“Is that all you’re doing?” Janai asked. “Teasing Corim?”
Senalloy raised an eyebrow. “He’s totally infatuated with Dulcere, and she barely has an inkling of how to respond to him. She’s been married to the military too long, not to mention just being simply too old for him.”
Janai laughed. “And you’re not too old, I suppose?”
The Baronian shrugged. “I’m closer to his age. He’s a beautiful sweet boy who has courage and smarts. I’ll only give Dulcere so long to wake up.”
Janai laughed. “Meanwhile, you frustrate her and him with your teasing—making sport of a naïve gentleman.”
The Baronian woman shrugged again. “And wonderful sport it is. Dulcere saw him first, I owe her so I grant her first come privileges. That doesn’t mean I have to make it easy.”
Bannor sighed. “Human, elf, savant, Baronian… women are pretty much the same…”
The girls all shot him looks.
Senalloy stopped at a hatch and stared at the closed door. She put fists on hips. “I don’t understand, I thought Dulcere said that they left the ship as undisturbed as possible so something might be learned.”
“That’s what I was lead to understand,” Bannor said. “I doubt the people searching the ship would have closed every door behind them.”
“They can’t close themselves can they?” Janai said. “I mean this Kriar magic can do everything else.”
“It could, if it were configured that way,” Senalloy said, brow furrowing. “But I configured this ship, Rakaar had little more than rudimentary understanding of the ship’s operation.”
“The Kriar who examined the ship after the attack must have done it then,” Wren said. “Why would anyone else do that?”
Senalloy frowned. “Investigators are supposed to leave things as undisturbed as possible. How can we trust anything we find otherwise? It was bad enough they made us wait several days before letting us in to examine the scene.”
The silver-haired Baronian woman punched on a grid of symbols on the wall and there was a clunking sound. She pulled the lever up and swung the door in. She pointed. “See, this door would have to have been forced without the code. So it had to have been open when the Baronians raided the ship.” Shaking her head she proceeded down the passage past several doors. “These are all crew cabins.”
“They’re all closed too,” Wren said.
“Yes,” Senalloy growled. She turned a corner and gestured around. “Officer’s quarters.”
She stopped at a pair of closed double doors at the end of the passage. Shaking her head, she pressed a sequence of symbols, the door unlatched and she opened it.
Inside was a sizable living area broken into sections. The door opened immediately into a commons decorated with furnishings made into floor and walls. Senalloy stepped aside to let him in first. He stepped into the room and immediately felt a chilly sense of wrongness—of anticipation.
He stepped backward through the door and gripped Senalloy’s shoulder.
Without his saying anything the Baronian seemed to sense his tension, she stiffened and pulled her sword. The others didn’t need explanations but responded by pulling their own weapons.
Bannor understood why the doors had been closed—to slow them down—to give wraiths time to find refuge. He’d felt it earlier but couldn’t identify it—someone had been shadowing them.
He turned to look back down the passage. A ghost was watching them.
* * *
Chapter Eight
Ghosts
« ^ »
A curious creature this savant, Bannor. I find him to be in many ways much like my companion Corim. Though he is only a handful of cycles older, he speaks and acts as a person far more life worn. He seems tired. It is a shame that his life has been so harsh that he’s grown old prematurely. I find his insights and tilts on people and things in the universe to be surprisingly enlightened…
—Belkirin Dulcere Val’saedra Starbinder,
Third Mitaka Legion, detached
Heart beating fast and lungs tight, Bannor stared back down the featureless gray hall. He grabbed Janai, and dragged her back and put her behind him. He put a hand on Daena’s shoulder and pulled her close, and did the same with Wren.
He relaxed, partially closing his eyes and used private savant communication.
The girl turned her gaze toward him, glowing green eyes narrowing.
Wren looked at him.
He concentrated on sending his thoughts into both their minds.
He grinned at her.
Wren blew out her cheeks. She clenched her fists and took a stance.
The auburn-haired girl drew a breath. She narrowed her eyes and made a sweeping gesture.
Bannor saw the air all down the corridor ripple as though viewed through columns of rising heat. Threads lying dormant in the hall lined up and energy cascaded to a flash.
There was no loud thud like Bannor was hoping for. Instead, what looked like sparks flared from two spots on the wall where the officer’s passage intersected the crew cabin hall.
“Spit,” Wren gasped. “There were people following us!”
Bannor extended his senses through the Garmtur, frantically looking for some thread, some evidence that these creatures existed. He saw nothing. How could Daena affect something that didn’t seem to be there? When the auburn-haired savant cloaked herself, she couldn’t hide her threads. The spy’s new technique hid even that.
The hall filled with a brilliant light that cast stark shadows from Bannor, Daena, and Wren. A thrumming vibrated the decking underneath his feet. He looked back to see Senalloy with a hand thrust up overhead and a brilliant sphere of energy in her hand.
“Down!” the Baronian yelled.
Bannor pulled Wren and Daena to the floor as a blast erupted from the woman’s hand, scorching and writhing down the hall. Bannor felt the power sweep over them like a gust of stinging wind, a pulsating mass of lashing threads that struck sparks and glowing traces off the corridor walls as it shrieked by. The effect did not impact the wall where they’d seen the sparks but went through in a flare of violet light. There were two concussions that rattled the ship. For an instant, all the colors in the hall inverted, black to white and white to black. Eyes narrowed against the glare, Bannor saw threads appear at the end of hall that hadn’t been there before—life threads and magic.
He didn’t have time to be subtle or careful, he snatched hold of all the magic, doubled his fists around the two sources and yanked.
Two bellows of pain echoed through the ship, the sound muffled and distorted by the thick walls.
The two creatures had actually been knocked through the wall of one of the cabins. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them—and they were resisting.
“Get them!” Bannor cried. “Don’t know how long I can hold on!” To punctuate his statement, he heaved again. He heard a crash and a thud as heavy bodies slammed against the bulkhead and made the deck plates vibrate, eliciting angry snarls in s
ome unfamiliar language.
Senalloy launched forward with startling speed, vaulting over their prone bodies and pounding down the short hall in six long strides, boots squealing on the decking as she skidded to a stop and shoved open the cabin door.
Auburn hair flying, Daena thrust herself forward on Senalloy’s heels, Wren scrambling to her feet after.
Senalloy disappeared through the doorway followed immediately by a crack, then a boom as something hammered into the bulkhead.
Bannor saw some of the enemy’s threads of magic beginning to ignite, and he yanked hard, throwing a loop of the creature’s threads around its now detectable form, shaking it from side to side.
There was a bustle as Daena plunged through the opening with Wren close behind.
Bannor winced in empathy as Daena immediately smashed back against the wall by the opening, almost crushing Wren, forcing the blonde savant to duck as the bigger girl thundered into the wall.
Despite the immense force, the girl pushed away from the wall with snarl and shake of her head. Loud impacts of bone on flesh followed large objects clanging against metal.
Janai helped him up as Wren joined the concealed struggle, the progress of the fight traceable by curses and the sound of bodies and walls being pummeled.
The elf woman was biting her palm as each of the three women were slammed into the wall by the doorway. Neither she or Bannor had the kind of physical resilience it would take to subdue opponents that strong. It took all his concentration to keep the two creatures from teleporting away, restraining their magic, and impeding their movements somewhat. He never imagined creatures with such brute tenacity and drive.
It was one thing to talk academically about Senalloy, but to see it, or at least hear it, was a far difference experience.
“Dammit, where are the others?!” he growled. “You could hear this ruckus two continents away!” He couldn’t spare the concentration to call telepathically to Ziedra. They needed the rest of the group. He didn’t want to kill these spies; they needed them for information! “Can you find your way back to the others?” he said to Janai.
“I could,” the princess responded. “But I do not think I should. In fact—” She raised her hands and began chanting in a sing-songy voice. She made a sweeping gesture that made the air around them pulsate and glow. “We should be on our guard. Those two might not be the only spies.”
Twice more Bannor had to heave on the magic of the two creatures to prevent their magic. Damn, he was going to have a headache later. Whenever he used the Garmtur against creatures that could resist, he usually got a bad case of backlash for his trouble.
The pounding and yells reached a peak, prompting Janai to grip Bannor’s arm, face screwed up in empathy. Finally, there were two horrific crashes one followed by another and the noise stopped.
Quiet.
“Carellion,” Janai breathed. “What…”
Bannor’s stomach was tight. The threads he had been holding on the two creatures had gone slack. His heart, already beating fast, tightened. He started to move forward when Senalloy staggered into view at the doorway.
The tall silver-haired woman looked like she’d been run over by a rhinotaur, lip split, nose bloody and bent, cheeks cut and swelling. Breathing heavily, she trudged forward rubbing the top of her head and grimacing. Behind her, she drug a broad form across the deck.
“Milady?” Bannor asked.
Senalloy held up a hand for quiet. She continued to labor forward towing a large broad-shouldered male dressed in black armor that looked much like the metallic uniform that Quasar wore. When she’d gotten him all the way across the hall, she let go of his collar, causing the back of his head to dribble on the metallic floor. The giant man looked every bit as battered as Senalloy, and his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm—he was still alive.
Gasping, Senalloy fell against the wall and slid down with a groan.
“What—”
The Baronian woman pointed back to the doorway where she’d appeared.
Daena stood in the doorway taking heaving breaths. The auburn-haired savant turned first one looked just as battered as Senalloy, her bronzed skin discolored and split in places.
“By Carellion,” Janai let out, rushing forward as the big girl stumbled forward with a burden scraping along the metal plates in tow behind her. She had in her grip another huge male also dressed in the close fitting black armor. She dropped him face down next to the first.
The girl hit the wall by Senalloy and slid down. A circle around one glowing green eye was already growing dark. “Urgh.” Daena muttered. She coughed, covering her mouth and frowned at the blood that splattered on her skin. She rubbed at her obviously broken nose. “When I told Koass I wanted excitement, I’m not sure this is what I had in mind.”
“I know it wasn’t what I was thinking!” Wren gasped at the doorway. The blonde savant didn’t look as battered as the other two. Her hair was all in disarray and her clothing was torn. She rubbed a big bruise on her forehead. “I’m on vacation from this kind of drek.”
Bannor went forward and took her hand. Wren amazed him, how could that little woman leap into a fray like that and walk away? She might weigh all of six stone, all gristle and muscle but still a flesh and blood breakable mortal.
He helped her sit down. The woman leaned against the wall with a moan.
She shook her head. “And you were leaning into them with the Garmtur, disrupting their powers, right?” She asked him.
He nodded.
Wren thumped her head against the wall with a weary groan. She blew out her cheeks. “If that’s the case, we might as well give up. If they’ve got a million guys like that—there’s just no way.”
“You did good,” Senalloy grunted. She picked up Daena’s hand and laced her fingers with the girl’s.
“Good?” Daena said. “I hit the wall more often than I hit him. If you hadn’t been there, he would have knocked the stuffing out of me. Ugh.”
“They are experienced warriors,” Senalloy said.
“Should we just be sitting here congratulating ourselves?” Janai asked, hands on hips. “There could be others around, might there not?”
“There might be, but I’m not moving for a little bit.” Daena said, working her jaw side-to-side and rubbing her bruised cheek. “I need time to heal. Those guys hit hard.” She blew out a breath. “I thought valkyries were bad—”
Bannor threw up a hand to stop her and Daena subsided instantly. He felt life-threads of several creatures approaching fast. He dragged on the arm of one of the fallen warriors and discovered he wasn’t moving the heavy body anywhere. The huge creature easily weighed twenty stone.
He braced with the Garmtur as at least four sets of feet pounded the decking toward them. He relaxed as the first person into view was white-haired Aarlen followed closely by Beia, Dulcere, and Corim. Ziedra and her husband Radian brought up the rear.
Aarlen looked at the two huge males and ran a hand through her hair with a raised eyebrow. Corim let out a whistle and shook his head.
“A little healing would be nice,” Senalloy muttered. “I would heal myself but my head hurts too much.”
“I was going to ask if you subdued them with your face,” Aarlen remarked with a dry tone.
“It has been some time since I sparred an opponent with this level of skill,” Senalloy responded. “It is a good thing that Bannor and Wren were able to limit their effectiveness or they would have escaped.”
“That armor looks a lot like what Quasar is wearing,” Ziedra remarked, coming over to kneel by Wren, and examine her bruised forehead. “It’s magic though.”
“It’s very much like my armor, an early prototype perhaps,” Quasar responded strolling up the corridor. “Should they be able to do that; add magic to Kriar artifices?”
“The only thing stopping them would be magical taboos, but nothing else,” Aarlen answered. “We better strip them and get these two in stasis so they can’t kill themselves or do something equally unfortunate.”
Dulcere stiffened abruptly and looked around. The tone of her thoughts became sharper and more urgent.
Aarlen’s silver eyes widened, the white-haired elder already had her Shaladen out. She leaped to a spot between the two huge creatures and raised the weapon.
With Dulcere’s warning, Bannor was alert when the attack aimed at Aarlen came. A torrent of magical threads meant to bind and snare flooded down the passage toward them in brilliant golden haze.
Bannor leaped into the path of the magic and threw all his will and the power of the Garmtur behind deflecting the assault.
The strike hit him like a hammer, burning and tearing, trying to grip and crush.
The titanic rush of power cascaded into the walls, scorching and ripping, causing traces of molten metal to spray sizzling onto the decking.
Continuing to deflect the massive outpouring of magick, Bannor realized that Aarlen still stood behind him, silver eyes wide.
“Go!” He screamed.
His word shocked the elder woman into action.
She and the two prisoners vanished.
Already tired from the fight earlier, Bannor already felt his resolve crumbling against their new unseen adversary. The atmosphere was so full of threads that he couldn’t see through the torrent to find the source of the attack. Even if he could, he was using all his strength simply to keep everyone in the corridor from being bound.
He jerked in surprise as an arm slipped around his waist and a warm body pressed in close to him and held up a slender long-nailed hand between his outstretched arms.
Reality's Plaything 3: Eternal's Agenda Page 14