“We don’t have time for mysteries,” he thumped up to the door, and hammered on it. “Is anyone in there?” He pounded on the metal again. “Hello?”
No response or knocking came back.
He pulled the Mark VI off his side and cranked up the power and aimed at the door.
“Wait!” Senalloy jumped over and pushed his hand down.
“What?”
“If Daena’s right and the blast didn’t affect metal, something hitting the door bowed it out. We took a lot of very dangerous and unstable materials in there. Who knows what’s against that door with everything knocked around.”
“Damn it,” he growled. She was right. He shoved the weapon back in his belt. “Okay, stand back, I’ll do it the hard way.” He stumped forward, focusing on his battleform, willing his mass to increase. Energy crackled and rasped around his limbs, after a few instants the stone under him began to creak. He hooked his fingers around the bowed metal put a foot against the wall and heaved.
With a groan the metal distorted and bent further, the stone in the wall shaking under his efforts. It felt like the whole room would collapse on their heads if he pulled hard enough to rip it free. “Frell, that’s tough stuff.” He looked over his shoulder to Daena. His voice sounded hollow and resonant. “Dane, can you soften or shift those locking bolts?”
Green eyes flashing, the young ascendant stepped up next to him, willing herself into battleform with a crackle of metalizing flesh. She leaned in to see the gap. “Need to pull it out a little further so I can see,” she answered, voice heavy and echoing. “This mithril is tough to work on. Let’s pull together, you pull high.” Her eyes flashed white and with a sizzling sound she pressed her fingers into the metal in a flare of sparks. “Okay go!”
He renewed his efforts, feeling his heart beat faster and body grow hot as he exerted all his strength. At his feet, Daena grunted, adding her considerable strength to the task. The metal shrieked under the renewed onslaught, twisting and deforming.
“There!” Daena said. “That’s enough, I can see it!” She pointed to a spot. “Sen, two low power shots should be safe enough, just need to soften the metal on those bolts so I can break them.”
“Fine,” the Baronian said. “Step away.”
They backed up as the silver-haired woman adjusted the aperture of the gun and set the power level. The weapon trilled, a brilliant white beam shrieked into the gap of the door causing the metal to flare red and the surrounding granite block to melt.
Daena made a grabbing gesture, the force of her nola gripping the super-heated metal with another flare of sparks. Her brow furrowed and her hand shook as she increased the pressure, with a crunch, something snapped and the door lurched a little further open.
“Okay, hit the top one.”
Senalloy shot again.
Green eyes flaring white, Daena made a clawing gesture with both hands. The metal heaved, groaned and twisted, the last bolt finally giving with loud snap. Mist began pouring through the gap filling the chamber with a strange caustic odor threaded through with the scent of burned hair. With a grunt, the young ascendant heaved with her power twisting the sturdy metal on the protesting deformed hinges which finally broke out of the wall. She flung the whole mass aside with a crash. As the metal moved, something that had been leaned against it fell across the threshold.
Janai gasped and Ryelle stepped back.
“Carellion,” Sarai breathed.
“Spit,” Senalloy murmured.
Bannor waved away the smoke and mist, revealing the still form of eternal Czar. The immortal creature looked dead…
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* * *
Chapter Nineteen
I saw that eternal lying on the ground
like a clubbed fish and thought, “Well, that’s
it, we’re done…”
—Bannor Nalthane Starfist,
Prince Conjugal of Malan,
The massive form of the eternal Czar lay sprawled on the floor, the creature’s broad masculine face set in a grimace of pain, half the length of his long dark hair melted by the power that had struck him. His eyes were open, but the normal glow in them was dark. It was obvious now that the lab door that Bannor and Daena had struggled to open had been bowed outward by the impact of the creature’s dense body. Mist and smoke still filled the lab chamber making it impossible to see anything. With the opening of the door, the buzzing sound had become a rumble that made Bannor’s bones rattle. Accompanying that noise was a pulsation like that of a gigantic heart.
He was about to open his mouth to say something when Wren, Azir, and Euriel came pelting down the passageway and slid to stop.
“Bannor,” Wren gasped. “What’s the—oh my lord…” She clutched her face in her hands, staring down at the eternal.
“Damn,” Azir murmured.
“Daar!” Euriel yelled. The Aesir woman leaned forward as if she would charge into the room.
Bannor grabbed her shoulders. “Wait!”
Euriel snatched around and glared at him.
“We don’t know if this was an accident or an attack.” He gestured to Daena. “Let’s drag Czar out of there.”
He and the young ascendant each took an arm and towed the burly eternal away from the threshold. Behind them, Ryelle and Sarai kicked debris out of the way to make a clear spot.
“Is he dead?” Janai asked.
“He sure looks it,” Azir said.
Senalloy knelt down by the eternal and placed some fingers against his neck. “He’s still warm, and I feel a heartbeat,” she said. She looked up. “Bannor, I’ll stay here and see if I can stabilize him and get him prepared for transport. Yell, if you need me.”
“Right.” He turned back to the room and looked to the others. “Okay, give me a moment to scout it out.”
As he stepped the door he willed himself back into battleshape, letting the nola power crackle and hum through his flesh. That pulsation was getting on his nerves. It reminded him of…
He stopped in the doorway with his hand on door jam. It reminded him of the sound that he heard when he experienced those attacks.
“My One?” Sarai said.
“I’m okay,” he said, voice echoing and metallic. “I just realized why I recognize this weird sound. It’s the same thing I heard every time I had one of those attacks.” He pressed forward into the demolished chamber.
A few steps in, he almost stumbled and fell into a pit more than ten paces deep. His stomach tightened. A cold prickling sensation shot down his spine. The whole center of the lab appeared to have been annihilated. Through the mist and smoke something hovered near the cratered ceiling. The rumbling sound was definitely emanating from a glowing green object the size of a small melon bobbing in the air like a wood chip in the ocean. The illumination from the thing wasn’t steady. It grew and decreased, making that heart-like pulsing.
“It safe?” Wren called.
“Come,” he answered. “Be careful though, there’s a giant hole in the floor.”
He saw Daena, Wren, her mother and brother file in. Sarai, and her sisters hung back. Instants later they began coughing and choking on the caustic vapor and assumed their battle forms. Euriel cast a spell which seemed to allow her to breathe. They continued in, sidling around the destruction. He pushed onward into the mist and smoke. Everything in the elaborately outfitted lab had been demolished; tables, chairs, counters all smashed into splinters. Stone and metal, glass and crystal that was not sitting on a table or in the path of hurtling debris appeared unaffected. The explosive mixing of materials were what had created the murky fog.
He heard Euriel and Wren murmuring behind him. Euriel’s husband and Wren’s close friend and her mentor had also been in here. He swallowed. He had great respect for Vanidaar. The man had been a good companion in the short time they had spent together. He found Ziedra personable and smart. He couldn’t imagine thinking ill of her or wishing any harm on her. Damay, the elder Kel’Varan was st
ill something of a mystery to him, but in their short time together he found his ‘big sister’ to be stolid grounded person who could be approached and chatted with.
“Daar!?” Euriel called into the obscuring smoke.
No answer came back.
“Gaea!? Loric!?” he tried in a louder voice.
Nothing responded. He swallowed.
“This is not good,” Daena said in her metallic voice.
He picked around piles of debris to the far side of the crater away from the door. The mist and smoke still made it impossible to make out the far end of the chamber. Another strange detail was a pace-wide semi-circular groove carved into the lab floor leading directly away from the eruption point.
What in Gaea’s name made that? The stone looked fused and melted as if by great heat.
“What is that thing?” he heard Azir say. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“I think—” Euriel said. “I think that’s a genemar.”
He looked back and then looked up to the glowing thing. “Yes. Careful there’s another hole here.” He turned and moved along the notch in the floor. He had a suspicion as to what might have caused that curious damage.
The ten steps along the swath of carved stone he broke into a run as he saw bodies silhouetted against the back wall. The groove ended in a crater in the back wall in which Gaea, Damay, Ziedra, Vanidaar, and Loric lay collapsed. “Here!” he cried. “Quick, let’s get them out of this poison!”
He didn’t know if any of them were alive, but they looked intact. He saw blood and what must be broken bones, but couldn’t worry about those details. It had already been a fairly long time since the explosion.
He snatched up Gaea’s limp form. The goddess’ dense body hung lax in his arms. He couldn’t tell if she was warm because he couldn’t feel anything in battleform. “Daena! Get Loric!”
Dwarfed by her husband’s burly form, little Euriel already had him in her arms and was trundling out at a fast trot. Wren grabbed Ziedra and Azir scooped up Damay.
“I’ve got him,” Daena acknowledged.
The five of them charged out of the room.
He paused as the others continued up the corridor with their burdens. “Sen, we’re taking them straight to the infirmary, I know you can’t take care of six at once.”
“Go,” the Baronian said. “I’ll catch up. I have a few more spells to finish up before he should be moved.”
“Star, Jan, Rye,” he said, turning to his wife-to-be and her sisters. “Post guards, make sure they know that thing in there is dangerous.”
Sarai nodded. “Hurry, my One, we’ll watch things until someone else arrives.”
He nodded and plodded down the corridor away from the caustic confines of the destroyed laboratory. The extra mass of battleform was slowing him down. He willed himself back to flesh. Energy crackled through his limbs in a tingling rasp.
Back to normal he could feel again. The all-mother’s body felt cool but not cold. Her exquisite face looked marred and bloody, her clothing rent and torn by the powerful forces that blasted the six occupants of the chamber.
As the group of them headed up the hall at best speed, Megan, Adwena, Marna, Dulcere, and a contingent of valkyries and Kriar came charging into the hall from the stair access.
The ancient Kriar leader slid to a stop in front of him. She took one look at Gaea and blanched to a sickly yellow. “Oh dark.” She gestured to the other Kriar. “Emergency stabilization, we don’t have time to get them up to the med.”
“I’ll get Czar,” Megan said, rushing off down the corridor.
“Sen is with him,” Bannor advised to her retreating back. “We need to post a guard on the genemar!”
The air-maiden commander raised a hand indicating she had heard.
Marna thumped him on the shoulder, black eyes narrowed. “Just hold onto her.” She yanked a black container off her belt, thumbed open the lid and pulled out a thick silver disk. “Damn it, sotted bad time for warping to be jammed.” She undid the clasps on Gaea’s shredded blouse, peeling away the fabric plastered to her skin by blood. “Hate these rotting half-hack emergency patches…” She ripped red backing off the circle of material and pressed it under the goddess’ left breast. In rapid succession she slapped a series of smaller disks across green mother’s chest. She counted to five, then punched something on her arm band.
Gaea’s body lurched and twitched. The goddess gasped and took a series of rapid wheezing breaths. Bannor had to catch his balance as the green woman convulsed and coughed. He drew a breath. As she squirmed and moaned, many of her open scratches and wounds filmed over.
“That should give you enough time to get her to the infirmary,” Marna told him. “With quantum time totally unhinged I can’t risk putting any of them in stasis.”
“Thanks, Lady Marna.”
She thumped him on the back. “Hurry. Octavia and Mercedes are in the infirmary with Wysteri.”
He glanced back and saw that the other occupants of the chamber were getting similar medical treatment. Still holding Loric while a Kriar man did treatment, Daena nodded to him.
Sarai rushed up to him from down the corridor. “Come, best not to wait.”
He hurried up the corridor while Gaea continued to writhe and sputter. “Hang on,” he told her as he forged up the steps. “You’ll be with a healer soon.”
As he rounded the top of the stairwell, Gaea’s eyes blinked, their wan glow showing the all-mother’s weakness. “Bannor?” She coughed and moaned. “I—I hurt.”
“I know, Mother,” he said. “I’ll get you curing as fast as I can.”
With a groan, she lifted her arms and looped them around his neck. She leaned her face against his chest with a sigh and closed her eyes. “My son…”
He swallowed and pushed faster. Seeing Gaea so seriously injured had terrified Marna. He understood. Nobody knew what would happen if the all-mother actually expired.
Pounding back through the galleries he passed other valkyries and Kriar milling around in confusion. Mostly the winged sisters seemed to be helping the gold-skinned soldiers who had been hit hard by whatever that explosion had been.
He turned down the corridor where the infirmary was located to find pandemonium. Kriar, Shael Dal and members of the Felspar family stood in the corridor with dazed expressions or sat leaned against the corridor walls. They looked like casualties after a war.
Little Millicent, white wings and dark armor gleaming seemed to be acting as a director, checking the condition of each person.
The valkyrie looked over as he loped up. The little immortal pushed her glasses up on her nose, exaggerating the view of her silver-gray eyes as they widened in obvious concern. “Odin!” She turned. Her voice suddenly a battlefield bellow that made people cringe away. “Clear a path! Make way!”
Millicent plowed into the crowded infirmary. “Lady Octavia! It’s Gaea!”
All of the commanders, along with the circle of savants knew the possible danger posed should Gaea somehow die. Cassandra who was reclining on one of the daises with cold press across her face lurched up and looked over with wide eyes. “Bannor!” she gasped. “Loric… is he?”
“Daena is bringing him, Milady, she’s right behind me,” he answered.
He glanced around. All of the infirmary’s dozen pallets were full. Others were leaned against the walls, gripping their heads, and moaning. He noticed that several of the victims appeared to be mecha from the newly acquired Baronian subnet. He prayed that the Daergons didn’t choose now to attack, their defenses were crippled.
Dressed in a black body suit spotted with blood, red hair loose and flying around her face, Octavia appeared at the entrance to the healing chamber. The mecha’s rainbow eyes went wide as she focused on Gaea. “Oh my…” Her voice cracked. “Take her in and lay her on the diagnostic table.” She stepped aside and gestured him in.
He turned sideways and carried the all-mother into the glowing inner chamber. He disentangled th
e green lady’s arms from around his neck, and settled her on the padded table. Seeing the red-haired female appear at the doorway he said, “You’ll be okay now. Octavia will take care of you.”
He patted Gaea’s hand. He needed to check on the other savants. When Octavia nodded to him, he turned to leave. A hand gripped his wrist. He looked back and saw Gaea’s dim gray eyes focused on him. Her lip quivered. “I—I’m scared.”
That frightened expression on her face cut through him like a knife. It made his insides go cold. He cupped her hand in both of his. “I’m here,” he told her. “I’ll stay if you like.”
She swallowed and nodded. “I—I’m cold.”
“Just take deep breaths, Gaea,” Octavia said. “I’m going to put this band on your arm, it will sting a little but it will get the toxins out of your blood.” She pulled something from the side of the table and clipped it around Gaea’s arm. She hooked a tube to it and plugged it to something on the side of the dais. The mecha pressed something and the band clamped down. The goddess grunted.
“Shhh,” he hushed. He squeezed her hand.
The green mother gave him a weak smile.
“Do you know what happened?” Octavia asked, continuing to work. Deftly cutting away the cloth plastered to the goddess’ body by blood. She pulled the circles off that Marna had put in place and began examining each injury.
“It was an explosion of some kind,” he said. “It didn’t appear to affect anything like stone or metal. The blast smashed her and the others against a wall. There was some kind of gas in the air. We moved them as quickly as possible.”
“So the explosion only affected wood, cloth, and the people?”
“Apparently,” he answered.
“It only affected compounds of organic origin,” Octavia determined, twisting a finger in a strand of red hair. “It was some kind of eruption where the majority of the energy traveled through the subpaths. That’s why the strong telepaths were so affected. Telepathic communication is a subpath phenomena.”
“Pardon, Lady Octavia, organic?”
Reality's Plaything 5: The Infinity Annihilator Page 29