Red Jade: Book 1: Journeys In Kallisor

by Stephen Wolf

“We’re heading up that way too,” Dariak announced. “We’ll help.”

  The guard looked back at them. “Then you’re fools,” he said. “Very well.” Only one of the other guards was well enough to join them, and the rest made their way slowly down toward the exit.

  With one guard ahead of them and one behind, Dariak felt like he was being escorted to another prison cell. If not for the explosions and vibrations around them, he would have avoided teaming up with these men. He knew it was more of a risk to tag along, but desperation was setting in among them all.

  The guard captain raced ahead and took the stairs three at a time, disappearing until Dariak crested the stairwell. Some of the feral creatures were on this floor, roaring and screaming in terror. The cries of the three captive tigroars added to the rumbling walls, and the guardsmen split up to slay the beasts before their cries could make matters worse. Dariak wondered why they kept such a variety of creatures in the prison, but then he remembered requesting some of them for his own experiments during his imprisonment. He guessed that not all of these were for the sport of the mages above, and some were undoubtedly used as means of execution, but he didn’t dwell on it for long, as a lightning blast shattered the right-side wall and the floor buckled underneath. The beasts were mostly still within their cages, but as the floor fell away, so too went the creatures, their terrified wails piercing the night air.

  The four men pressed onward, climbing ever higher into the tower, which was teetering in the air with the endless assault from above. There weren’t many more floors to go, but with each level they ascended, the crashes of lightning were more devastating, not only from the electric blasts but also from the reverberations of thunder.

  The guard captain rounded a corner and opened a door, catching a searing blast full force and flying back, instantly dead. The guard at the rear bellowed in dismay and shoved Randler and Dariak aside with a war cry, charging ahead through the open door, ducking low and cutting down an adversary within. Dariak quickly summoned a few defensive spells for himself and the bard, and then they followed, the jade pulsing wildly against Dariak’s chest.

  Explosions erupted within the room as five mages stood around an altar, arms swinging wildly in unison. The central pedestal was aglow with greenish-blue light that flickered and then lashed out angrily in random directions. Most of the walls had already been decimated, and the next bolt flashed out near Dariak and rent a hole in the wall, opening the room further to the night air and the central column beyond, with a long, steep drop to the courtyard below.

  Just in front of Randler, the guard lay dead on the floor, sword still clutched in his hand, its point stuck through the chest of a sixth mage. Dariak scanned around and saw several other mages and soldiers dead on the floor, one in particular whose body was so scorched and close to the altar that Dariak realized that he had been the one to activate the shard.

  Blasts of lightning lashed outward, but the five mages around the room contained some of the power, channeling it away from them with their spells, sending it shooting out the walls. It didn’t take long for Dariak to feel the flow of energy in the room and to understand that the mages were desperately trying to contain the power emanating from the jade but failing miserably. At least they weren’t the ones summoning its power. The next blast of lightning lunged right for him, shattering his glass shield instantly and leaving him with enough residual electric charge that his hair stood on end.

  “What do we do?” Randler asked desperately, backing away from the horrible energy.

  Dariak was already in motion. He first reset his protection spell, then enacted another just in case. Like most, he didn’t know much about electric energy, but he quickly observed that it jumped toward the metallic objects in the room, including the guard’s sword. He withdrew two daggers and tossed them toward the pedestal, watching as the lightning flashed out and struck them both in rapid succession. The mages eyed him suspiciously but didn’t interrupt their own spells, for fear the lightning would incinerate them next. Too many other incinerated bodies on the floor had made that mistake.

  The lightning blasted upward through a hole it had already made in the ceiling, bringing down more stone and wood and shaking the room with terrible peals of thunder. The mages caught another blast and contained it within the room, but it swept in a wide arc, building up more power before blazing through the inner wall and striking a portion of the tower across the way. A large expanse of wall fell inward, and the reverberations through the tower were frightening. Worse, the stability of the tower was weakening, and the swaying increased. With the supportive wall gone, the ceiling of the room across the way fell inward, as did the floor above it, and as Dariak watched from a distance, he had a sickening feeling that the tower had only minutes left. As each lower chamber fell inward upon itself, the ones above weakened, and soon the whole place would be tumbling down like a house of cards.

  “Dariak!” Randler shouted, drawing the mage’s attention as parts of their own ceiling fell in from a recent blast. “This is insane!”

  “Can you douse some of the light?” Dariak asked quickly, reaching for earthen spells to strengthen parts of the walls and corner posts nearby. It wasn’t much, but if he could at least stabilize this chamber long enough to subdue the errant jade, it would suffice.

  The minstrel shakily withdrew his shard and focused on darkening the blasts of lightning, but with bolts of electricity erupting everywhere, it was too hard for him to concentrate. “I can’t!” He jumped aside to avoid a falling chunk of stone.

  The five mages kept their cadence going strong, but the never-ending lightning was the greater force. One blast overpowered their deflective measures and struck one of the mages in the chest, knocking him unconscious. The remaining four spellcasters increased their tempo and shuffled around the best they could to maintain a symmetrical placement encircling the jade, but it was obvious they didn’t stand a chance against it.

  Dariak tried encasing the lightning jade in a block of earth, but an inner explosion sent the tight shell ripping outward, shards of which cut into him painfully. He couldn’t approach, for each time he did, lightning would leap out for him and break his outermost protection spell, forcing him to reenact it quickly. And he didn’t have an unlimited supply of glass shards to keep resetting it.

  Randler tried repeatedly to draw his jade’s power and encase the lightning in shadow, but though he possessed some skill with it, he wasn’t able to coerce it to his will under these circumstances. Meanwhile, more than half of the surrounding walls had been blasted away, and the ceiling overhead showed the floor upstairs rocking back and forth, ready to topple down and crush them. “Dariak!” he called out, rushing over and thrusting his own jade into the mage’s hand. “Here!”

  Dariak seized the jade and dropped himself immediately to the ground to commune with it quickly. He sought one power only, and so he was able to focus his thoughts into the energies of the jade and demand its response. His water and earth jades resonated fiercely, supporting his call, and soon the shadow jade answered.

  Lightning impacted another mage, knocking him back through an opening in the wall to plummet down to the courtyard below. Only three of them remained now, and with the loss of each one, the defenses weakened greatly.

  Dariak felt the deepening pressure, but mages were trained to handle such intensity as this. They needed to keep calm in the face of battles and dangerous incantations in order to successfully channel the energies and cast spells even when their lives were on the line. He called forth from the shadow jade and extended his arms toward the pedestal.

  At first, a large, dark orb appeared around the altar. It was grand enough to fit Dariak if he stood upright. The deep-purple color was highly transparent at first, but as he concentrated, he worked to condense the sphere to a smaller size. But the shadow jade was unfamiliar to him, so it didn’t readily obey. He summoned bits of earth and water magi
c, drawing dust and moisture together to create a thin film around the shadow, and this he was able to press inward with better effect. The shadow pressed toward the glowing jade at the center, whose furious energy crashed against the darkness, trying desperately to obliterate it.

  Around him, the room was crumbling. Randler kept an eye on Dariak and twice reached over him to take the brunt of falling stone so the mage could maintain his concentration. The rumblings grew in intensity, and the floor above them, which had already suffered the collapse of the floor above it, started to buckle.

  The three remaining mages took a moment to rest as Dariak contained the power of the lightning. But they didn’t want to be caught unawares when its power burst through again, so they stretched quickly and then continued their chanting.

  Sweat beaded on Dariak’s brow as he climbed to his feet, arms swinging around, mouth sputtering quickly. He was maintaining three strong spells simultaneously, not even sure how he was managing it and unable to give it any thought anyway.

  As the muddy shadow sphere grew smaller, the fury within intensified exponentially. He knew he wouldn’t be able to collapse the power in on itself. But he didn’t intend to stop the jade from functioning. Rather, he wanted to reach deep enough within that he could try to communicate with it and end its tirade.

  His eyes pinned toward the center of the room, Randler scrambled about, pulling bodies and debris from Dariak’s deliberate pace. He wished the other mages would abandon their posts and help, at least by coordinating with Dariak, but when he called out to them, they ignored his pleas.

  A few streaks of lightning broke through the shadow barrier and, although dampened by the barrier, blazed with white-hot rage into the room. The three mages did their best to redirect the energy, sending it arcing from the room through the ceiling. It proved enough force to bring the upper level down at last.

  As the walls and ceiling above crashed downward, creating a cascading collapse around the entire periphery of the tower, massive chunks of rock fell inward, and Randler couldn’t possibly deflect them all. He was struck on the head and disoriented long enough to get trapped under another portion of the wall. While he struggled to free himself, Dariak was completely vulnerable, a fact that was compounded when two of the other mages were buried under debris.

  The impact of the upper level falling through the gaps in the ceiling caused rents to form in the floor, pulling downward and breaking through to the lower level. All the while, other areas of the tower were still imploding, creating a constant rattling, which knocked Dariak to his knees. He pushed onward, trying desperately to reach the altar while maintaining the sheath he had created around the jade.

  But then he felt the shield start to collapse and knew the massive energy within was going to escape. He knew it would be the end of them all, tower included. He needed to stop this force somehow. There wasn’t much time, and he could barely concentrate with the rending tremors in the room. Randler had freed himself, so Dariak called out a quick order to him, hoping the bard would just obey.

  Confused and terrified, Randler just did as he was told. He snapped off a large section of the fallen guard’s breastplate and gave it to Dariak, putting it in his left hand. The mage immediately curled his body, extending his backside away from the altar but leaning everything else inward. With a shout, he released the other protection spells, anticipating the incoming blast from the lightning shard.

  He had already seen that the lightning most often struck objects that were metallic, large, and close by. With the breastplate in hand, he was the prime target of the enormous bolt that issued forth from the jade. He knew that the moment was practically instantaneous, but part of his mind tracked the bolt as it left the jade.

  First, the bluish-white energy arced upward, then turned toward the shiny metal. It reached out with countless tendrils, seeking to shred its foe to endless pieces. The blast entered the breastplate and flowed right into Dariak’s hand. A numbing force raced into his body, working its way furiously up his arm, ending all sensation as it went, which then turned into searing agony. The energy blazed through his shoulder, winding down and around his back and into his extended legs, then up again, circling around and seizing his heart. The electricity extended to his right arm and shot forth again, returning to its source with righteous passion. The shock stunned the jade, and immediately it started simmering and the light within began to fade.

  But so too did Dariak. The light left his eyes as he realized that he had subdued the jade in its vicious anger. And because the energy had so thoroughly lanced through him, he felt the jade’s own torment; the one who had enraged it had released its erratic power against its will, and now that Dariak had returned it, it was satisfied.

  The reflective spell that had saved Dariak’s life against Elgris’s attack had now calmed the jade. But unlike the fight against Elgris, Dariak’s body was not strong enough to withstand the amount of force it had taken in.

  Randler watched helplessly as Dariak’s body fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.

  Chapter 29

  Pindington’s Woes

  Kitalla and Gabrion raced through the outer chambers of the Prisoner’s Tower, desperate to flee the falling structure. Exiting the hidden door to the town streets didn’t offer them much safety, however. The tower itself was shedding massive hunks of stone, hurling them out in all directions. The ground around them was littered with broken debris and some of the citizens who had fallen victim to the projectiles.

  The thief ran, jumped, and dodged automatically, using the reflexes she had honed so sharply in Grenthar’s lair. But she acted without much rational thought, for those trials had always ended in horrific pain she didn’t want to feel ever again. She ran on, Gabrion following the best he could, calling out to try to stop her. It was only when she crashed blindly into a fleeing family that she paused at all, trying to untangle herself from the others.

  Gabrion caught up to them and assisted in righting the mess. The man, woman, and three children ran off screaming while Gabrion grabbed Kitalla and bore into her eyes, desperately trying to bring her back to him. “Stay here!” he yelled in her face. “I need you with me! Come on!”

  The wild light in Kitalla’s eyes subsided; she shook her head and apologized. “Why must I keep going berserk?” she asked.

  “You’ll get over it, but I need your help right now evacuating the people.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “You’re mad!”

  He actually laughed. “That’s my line! But no, we can’t let them suffer. Look!” He pointed up to the tower, where lightning blasted through the upper floors, sending more debris cascading to the ground below. From here they could see the upper tiers swaying back and forth in the tumult. “That is going to fall. We have to do something!”

  “We could just save ourselves,” she suggested, knowing what his answer would be. “All right, all right. But I officially object to this!”

  “Duly noted.” He grinned, then jumped aside as a bit of stone fell from above. They raced toward the nearest homes and screamed for the inhabitants to flee, only to find that these homes were unoccupied already. They took torches so others would see them more clearly as they ran through the streets nearest the tower, calling out an alarm for everyone to evacuate.

  As they went, more blasts erupted outward from the upper floor of the tower at all angles. They had no idea how Dariak and Randler would even have a chance of surviving such a thing, but they couldn’t do anything for their companions anyway. They rounded a corner and saw a few houses that had fallen from the impact and tremors. They raced inside the nearest one, finding some people trapped within. Gabrion heaved wooden beams off one man while Kitalla strained to free a young boy from under a collapsed table. They had some injuries but were well enough to run off on their own, unlike the mother, who hadn’t survived.

  They found similar situations in other homes.
One of them found a woman unwilling to leave because her daughter had taken a wooden slat through the chest. Nothing Gabrion could say would make the distraught mother move. She welcomed her fate at the loss of her child. When he tried to forcibly remove the woman, she entered a raging frenzy, kicking and screaming until he released her, after which she sank back down to lift her daughter’s body to her breast, rocking back and forth solemnly.

  Kitalla pulled Gabrion away, insisting there were others they could save. It wasn’t easy, but he knew she was right. When they were just a few steps away from the house, the topmost level of the tower erupted from repeated lightning blasts. The entire tier shot outward, raining death to the citizens below. More homes collapsed, and fires sprang up from overturned street torches. Soon, the citizens didn’t need any rousing at all, but they desperately needed direction.

  Gabrion and Kitalla struggled to guide the people away from the tower. The people ran with such fear they paid no heed to which way they headed, so the two companions ushered small groups down a roughly clear road and shouted and screamed for the rest to follow.

  Cries for help echoed through the night as the earth rumbled with the force of the tower’s tremors. Gabrion and Kitalla assisted where they could, throwing burning wood aside or lifting stone chunks from fallen villagers. The number of dead piled up along the way, but Gabrion knew that many more would have amassed without their help.

  They approached the damaged blacksmith’s shop and ran inside, where the burly shopkeeper was desperately trying to shut down his forge. “Get out of here!” Gabrion called.

  “The vent is ruined, and the pressure is building up inside,” he argued. “If I can’t get this fire doused, it will explode!”

  Kitalla intervened. “It won’t matter if everyone is away, so let’s go.”

  The blacksmith gestured around his shop at all the weapons lining his walls. “And if this explodes, these all become projectiles too!” He tried again to wrench open the main door of the forge to release the pressure, but it was fused tight. Gabrion jumped in and took a sword from nearby, sticking its edge into the seam and pulling back, hoping the leverage would pry the door open, but the heat from inside the furnace had sealed it shut.