hesitated, shut it again. The stranger radiated cool assurance, and there was an august quality to his bearing that left the merchant with an involuntary desire to bend his knee before him. This was a man in the prime of his power, accustomed to rule. And, Morland thought with a frown, he looked somehow familiar.

  The stranger began a slow stroll around the enormous room, considering the lavish furnishings in silence. He paused before a huge tapestry that brushed the floor at his feet and soared to the ceiling high above. He looked it up and down, tilting his head to one side, and then resumed walking. Morland took a few shuffling steps, studying the man’s profile.

  Morland’s eyes narrowed. “I know you,” he said.

  The stranger gave a soft laugh that sent a chill crawling along the merchant’s spine. “You may remember me. You may recall meeting me in this very room, mere days ago.” The force of the man’s gaze turned upon him, pinning him in place for an instant, and then slid away once more. “But you do not know me, merchant.”

  “You bear a strong resemblance to that Bellimar fellow, who came here with the swordsman,” Morland said. “Are you some relation of his?”

  “I am that man,” the other responded. “I am Bellimar.”

  “Impossible,” Morland said with a derisive snort. “That one was bent with age, with hair of silver. You are decades younger.”

  “Only in appearance,” the stranger said. He smiled, and there was nothing of warmth in the expression. “I have fed very well, this night.”

  The merchant blinked and shook his head. “Believe what you will, I have no time for such games. The city has fallen, and any who wish to live must flee Keldrin’s Landing immediately.”