by J. F. Lewis
If the Port Gate is closed, that means what? Rivvek cleared his mind, forced the frustration and the exhaustion away. Another party is accessing the Port Gate at Fort Sunder either locally or from another Port Gate.
“Right?” He murmured.
Yes, he thought. That would have to be it, but who and why and where?
Were the forces at Fort Sunder using it themselves? With the Port Gate active, the energy had succeeded in blocking all of their combined attempts to see through the veil between dimensions and view the Port Gate at Fort Sunder.
Kyland, father of Wylant and longtime survivor of the Never Dark, laughed long and loud, the beads and bones of his Ghaiattri-hide armor adding a percussive music to his vocalizations. Rivvek opened his mouth to scold the general but could not bring himself to do so. Left on his own for centuries, the older elf had not only kept his sanity but also learned how to manipulate the ever-shifting realm as the demons did. He had been instrumental to the survival of Rivvek’s rescue force, effectively rescuing the would-be rescuers.
Rivvek could not bring himself to join the general in his laughter, but he managed a genuine smile. Thanks to Kyland’s expertise, instead of an ever-changing hodge-podge of seasons and terrain with violent weather patterns, they stood on a spring-like field of grasses shot through with wild flowers and the occasional Royal Hedge Rose. A sweet-smelling breeze blew steadily over them. At the edge of the field, a blizzard raged, filled with lightning and fire holding—for the time being—the Ghaiattri army at bay.
Rivvek may have mastered usage of Ghaiattric flame, even slain a dragon with it, but Kyland’s control of the very substance of the Never Dark astounded the prince. How a lone elf had managed to thrive and become an object of fear for the demons . . . It boggled Rivvek’s mind. For a breath, a heartbeat, he lost his concentration, and he was in the Bright, at the center of the Never Dark, battling Lambent. It burned before him, first with its own light and then with the horror of Rivvek’s magic. He opened his eyes with a start, not having meant to close them, and concentrated at the task before him. The Never Dark, the way time worked there, was especially dangerous for mortals. Even an elf, as long-lived as elves are, is meant to live in a world where each candlemark lasts the same length of time, never shorter or longer and definitely not stretching onward into infinity or passing in a heartbeat.
Task at hand, Rivvek, he berated himself again. He took a long look at the assembled army. They still needed him, and there were still plenty of soldiers to take home alive. Of the twenty-seven thousand two hundred thirty-seven Oathbreakers who had crossed with him from the world that was their home into the Demon Realm, nineteen thousand and four battle-scarred and weary elves stood in formation, and leading defenses at the rear were eight hundred and ninety-two Aern of the Lost Command, the complete remains of the other one hundred and eight Aern packed up neatly in wagons made of demon bone.
When King Rivvek’s Oathbreakers had crossed over an unknown number (Rivvek had an estimate, but per Kyland’s instructions, he did not allow himself to concentrate on it too fiercely) of subjective years ago, they had each had a blanket, a bedroll, two canteens, and whatever personal belongings, arms, and armor they could carry. Now every elven soldier wore demon hide armor best suited to their preference in fighting style: some wore thick, platelike affairs resembling that worn by King Rivvek upon their arrival; others, the more flexible leather-and-plate hybrid style Kyland preferred; and every possible permutation in between. Some carried weapons they’d brought with them, while others wielded flame-cured crystalline or demon-bone weapons.
Rivvek flexed his new dragon-scale gloves, the movement causing the unusual semi-translucent material to shift from dull gray to luminous light, drawing his gaze. He was still getting used to it, but Lambent’s hide had proven the only substance in the Never Dark that could fully defend against the soul-burning flame of the Ghaiattri; and without protection, setting oneself alight with the devastating flames was easier than turning it on the enemy.
After the battle, there had been enough unspoiled hide to equip a score of elves with armor, but it had proven so hard to work with that they had only managed to turn out one usable suit, a combination of scales and bone approximating the full-plate Ghaiattri armor to which Rivvek had become accustomed. Lighter and harder, comparing the armor to his old was the same as going from an iron longsword to a bone-steel blade . . . like the one he wore in the sheath at his side, courtesy of Vodayr.
Kholster’s scars. What wonders they worked in the hearts of the Aern. The sight and feel of them had been all it took to gain the loyalty of a thousand Armored Aern. Slaying the dragon had not harmed the awe in which they held him, either.
“Do not become too impressed with yourself, my liege,” Kyland chided.
“As glorious as I am,” Rivvek teased, the newly healed scars at the edge of his lips showing white against flushed skin, “how would such a thing be possible, Foul Beak?”
“As you say.” Kyland scoffed at Rivvek’s use of the name bestowed upon him by the denizens of the Never Dark. He had learned both of their major tongues, misusing them with deliberate malice to throw insult in the polite tongue, using the vulgar tongue for most other conversations.
“Tell me there is another way through,” Rivvek said.
“There are other Port Gates, but they are watched with greater zealousness by the Ghaiattri horde. The shattering of the Life Forge rendered the terrain around this one more malleable to me, less so to them. Traveling to another gate on this side might grant us egress, but it would not resolve whatever obstructs the Port Gate at Fort Sunder.”
“And if the gate was being used by the Aern . . . ?”
“If it were being used by someone to leave Fort Sunder . . .” Kyland rested a claw-gloved hand upon the smooth, glowing surface that marked the Port Gate’s current state of activation. “ . . . we should be able to see them moving through the gate. They would pass into this world, and be momentarily here, before the Port Gate sensed their desired destination and thrust them forth.”
“Then do they need to fear a Ghaiattri at the gate?” Rivvek asked. “If they cannot interact with—”
“Anyone waiting at this side of the departure gate can interfere with a traveler. In the old days, we’d send in several Aern to secure the Port Gate before using it.” Kyland shook his head. “The Demon Wars made even that too dangerous most days. We’d open a gate, use it, try to close it, and then they’d try to force the gate.”
“I want to come back to that, but first . . . If we found the departure gate in use by whomever is porting to the Fort Sunder Port Gate,” Rivvek asked, trying to arrange it all in his mind, “they would be visible and vulnerable, however briefly, as they pass through the Never Dark, right?”
“Yes, but—” Kyland frowned, the terrain shifting underfoot from grass to gravel to snow-covered and back. “Odd.”
“What?”
“The damage done by the Life Forge’s destruction—it is being repaired.”
For the first time since he’d stepped through the Port Gate, after ensuring the survival of as many of his people as possible, Rivvek felt the trignoms being shaken around in their box in his mind. The board was being dusted off, and as Kyland spoke, he imagined his hand hovering over the box of tiles, choosing two most important tiles: the last one, the objective, and the first one, the tile that once played would lead inevitably to the final desired tile.
“Interesting. We can worry about that in moment, but first . . .” Rivvek already had one of the tiles, a short-term goal: get the survivors back to Fort Sunder so that kholster Rae’en would be forced to forgive them and change their name from Oathbreakers, from Eldrennai to one the Aern would not feel oathbound to eradicate. “What happens to the departure gate if we force the arrival gate?”
“Force it?” Kyland asked. “You can’t force a Port Gate.”
“Ghaiattri can,” Jolsit spoke up. “When General Bloodmane had us—”
/> “I apologize,” Rivvek said, holding up a hand, “but that’s all I needed. Thank you, Jolsit.” He looked at Kyland. “And how easy would it be to find the departure gate?”
“Hasimak could do it, but while the gates map easily on the Dying Light side, this side has only one gate with a stable location, and that’s it.” He kicked the side of the gate before them.
“What would happen if we forced it open?”
“If it could be done, I don’t know,” Kyland said. “I know that they open if destroyed improperly, but even then, there is a cutoff. Once beings stop moving through them, they close.”
Rivvek asked several other questions in quick succession, moving from Kyland to Jolsit as each told him what they knew. When he was finished, all of the trignoms were not yet in place, but he had enough to start.
The Port Gate stood glowing and impenetrable. Rivvek held out his hands, the scars old and new on his body flowing with heat and bright, sharp, burning agony. Ghaiattric flame rolled over him in waves. Harmless as long as he kept them under control. Breathe and focus. The new scars marring his cheeks and brow, a curling expanse flowing from throat to shoulder and encompassing the whole of his left arm and hand, had been caused by a simple lapse in concentration that had come close to ending him. He hoped his new armor would prevent similar recoil from recurring. Hurling the flame against the stone outlining the barrier, he called over his shoulder for Jolsit.
“Yes, highness?”
“See if the Aern can put together a battering ram for us, would you?”
Jolsit ran off to do just that. Unable to watch him go, Rivvek narrowed his focus on the stone, smiling as, with inexorable slowness, it began to show subtle signs of strain.
Kyland laughed, stepping well clear of the conflagration of purple fire that guttered and danced in a frantic corona about Rivvek, then narrowed into a roaring blast no wider than a spread palm.
CHAPTER 30
UNTANGLED MAGIC
Spirits flowed through and around Kholburran, creatures of the air, the earth, growing grass, the water in the fish pond, and the fish within it. At long last, the young prince saw them all. Luminous auras radiated from his Root Guard, their spirits bright and beautiful, glowing with life and years and strength.
Tender shoots of natural magic sprouted from the edges of the scaffolding around them, a sign of the fleeting, fragile nature of the wood his Root Guard had coaxed back to life, reawakened really, after its rough treatment by the Aern. He drew out the ends of those roots, coaxing an additional eight from the edges, helping them find purchase in the rich soil, a long-term solution replacing the crude workings of his companions, in the process strengthening his own connection to the spot upon which he stood, anchoring himself not just here, but to Scarsguard, the city, and to Fort Sunder within, the ethereal roots of his essence spreading far in advance of his physical body.
He laughed at the sight of the Aern, their spirits so similar to their physical forms, but blazing like tiny stars from the links which bound them together, strengthening them, protecting them from the tendrils of black that extended from the Port Gate uphill in the fortress.
Wrongness stood out in dark contrast to his green and golden light.
The suffocating will of Uled showed clearly, but older corruptions lurked in this soil, in this air. Kholburran’s eyes burst free of his skull on strong new limbs, opening like buds to reveal crimson leaves, red and hooked like the those of a blood oak.
Absent his eyes, Kholburran saw even more clearly the twists and tears, old and frayed, that had been wrought by the destruction of the Life Forge so many centuries ago. Thin mists of magic usable only by those of specific bloodlines remained, but even those were like drought-parched limbs rather than well-watered boughs. The damage originated near this spot, flowing outward as far as he could sense.
Even as his toes grew long and his legs thickened and joined together, he sensed that the damage could be repaired in time so long as the source was put right. It would take many seasons to fix it all, but he looked forward to the work, to being of real use at last.
“Kholburran!” Nearby, hard to focus on as his thoughts and body expanded, a familiar spirit pulled at his attention. Turning his view this close to himself already took a tremendous force of will, and he frowned even as his face stretched beyond its previous boundaries, becoming unrecognizable.
Arri? Mouth gone, he could not speak the thought, but when he spied her, he doubted she could have answered, trapped as she was by a tenuous tendril, thin, rotted, and smoldering, which stretched from the Root Guard and off into the lands beyond his lands; for these plains were now his—he claimed and changed and renewed them. He had sworn in his heartwood to restore them and make this hostile land right.
It would always be dangerous, but that was because the irkanth and the shadebeast hunted here, with the amaranthine viper that so loved the myrr grass, the scaled wolves, all but extinct, but within Kholburran’s ability to coax back to their natural state. Other animals were gone, forever, but he could rebalance the delicate system the demon wars and the Sundering had tossed out of balance—
“Khol . . . burr . . . an,” Faulina said, the rot having spread its tendrils to her and to others. The Aern could not help them, but he could.
Those tendrils . . . they led back to a foreign Root Tree. With its rot, it had tapped into pockets of deformed magic, using them to burn and strike instead of gently untwisting and restoring them as he should.
Father, Kholburran thought. Oh. I remember now. Thinking as he once had grew more difficult by the moment, but he recalled his father’s presence, his father’s anger, his father’s madness. Once, when Kholburran had been smaller and thought only of himself, Warrune’s madness had felt special and brave, had comforted him, but now it felt only sorrowful and selfish.
Help me kill them. Warrune laughed in his mind. They do not—
I believe my wishes were clear on this point, father. Kholburran reached out to Faulina and the others, where the tendrils were new and weak, depriving them of connection, withering what needed such great energy and focus to maintain, saving all but Arri, whose connection to Warrune was strongest. Warrune reached out for other pockets of oversaturated magic, with Kholburran struggling to reach each one first and restore the magic to its proper ratio, spreading it out, restitching one patch of magic to another.
Wordless growls of frustration echoed out at Kholburran from the rotted tendrils, sinking deeper into Arri, through her throat and into her heartwood.
Stop, father. Kholburran sent waves of calm at the other Root Tree, trying to work in all the careful gardening Queen Kari had used in raising him. Go home and rest. You got me here safely. I Took Root in a place of my own choosing. It’s done. You—
“Traitor!” One word relayed through the lips of Arri and the essence of Warrune struck Kholburran like a physical blow. You weren’t supposed to be happy. You were to be miserable, not content and siding against me!
Fire licked Arri’s bark.
Her spirit struggled against Warrune’s, but tendril after tendril seized her limbs, working her like a puppet on a string. Her arms wrapped around Kholburran’s trunk, her chest pressed against the organic scars upon his back.
Help, Arri’s spirit mouthed.
*
“Idiots.” Cadence watched her fellow humans screaming and running like stampeding cattle, those elves who possessed no magic mixed in with them. Her mind’s eye pulled her from death to death, tragedy to tragedy, too many to stop. Every floor of Fort Sunder was filled with the dead and those combating them.
“Kazan, you need to protect the Vael.”
“I can’t even tell what exactly is happening there,” Kazan said, his voice distant, distracted. “One of them has gone crazy and the others are all struggling with their Heartbows. I have Aern there, and they are helping where they can, but this is magic, whatever it is.”
“Get me over there then.”
“Cade
nce—”
There was no time to argue, nor truly time to get there. If only she could do what Master Sedric could and appear via smoke and . . .
Don’t be a fool, girl, Hap’s false voice rang in her mind. You’re a weak, pathetic little bit of fluff, good for nothing but a candlemark’s fun in the dark.
She smiled. If she had learned anything about that twisted, doubting part of herself that gave voice to the sort of poison Hap had so often spewed, it was that the voice was wrong about her. So wrong, she suspected that if Hap’s voice said she could not do something, then she most definitely could.
How would it work? she thought to herself.
You can’t think you have a chance. Hap laughed. Why not stop wasting your time and do something you’re good at? I’m sure there are a few soldiers here who could use a—
Folding her legs beneath her, Cadence closed her eyes, letting her mind drift, seeking the mind that—
And there it was.
She’d felt him before, this prince, helped him escape the fall of Tranduvallu. His mind was changing, expanding, but it was still a mind. She smiled, sweat beading on her forehead.
Let’s see if I can get his attention . . .
*
Kholburran had a momentary vision of the future, as if seen from on high by someone else. The Root Guard tearing Arri apart to protect him, the dead rushing in and wiping out the Root Guard. Uled laughing as he stepped through the Port Gate and tore the newly rooted prince out of the ground by his roots, rending him to mulch. The elves falling as Uled drove the dead forward to corner them in spots absent of magic, areas Kholburran had yet to heal. He could not work fast enough, could not restore the state of this place to properly claim it as his own domain, regulating the magic within. Not without help.