Reality's Plaything 5: The Infinity Annihilator

by Will Greenway

  “Yes, I was watching her grow. It’s quite fascinating.”

  He felt her frown. She touched her abdomen. “You can see inside me?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “In fact, it’s the only thing I can see when your eyes are closed; besides your thoughts and dreams of course.”

  “Of course,” she grumbled. “How do we get in these messes?”

  “Practice,” he answered. He would have said it with a wry smile had he a face to express with.

  Sarai seemed to get it just the same. “Yes, I suppose there’s that…” She let her eyes close again. The battles and subsequent emotional turmoil had obviously been very draining for her even with the marvelous recuperative powers that Mercedes and Wysteri had instilled in her.

  He floated in the darkness, listening to the sound of her breathing, feeling the beat of her heart. He loved her so much it hurt. He had come so close to leaving her. Confronting his death had been devastating for her—more than he expected. She always projected that steely self-sufficiency that only four hundred summers of life could grant. He imagined himself lying next to her comfortable warmth, relishing the silky feel of her smooth skin brushing against his.

  He had thought himself unable to sleep, but immersing himself in the pleasant ebb and surge of her slumber he managed to drift into a kind of unconsciousness.

  Bannor roused an indeterminate time later as he felt something tingling at the edges of his nola sense—the presence of another savant. Wren and Daena were on watch and moving around, but it didn’t feel like either of them. Had the others come back from their attack on the Baronians? Corim had said he would inform Koass and the others of his survival as soon as he could get through.

  His control over the nola was greatly diminished in this state. Whoever this was, they must be an elder, the pattern was too sophisticated. He knew Damay well so it couldn’t be her. It didn’t feel right to be Vanidaar or Wren’s brother Azir. He cast around and found Wren and a few instants later located Daena. They were together in the opposite direction of this new entity.

  The feeling became an icy chill. Damn.

  “Sarai, get up.”

  “Hmmm?” she murmured, still drowsy.

  “Sarai, get up, you may be in danger.”

  The word ‘danger’ brought her fully awake and she rolled off the pallet and onto her feet in a smooth shift of her weight. The Kriar-designed body going from idle to full readiness in a blink of an eye. The sleepiness and muddy awareness usually associated with deep repose flicked away with a shake of her head.

  she thought in silence.

  “I think it’s another savant,” he said for her ears only.

 

  “Not one of ours, someone new. They’re nearby where they shouldn’t be. I was concerned, we know Mazerak probably wasn’t the only unfriendly savant. The timing is bad.”

 

  He pushed his awareness into her, opening up the sigil of the Garmtur and mingling it with the sigils of her shaladen Garadhyr and Koass’ shaladen Xersis. White hot potential crackled along the surface of her skin, making her heart rush.

  “Whoooa,” she murmured aloud. She clenched her fists and rocked her head back, sucking air through her teeth.

  “Synchronized both of the shaladens with you.”

  She bounced on her toes and touched Garadhyr which was clamped on her left wrist. In a heartbeat, the shaladen had transformed into wicked looking two-edged battle blade with runes flaring down its runnel. She waved the weapon which left a trail of sparkles in the air. In quick succession the weapon shimmered into the form of great shadowspar bow, then a three-bladed throwing dagger, and then a griffon-crested war-shield strapped to her arm.

  She gestured and Xersis shimmered into a curved elven rapier, the edges sparking and winking in the dim light of the storage room.

  Sarai shook her head, Bannor experienced her awe, felt her heart speeding with excitement. Gaea had blunted Sarai’s obsession for magical power, but not her love of it.

  “Yes. Call the others make sure they know we have a guest. This person is powerful and we don’t know their intentions yet.”

 

  Bannor felt their connections to Wren and Daena grow hot and agitated as Sarai’s warning made them tense. Kalindinai, Janai and Corim were immediately in Sarai’s mind, senses straining for hints of what Bannor had detected.

  Bannor heard Wren ask in Sarai’s mind.

  He couldn’t tell direction like when he had flesh. “Sarai, face east.” She turned. The emanation was ahead and to her left. “East northeast. I can’t tell how far, but it’s strong.”

 

  Wren confirmed.

  He felt Sarai stiffen, she didn’t like following instructions even if they were reasonable ones.

  Kalindinai seemed to sense the need to reinforce Wren’s statement.

  Bannor felt Sarai roll her eyes. With the power of two shaladens synchronized in her body, no doubt, she felt able to take on a whole pantheon. He felt her irritation at being treated as though made of parchment.

  Sword and shield readied she stepped into the passage. The temporary infirmary the next door down had already emptied of people. The mecha had obviously already repaired the more defensible location. Were they asleep that long? It didn’t feel like it.

  He sensed a few valkyries around the corner only a short distance away.

  Sarai glanced up the passage to the north, where he suspected their new enemy lurked. As she looked back south to head to the infirmary Sarai’s heart leaped as a figure that hadn’t been present instants ago was now within touching range.

  Her amazing speed prevented whatever the person intended because the grabbing hand missed.

  The tall slender male with a shock of blue-black hair frowned. He wore armor similar to that of the Baronians and Daergons but was obviously neither. His thin face and pronounced cheek bones gave him an almost skeletal appearance. The grayish cast to his skin only reinforced the image of bone. Hand still out, long fingers spread, he sighed and stared at her with cold dark eyes. He raised his chin.

  Sarai took a fighting stance, rapier poised to slash or impale.

  A light flared from his eyes, and shafts of energy stabbed out toward her. She interposed the shaladen shield, the metal shrieked and crackled as nola power dissipated against it.

  The man’s lip curled. He spoke in a thin reedy voice obviously more to himself than Sarai. “Oh, now that is a bother.”

  Bannor didn’t have a body to feel with, but panic rushed through him just the same. At the moment of the intruder used his power, he knew the identity of this elder savant. He had temporarily exchanged that very same nola power for Wren’s back in Hel; a Ta’Arthak!

  “Star, be careful this guy is—”

  Even before he could completely think his warning the intruder gestured and the floor beneath Sarai’s feet made a slurping sound.

  As fast as it happened, she pushed off from the wall, ricocheted off the opposite side of the corridor and somersaulted to a landing a half dozen paces further away.

  Sarai thought to him.

  “Yes.”

  Aloud she said, “What do you want?”

  “For you to stand still!” He gestured and tentacles of stone swept from the walls, floor, and ceiling at her.

  Powered by shaladen strength and harmonized with her body, Xersis slashed through the stone as if it were wax. A dozen cuts rendered the rocky protrusions into gravel. She d
odged back a step and with a sweep of her shield and a thrust of elemental power sent the whole writhing mass of granite hurtling at her opponent.

  The thin man flicked a hand at the oncoming barrage and it disintegrated into sand that poured into the corridor at his feet.

  Sarai breathed to Bannor.

  “His control is based on sound,” Bannor informed her. “Keep aware, I think he’s just a distraction.”

  “It—” She leaped to one side, deflected off the wall and rolled backward as beam of light lanced through the space she vacated. “—had—” She interposed the shield as another bright blast deflected from it, and hacked into empty space causing a backpedaling Baronian to appear, staggering back with his armor slashed. “—occurred to me!”

  With a battle yell, she slashed the enemy’s head from his shoulders in sticky splash of blood and turned to deflect another shot.

  “These senses of yours—” she rasped between rapid lunges and strokes of her sword. “They—” She ducked a sword swing and leaped over a blast of magic as more opponents seemed to materialize from no-where. “They—come—in handy!”

  “Damn it, Star, summon Corim and the others!”

  “Blight, there’s no time!” She continued to block, weave and slash. Raking opponents bloody with every swing. These weren’t Baronian elites, and she was simply too strong and fast to rush. “Why—Why the frell didn’t you sense these people?”

  “I’m a bloody sword, remember! That stealth was hard enough to see through when I was an ascendant!”

  Sarai growled and kept fighting as more and more opponents kept appearing, trying to weigh her down by sheer numbers.

  Where were the others? They knew Sarai was in danger. The valkyries had been barely ten steps away. They should have come at the sound. Sarai was making enough noise to wake the dead.

  As Sarai spun and weaved through the crowd of opponents, and he felt the sting and burn of near hits but his Star was burning like her namesake, a flame that destroyed anything that got close. As they turned, he caught a glimpse of the Ta’Arthak. He hadn’t moved.

  “Where the frell are they all coming from?!” she gasped, stumbling and almost slipping on the corpse strewn floor.

  “They must have a gate someplace.” He caught another glimpse of the savant. He stood with his arms folded showing no signs of movement, nor did he seem to even be watching the hall behind him.

  Damn, he was the cork and they were in the bottle. “Star, I think he’s blocked the hall so the others can’t get to us. We need to get clear!”

  She burst through a line of Baronians, dove, rolled and came up charging, she turned the corner into the adjacent hall and came sliding to a stop. A solid metal barrier blocked the passage.

  “What the frell?” She whirled to look the other way down the hall. That passage also ended in a metal barrier after a few steps. Sarai dodged through the press as the Baronian soldiers tried to box her in. “Oh dren!” With a snarl, she lashed around with the sword and her elemental power sending waves of stone crashing outward with a rumble, knocking their attackers flying.

  Bannor felt her growing panic, but he couldn’t do any more. She was utilizing every bit of shaladen power she could without burning up.

  With an instant’s respite, Sarai turned back to that wall of metal. She transformed the shield on her arm into a sword, then brought both weapons together, merging them into a single large battle blade with a crackling of Eternity’s energies. Bannor felt a surge of additional strength rush through her. She used the single massive weapon to clear away the opponents who rushed her, sundering bodies and deflecting magic.

  She focused her will on the blade, summoning the shaladen’s power into a single surge. With a yell, she leaped forward and smote the blockage with all her strength.

  The power of eternity exploded from the impact, tearing a smoking yard-wide hole in the material. That wall had been nearly a pace thick, even the power of a full shaladen had almost not been enough. Sarai turned away from the gap to protect her back, slashing into the ranks of the ever-persistent Baronians. Despite their fearsome losses, those creatures would not quit, even when they were tripping over the corpses of their own to get to her.

  A few strikes did the job. When she looked back at the wall, the gap was gone.

  “Damn!” Sarai snarled. “That Ta’Arthak has hacked me off now.”

  She turned back to the corridor, separating the merged shaladen back into the two weapons and transforming them into a pair of matched saw-toothed jacdaw blades that flamed and sparked. She stared at her opponents, a dozen of which were still standing, facing her over a pile of corpses two high.

  “Bannor, you said the Ta’Arthak power used sound, right?”

  “Yes, so?”

  “My eternal Areth; her power is sound. Garadhyr isn’t a full shaladen, but it should be able to use all of the master blade’s powers. I may be able to see his true name as well. Can you do anything with that?”

  “I could tie him in knots with it—if I was in a body.”

  “Come into my body then!”

  “I can’t. I’m not a tao form anymore. I’m the shaladen.”

  Sarai growled and charged into the warriors confronting her. “It’s—always—something!” She cleared a bloody path, flicked the blood from her swords, and focused on the enemy savant. The dark-haired man stood in the hallway with his arms folded, not doing anything. In fact, his eyes were closed. “One thing is certain. He won’t be reforming those walls if I cut his head off!”

  “Star, I don’t…”

  “You have a better idea? I’m getting tired…”

  The fact was he didn’t. They were trapped with a practically limitless number of Baronian regulars available to drown them in a torrent of bodies. It was Sarai’s battle experience, the pure raw power of two shaladens, and her amazing speed that kept them alive so far. Of course, it seemed to him that the Baronians were not coming at them with killing force, they seemed to be trying to subdue… Why were they trying to capture them now? As hostages? As far as the Daergons and Baronians knew, he was dead. To whom would they ransom Sarai? Who did they think she was valuable to that mattered to them?

  Sarai didn’t confer with him further, but turned and blazed straight at the Ta’Arthak. If Bannor had teeth he would have gritted them. If he were the savant standing there, surely that would be the biggest mistake to make.

  The dark savant raised his head and opened his eyes as Sarai arrowed forward. The hall came alive around them, the stone becoming a quagmire of grasping fingers of bubbling stone.

  She dove around and through the miasma, the two shaladens exploding through anything that got close. Several times the enemy savant’s power lanced straight at her, only to be deflected by the incredible magicks of Garadhyr and Xersis. Without the ability to see the threads of Ta’Arthak’s savant talent lashing out, her rush would have been stopped half way to him.

  It was no surprise to Bannor when the elder savant used multiple instances of his power stabbing out at once. Despite her incredible speed, she couldn’t block six attacks all coming at the speed of thought. She did get three which resulted in both legs and an arm suddenly becoming encased in blocks of metal.

  Sarai cried out in pain and frustration, as she slammed to the floor barely half a step from the savant, limbs pinned by tons of weight.

  “Sarai, use the shaladen,” he cried in her mind. “Etherlock yourself so he can’t teleport you away!”

  She didn’t acknowledge with words. She slammed the point of Xersis into the floor, and focused all her will on it. A crimson glow flooded around her body as the savant reached down to touch her shoulder.

  The thin man yanked is hand back as the air rasped and crackled where he touched. He shook his hand with a grimace. “Must you be so egregiously troublesome?”

  Sarai yanked up her weighed down left arm, actually managing to lift it off the floor. The sava
nt stepped back as the massive weight crashed down where it would have smashed his feet. “You haven’t seen trouble yet,” she snarled.

  “You blood-soaked wretch,” he growled. “I didn’t want to damage you, but it appears I must render you—”

  His words were interrupted by a powerful blast that sent molten metal and shattered stone spraying down the corridor ahead of them. The Ta’Arthak staggered, gripping his head.

  “Knock, knock!” a powerful echoing female voice said.

  The savant snatched around in time to see Wren’s statuesque form stride into the hall, dressed in her Kriar armor, gold hair playing around her body like something alive. There was something different about her though—Bannor realized then, her skin was green!

  The Ta’Arthak didn’t hesitate but sent a barrage of attacks at her. The strands of nola force hit her skin and sloughed away without effect.

  She put hands on hips. “I don’t think so, Son Wyyr,” Wren said in that powerful voice that belonged to Gaea. “You may not have Sarai or her progeny. I will give you one opportunity to leave without further rebuke.”

  Wyyr glanced back at Sarai, his lip now trembling. His attention went to the score or more Baronian regulars now frozen in the hall. No doubt, they knew the power they were facing in an ascendant. More than ample demonstration had been given in the battles previous.

  Eyes wide he looked back to Wren. “H-how do you know my name?” Wyyr asked. “My mind is shielded. My shape is guarded, and I have ward magicks up.”

  Wren tilted her head, and blinked with glowing blue eyes. She smiled. “I know it because your power comes from me. Didn’t those nasty Daergons tell you about my presence or how they are working to destroy the source of all savant power and magic?”

  The elder savant swallowed and licked his lips. “They neglected to mention that.”

  Wren leaned forward. “Sarai are you injured?”

  Sarai rocked her head back, Bannor felt the heat of embarrassment burning in her cheeks. She hated being rescued and appearing helpless. It made her crazy. “No, just kill him!”

  “Kill?” Gaea/Wren sighed and strolled forward, stopping a few steps from the enemy savant. “Daughter, I understand your frustration, but let us not get ahead of ourselves.” She tilted her head and brushed back her long hair. “Release her now. Failure to comply will result in the permanent removal of your nola powers.”