He pulled his attention back to focus on looking for clues, doing a slow circuit around the room. He stopped where several of the metal benches had taken damage, one crushed down, another scored and hunks of the padding slashed away and burned.
Leaning down by one of the damaged benches, he tested the metal with his fingers. It was thin, maybe a few thumbnail thicknesses, but the material was surprisingly sturdy, easily able to support a ton or more of weight. He took the mithril edge of his axe and tried to score the metal. Even with effort he couldn’t make a scratch; tough stuff. That had been a lot of force—he could tell by the crumpling that a body had been smashed down with enough power to crush down the bench.
He closed his eyes trying to visualize the battle. There had been an overwhelming number of Baronians, and they had obviously struck by surprise. This chamber served as a common area of sorts. The defenders had fought hard because they were defending non-combatants, trying to get them out of the area.
His attention went to the hovering Ziedra. Flying. That’s how one of the combatants came down with enough force to do that.
Bannor moved from the crushed in bench, seeing the scoring in the floor. The person had hit the bench rolled backward, avoiding sword strokes that had hacked gouges in the floor. He looked toward Radian and the glowing weapon in his hand.
He moved a bit further and saw circular burns in the padding of bench and fused and melted metal. Like a Kriar defending themselves with one of those light-weapons, and having the blade-tip driven down against the bench.
A few more steps to the next bench showed the metal split deep where a blade had slashed deep in the resilient material. He knelt down running his fingers along the ragged gouge created by massive immort strength.
Something glimmered on the floor, a shard of metal. He picked it up and held it in his palm. It was a piece of sword edge. He fingered the material, noting the thin layering. Metal folded several times to give it strength. He sensed strong residual threads. It had been part of a treasured heirloom.
He closed his hand on the shard, sensing for where the traces led. He frowned realizing that the threads ended somewhere close by. Orienting, he followed the emanations toward one of the five large jungle planters.
Bannor looked back, noticing Beia and Aarlen were now shadowing him.
Reaching the planter, he stepped up onto the edge and pushed around through the plants. He saw something shiny, started to reach for it and stopped with his fingers hairs from the object.
“Lady Ziedra,” he called over his shoulder. “Could I have your assistance for a moment?”
The dark-haired woman looked up from her examination of one of the counters and flicked through the air toward him and swooped to a stop right by him. “What do you need, Bannor?” she asked.
He pushed the foliage aside and pointed. “You’re the magic expert. I figured I should let you look before I get my fingers burned.”
The woman’s brow furrowed. She pushed into the plants for a closer look. After a moment she said, “Oooh, good call—nasty.”
She held up a hand, wiggled her fingers and a glove appeared sheathing her skin. She reached out and nudged the thing. There was a rasp and smoke that made Bannor jerk, and Ziedra lurch back.
She shook her hand. “Ow. Really nasty.” She narrowed her eyes and a glow licked around her fingers and she leaned back in. She lifted out a large battle blade, the length of which had been cracked and a large chunk had been taken out of one side.
Sparks and tendrils of energy licked around the woman’s hand, and she gritted her teeth. “Damn this thing is unhappy.” She dropped it on one of the intact benches convulsively where it made a loud thud. “Don’t anyone get too close. It’ll take the life right out of you.”
Dulcere had come up and was staring at the thing hands on hips.
“There’s stealth magic on it,” Ziedra said. She looked to Aarlen. “A lot like the magic in a shaladen—really suspiciously similar to it.”
“Damn, I was hoping I’d found a good lead,” Bannor grumbled.
Aarlen looked at him. “Why isn’t this any good?”
Bannor stared at it, frowning. “Because the owner is dead.”
Beia rubbed the back of her neck. “That’s a good reason.”
“This was one of the elites,” Bannor said. “He went one-on-one with one of the Kriar warriors over there.” He pointed. “It was some fight. The Baronian seemed to have the upper hand most of the battle. He must have slipped, missed a block or something. That sword started to break and he had to abandon it.” He pointed to a bench. “That seat over there is cut in half, I’m betting so was the Baronian. I was hoping maybe one of his friends might have carried the sword off, but I guess they just left it where he tossed it.”
“It’s bad luck to touch a defeated man’s equipment,” Senalloy said.
Dulcere told him.
“If they’ve stealthed all their devices, there could be stuff everywhere,” Aarlen said.
“Think there’s anything to be learned from that sword?” Wren asked walking over to Ziedra.
She folded her arms and stared at the thing. “I’m of the same mind as Bannor—not much good if the guy is dead.” She looked over at Bannor. “It just occurred to me. Did I tell you I was a savant of magic?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Get used to that,” Wren said. “Savants don’t keep many secrets from him. After he’s seen you, he knows where you are, what you’re doing, and what you’ve been up to.” She leaned forward fixing him with a blue-eyed stare. “It’s pretty irritating actually.”
He leaned his head to one side. “It got you out of that cell didn’t it?”
Wren let out a breath and grinned. “Okay, maybe there’s some instances when it’s not so bad…”
“I’ve memorized the magical signatures here,” Ziedra said. “Five mages did most of the damage. I’m pretty sure one of them was this dead sword guy.”
“I’ve looked all around,” Daena said. “I didn’t see anything to add.”
The group of them filed out into another corridor. As he walked, he thought about Sarai. She would definitely be displeased that he was here. He had to tell her though, or swear Wren, Daena, and Janai to silence. He discarded the silence option. Someone would slip up and he would be in an even worse stew. The question was how to broach it and lose the least skin…
A short distance down the hall, Dulcere stopped at another strange looking door and punched a symbol. After a few moments there was a humming and the featureless door split in half revealing a shallow circular room a little less than three paces across. She gestured everyone in. Again Aarlen and Beia were first in, seeming to know what to expect. Why did she want everyone to go in that tiny room? Corim, Senalloy, and Radian stepped in. The gold man drew his confused wife in behind him. With a shrug Bannor stepped into the cramped quarters, Wren, Daena, and Janai following. Dulcere came in last.
The doors slid closed with a clunk, followed by a whining sound above them as metal slid on metal. The whole room lurched slightly, and then there was humming and the distinct feeling of falling. Bannor reflexively threw his hand against the doors.
The walls of the room resonated, the sound rising in pitch to a steady wh
irring.
“A way up and down without stairs?” Daena asked.
“Wizard,” the girl responded.
Janai was looking around with wide amber eyes. It was clear the princess didn’t think it was ‘wizard’ at all.
“So this is magic for people who don’t have magic,” Wren said.
“It’s not magic,” Aarlen said. “It’s just another kind of science—engineering.”
“What dwarves do is engineering,” Bannor said. “I don’t know what this is.”
“I felt like you did,” Corim said from behind Bannor. “It is as Aarlen says. These are simply artifices that are more evolved than we are used to.”
“It’s not natural,” Ziedra said, eyes on the roof of the enclosure, obviously listening to the sounds around the chamber.
“Well, neither are silk sheets, hot plumbed in water, or jewelry,” Radian told his wife with a grin, eyebrows rising over his blue glowing eyes. “I don’t see you living without any of those.”
“I don’t care for it much either,” Beia admitted. “However, such things are the way of all but ten percent of the worlds. Our way is the minority. I didn’t believe it when Aarlen told me. Then she showed me.” She looked up at the white-haired elder. “We who have and can use magic are rare in the realms.”
The vibrations in the room lessened and the timbre of the sounds grew lower in pitch. The chamber lurched again with a metallic clack and more whining sounds. The double doors slid aside revealing a passage very different from the one where they had entered.
Eager to be out of the Kriar contraption, Bannor stepped out his feet making a creaking sound on the surface underfoot. His stomach tightened as he looked up and down a hexagonal hall cast in a pulsing red illumination. Lenses rotating in crystal orbs on the ceiling cast moving beams of light across the floors and walls of the passage. Tendrils of mist churned around the soles of his boots, bubbling up through the metal grill-work that served as the floor here. An acrid burning smell lingered in the chilly air and his breath made wisps of vapor as he breathed. He didn’t like the feel of this place. The area had been the focus of violence so intense that the walls shivered with it.
Daena stopped by him, her green eyes narrowed.
Janai rubbed her arms. “Why is it so cold?”
Dulcere told them as she came out.
The others filtered into the corridor behind her. When they had all entered the passage, the gold woman clacked off down the hall, her hand on the handle of the weapon on her side.
The corridor made a gentle arc to the right before going through an archway and opening into what looked like a cross between an amphitheatre and a city plaza. The dome-roofed chamber was some three hundred paces across with terraces leading down to a hexagonal central floor. The destroyed remains of what had probably been stalls were scattered along the different levels. Devastation was rampant, it looked like a hurricane had raged in the chamber, metal posts bent at angles, hunks of ruptured plating embedded in the softer materials. Burn marks, melted craters, and shattered equipment pocked the room like lesions in decaying flesh.
“Whoa,” Wren breathed. “Damn, Bannor, it looks like one of your fights.”
He snorted.
“So intense,” Daena muttered.
“A safe guess,” Ziedra said. “They had their backs to the wall in here.”
Daena leaned down and examined some of the metal. “Damn, these Kriar warriors are powerful stuff.” She eyed what looked like a piece of ceramic. “They were fighting with time too.”
Aarlen and Dulcere turned to her then. Aarlen spoke first. “How do you know that?”
Daena held up the fragment obviously surprised by the elder’s intensity. “Time energy.”
“You’re not a savant of time.”
Daena shrugged. “Well, no… so?”
The elder rolled her silver eyes. “No wonder you’re giving Koass headaches.”
“Chronal senses are very powerful,” Senalloy said, reaching down and touching the piece with her finger. “They are the precursor to being able to time-shift.”
The young savant blinked glowing green eyes and shrugged again. “Relax, I’m not planning any time trips, okay? The idea kinda scares me.”
“Good,” Aarlen said. “Please stay scared.”
Bannor walked through the devastation in awe of the power of both the defenders and the attackers. A handful of Kriar had held off scores of Baronians. Though the damage seemed random, he started seeing a pattern to it. The damage became more intense as the fight focused down to where the a few Kriar had made their last stand.
Stepping gingerly through the wreckage he made his way toward the ‘hot spot’ where their last breaths had been taken. The area was literally hot, the energy still resonating in the materials. He nudged broken swords, hunks of battle staves and shattered bows. These Kriar were not sheep, the Baronians had thrown themselves at this spot in waves, hammering away relentlessly until the Kriar simply did not have the strength to resist anymore. They killed hundreds of their Baronian enemies before being overwhelmed.
Hands pressed together he crouched and looked into the charred and destroyed area of the chamber, feeling the lost spirits of the Kriar who fell here. At the end, their fear had been a palpable thing, hundreds of millennia of life coming to a savage end. Was he sensing that right? Hundreds of millennia? He glanced toward Dulcere. He had intuited that from her, but discounted it. Were these creatures as old as the eternals then? They sure fought like they had that kind of power. The Baronians were more frightening. They seemed to have understood their foe and had worked them over with mechanical efficiency.
As he studied the location, he started to become aware of attention that didn’t belong. His heart picked up speed and his stomach tightened. The skin on the back of his neck prickled. He located every one else in the group, seeing where each person was sifting through the debris. The threads of his observer were well concealed, and the creature situated on a pinnacle of broken metal that did not look like it could support weight.
He couldn’t take any chances, not with creatures this powerful. He whirled snatching up all the creature’s life-threads with a heave and throwing them in a noose around the intruder’s body and yanking the spy down toward him.
There was a surprised yell as something heavy smashed down on the floor with a clang of metal on metal. He felt energy lick through the creature and countered instantly, pinching down on elemental threads and yanking cords of control.
The willpower of the intruder crashed into him with devastating force, knocking him to his knees. Gritting his teeth he bore down, yanking the invisible foe through the debris.
“Be still!” He yelled, struggling and shoving the concealed creature through its threads. “You’ll kill yourself.”
A brilliant red lance of energy emanating from her hand, Dulcere was by him in a twinkle, moving so fast the air cracked. She trained her weapon on the spot only to have another weapon almost identical to it, only blue, sprout from a spot on the ground.
She leaped back out of the sizzling arc of the weapon.
“Damn it,” he gritted. He took a fist full of threads and yanked.
The creature let out an incoherent sound, gasping and stumbling amid the debris.
Wren and Daena rushed in. The blonde savant avoided the lightning quick flash of the blue glowing weapon and threw her arms around an invisible limb.
The savant let out a gasp as blue fire licked around her body, and began rasping and cracking into the floor and broken materials around her. Daena reached down a grabbed something and yanked up. The creature yelled and that blade lashed around. Eyes like green stars the auburn-haired girl s
mashed a glowing fist into the air in front of her.
The power of the strike sent a cascade of energy rasping and licking around the creature, outlining a smallish humanoid body.
“Stop,” Daena warned. “Or I swear I will crush you in that armor.”
The blade came around again, and Daena made a fist with her free hand and jerked down.
The blade halted as the creature let out another yell.
“Stop it,” Daena said, hand shuddering. The creature was outlined in sparks and rasping energy. “Damn, this guy is tough.”
“Do something!” Wren cried. “This protection is too strong!”
Aarlen waded into the fray. “Desist, now.” She slammed the Shaladen down.
The creature tried to defend with the glowing weapon, but Aarlen’s sword chopped down through it in a dazzling explosion that struck the creature’s body in a rasp of erupting energies.
The blast knocked her backward a half-step, brushing at her eyes. The invisible creature took that opportunity to try to depart again.
Bannor yanked tight on the spy’s threads, dragging Wren and Daena through the debris as well.
“Hey!” Wren squawked.
“Ack!” Daena let out.
“That’s it,” Bannor growled. “I’ve had it.” He’d seen enough of the creature. He threw a couple loops of the creature’s energy threads around its neck. “You try to escape again and the surge will take your head off.” He jerked upward with the threads to bring the creature close. The person grunted and struggled, but couldn’t resist with its threads so tangled and its power being restrained by Wren and Daena. “Make yourself visible now, or I will make you very sorry. Starting by ripping out the threads that allow you to travel in time.”
There was a growl that seemed to come from all around instead of emanating from the creature.
“Have it your way—time powers go.” He doubled his fist in the threads that associated the creature with the underpinnings of eternity and the surrounding chronology. He began to pull.
Reality's Plaything 3: Eternal's Agenda Page 11