“Can’t. Both of us can’t go. Hurry.”
He gave her a little shove, pushing her deeper into the room and away from the barricade. No part of the room was particularly safe, but at least being further away from the door would minimize the risk of being hit by a rogue spell. She half-ran, half-crawled to the back wall, hunkering down over the cube and whispering the words of command. A moment later, she was hovering above herself, seeing the carnage from a new angle.
Through force of will, she appeared in the entrance hall of the Great Tower. The arch demon was gone, but his summoned portal was there, disgorging more of his minions. At the rate they were arriving, the students on the third floor would be fighting forever. She wondered if there was anyone still alive on the second floor. There almost had to be, because they alone couldn’t be fighting off the sheer numbers coming through the portal. In fact, all the levels of the tower must have been coming under siege. After all, the curved stairs ran the entire height and depth of the tower, from the top floor down to the Inquisitors’ cells.
The Inquisitors’ cells! Janessa was still locked away down there, waiting for Adamon or Olin to return. If the incursion from the Deep Void had reached the lower floors of the tower, she’d be completely at the mercy of the demons, and they’d shown precious little mercy. She’d be slaughtered, unable to defend herself.
Volinette was torn. Her goal was to find out how long it would be before reinforcements would arrive, but she needed to know if Janessa was still alive. If she was, they had to find a way to get her out of the cells. That was no way for anyone to die. She was penned up like an animal, waiting for slaughter.
A moment’s more hesitation and Volinette made up her mind. She popped onto the landing outside the Inquisitor’s level. It was the only place she knew well enough that she wouldn’t end up adrift in the void. Not that she couldn’t get back, but there wasn’t any time to waste. She chose one of the three hallways at random and set off. Gliding out into the corridor, she was struck by how quiet and still it was. No bodies were scattered along the hall, no echoing roar of demon or shouted spell. Maybe they hadn’t penetrated this far into the depths of the tower. Maybe there was still time.
Every minute she spent searching the Inquisitors’ level was one that she wasn’t helping to keep them safe. She could hear the faint sound of the battle raging around her physical form and knew that the demons were making another push. She made a wrong turn into a storeroom, then into a privy. She was just about to give up when she noticed a stairwell leading deeper into the earth under the tower. The door was banded in iron, its bars and hardware polished steel. That was the door to the dungeon. She recognized it from her very brief passage when Olin and Adamon brought her before the Head Master.
She glided through the door into a stone corridor. It was forty feet long, with four cells on each side. The first two were empty, as were the next two. One of the third set had a cot in it, on which the man with the long white beard was curled and covered with a thin blanket. Consistent with her luck, the very last cell on the right was the one where Janessa was held. Her ankles and wrists were bound with iron manacles, and she hunched in the far corner, half hidden in shadow.
Volinette had seen what she needed to see. She focused her will and popped from the dungeon out into the courtyard by the fountain. It was the one place of all the grounds that made up the Academy that she would be able to find without any effort. She’d spent so much time there that it was ingrained in her memory.
The fountain was broken, the pool shattered on one side, spilling water out onto the cobblestones of the courtyard. Rubble littered the paths. The Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences looked like a war had taken place. Was taking place, she hurriedly corrected herself. She looked out toward the gate and saw Olin there, standing with Casto, Janessa’s mother, and a handful of mages she didn’t know. They were ranged in a loose circle, performing a ritual. Their hand gestures were complex, the words of power nearly unpronounceable. Volinette felt the Quintessential Sphere tremor, even though her body was in the tower and these Quintessentialists were so far away.
Something tickled her senses and she looked skyward, seeing a familiar blur that extended from the tip of the tower to the outside walls of the Academy. The Masters had assembled a barrier, much like the one that had been used in her trial. This shield seemed to be much thicker. Where the one at the Trial had been nearly transparent, now she could only just make out the fuzzy shapes of buildings beyond the walls. The Great Library, the nearest building to the grounds, was just a blurry shadow.
As she watched, a demon bounded out from behind the administration building and loped toward the far gate, unguarded by the Masters who were clustered near the broken fountain. It hit the barrier at a run, its head lowered as a battering ram. Volinette heard the crack from where she was hovering. Its neck broken, the demon collapsed, twitching on the path. Whatever happened now, at least Blackbeach would be spared from the invasion. The Quintessentialists would have to face the demons on their own.
“Volinette! We need you!”
Snapping back into her body like a taut bowstring, Volinette blinked and looked up at Baris. His face was a mask of panic, features contorted by fear.
“I’m here,” she said, shaking her head to clear the last of the cube’s fog from her mind. She realized she still had the cube in her hand and handed it to Baris. “How can I help?”
“You were supposed to be finding reinforcements.” Baris looked pained.
“I did, but it’s not good news. They’ve got their hands full. The portals are still open and Olin and Fulgent were just out by the West Gate.”
“Why?”
“They put a shield over the Academy grounds. Like at the Trial, only a lot more powerful.”
Baris looked crestfallen, his eyes taking on a haunted darkness that hurt her heart.
“They sealed us in. We’re going to die in here.”
“They saved the city,” she said firmly, hoping to quell his panic. “We’ll make it out of this. We just need to figure out how to close those portals.”
“How are we gonna do that when the demons just keep coming? The bodies are probably waist deep out there.”
“Wait a minute,” Volinette said suddenly. “Hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That’s my point. It’s quiet. It hasn’t been this quiet since we got here.”
The apprentices were a huddled mass against the far curve of the wall. The journeymen were crouched by the barricade, their faces drawn and haggard. Every now and then, they’d peek over the edge and then hunker back down. The howls and screams of the assaulting demons were gone. Uneasy silence had settled over the tower like a musty blanket.
“I never thought the quiet would creep me out,” Baris said, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Check the entry hall.”
“Now? Really?”
“Hurry up, or let me do it. Who knows how long it’ll be before they’re back. Better to know, right? We can’t stay here forever.”
Baris clutched the cube so hard his fingers turned white and passed into his spirit form. A moment later, he opened his eyes and a wide grin spread across his face.
“Adamon’s here! Olin too. They’re in the entrance hall. The portal is gone.”
“Okay, we need to get out of here. We’re safer with Adamon and Olin. Come on.”
She trotted back to the barricade. The journeymen looked dead on their feet. Volinette had wondered earlier about the apprentices being able to continue with their education. Now, looking at the journeymen, she doubted any of them would ever fully recover from what they’d been through.
“We need to tear down the barricade and get downstairs,” she said to the older journeyman. “Adamon and Olin are down there.”
“How do you know?”
Baris held out hand, displaying the cube. “We’ve been keeping an eye on things between waves. We need to get out of here now. If we don’t
do it now, we might not be able to later.”
“We were told to stay here.”
Volinette cast an appraising eye at the journeyman. He was only a couple years older than she was, and he wasn’t nearly as confident as he let on. She left Baris arguing with their appointed guardians. She trotted over to the cowering apprentices.
“The Inquisitors are in the entrance hall. You all want to get out of this room, right?”
There were nods and murmurs of assent.
“Okay, then we need to go now…and we need to be quick and quiet. Can all of you do that for me?”
The idea of getting out of the room they’d been trapped in appealed to most of the apprentices. They followed Volinette willingly to the barricade, where Baris was still arguing with their protectors.
“Listen,” she interrupted. “We’re leaving. Come with us, or don’t, I don’t care. If you want to stay here, I wish you luck, but we’re going. Two of the most powerful Inquisitors in the realm are two floors down, and they can protect us better than we can protect ourselves.”
A moment later, she’d summoned the power of a gale and directed it at the already battered barricade. It tumbled aside like so many matchsticks. Getting past the bodies of the demons they had killed was far more complicated. It was slow going, but Volinette managed to lead the apprentices to the landing. She listened at the lift shaft, then at the head of each set of stairs, and heard nothing that sounded the return of the rampaging horde of demons. Baris brought up the rear of the column of students, with the journeymen tagging along behind him.
Reminding them to be as quiet as they could, they worked their way down the stairs. A few dead demons lay across the stairs. It took time to get around the massive hulks of the bodies after she’d made sure they were dead. The landing of the second floor looked as if a wholesale massacre had taken place. There were many more dead Quintessentialists among the dead demons here, and Volinette urged everyone not to look at the carnage as they passed.
They moved into the next stairwell, the one that would lead them to the entrance hall and would determine whether the risk of their move was a gamble that would pay off. The last few steps seemed to be more imposing than she remembered. As her foot touched the smooth glass floor of the entry hall, she looked out and saw Olin and Adamon still standing there. She’d never been so relieved to see anyone in her entire life.
Volinette led the apprentices, Baris, and the journeymen across the room to where the Inquisitors were standing. Adamon and Olin turned to face them with their weapons drawn. The bore of Adamon’s hand cannon seemed enormous so close up. Olin’s staff wasn’t as impressive, but she was glad he was armed as well.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted as she stopped just short of the pair of Inquisitors. “We couldn’t stay up on the third floor any longer. There were too many dead demons and no one else up there.”
“You did the right thing, Volinette,” Olin said. “The other Masters have cleared and secured the admin building. We’ll get all of you over there. It’ll be much safer, and you won’t have to fight.”
“We’ve already been doing that,” Baris snorted with something near his normal lack of tact.
“No doubt,” Adamon said drily. “I trust this also explains why you’re holding something that should be on my desk?”
“We can discuss that later,” Olin said quickly. “For now, let’s get them to the admin building.”
Adamon looked at Baris until the young man lowered his head. Then the Inquisitor shrugged and led the way out of the tower.
Chapter Twenty
Volinette had thought she’d seen chaos in the tower during the first wave of attacks. She’d been wrong. The wholesale evacuation of the tower had caused a commotion unlike anything she’d ever seen. Everyone who had been able to move on their own and some who had to be carried, had been relocated to the administration building on the far side of the Academy grounds. Though ample room for offices and archives, the choice of locale left much to be desired as a storehouse for all the living people within the barricade.
As Masters worked to close demonic portals and moved people into the safety of the admin building, things got very cramped. Volinette and Baris kept moving into offices further and further away from the main entrance, trying to escape the crowd that seemed to grow by the minute and showed no signs of stopping. Volinette had never fully appreciated how many people lived and worked within the Academy. She did now. Adamon said that this wasn’t even half the number of people who would eventually be crammed inside, and Volinette wasn’t sure she wanted to see that.
Olin found them sitting on a desk in one of the unused offices. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He flopped into a chair and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes. The Inquisitor didn’t say anything, and they weren’t inclined to interfere with his moment of respite. Besides, they knew how he felt. They’d all been fighting for hours. Volinette felt as if she’d been picked up and twisted until everything that defined who she was had been rung out. She existed, and that was as much as she could muster.
“You two certainly know how to ferret out the quiet spots, don’t you?” Olin asked, wearily raising his head.
“I needed somewhere that I could hear myself think,” Volinette said with a shrug. “I’ve never been particularly bothered by crowds. I mean, I sang in front of thousands of people, but this is different.”
Olin nodded.
“Different when you’re down amongst the huddled masses.”
Volinette peered at him, wondering if he realized how much his words stung. He must have seen the look in her eyes, because he raised his hands in entreaty, shaking his head.
“That’s not what I meant, Volinette. I’m sorry. I meant no offense. I just meant that it’s different when you have bodies pressing in on you on every side.”
“Especially when some of them are none too fresh,” Baris said, waving his hand in front of his nose. “You always hear people talking about the stink of fear. Phaugh. I know what they mean now.”
“They’ve got good reason to be afraid, Apprentice Jendrek.” Olin looked through the wall, toward the main entrance of the building. “Word is spreading that we sealed off the Academy grounds and that decision isn’t proving to be a popular one. Maera will have a lot of explaining to do if we all come out of this alive. At least we saved the city. That’s something. Can you imagine those things rampaging around Blackbeach?”
Silence settled over them. Pain and exhaustion were taking their toll. Volinette almost felt as if it would be worth it to turn the tower over to the demons if it meant that she could curl up in a ball and get a couple solid hours of sleep. The thought of curling up put her in mind of the old man in the Inquisitors’ dungeon, which in turn led her thoughts to Janessa in the half shadows of her cell.
“What’s going to happen to Janessa?” she asked suddenly.
Olin scrubbed his face, refusing to meet her eye to eye. He waited a long moment, as if hoping that she might retract the question. When he finally looked at her, he heaved a sigh and shrugged.
“I don’t know. There are some Inquisitors sweeping the tower, but reported back that there were too many portals to close. It seems like for every portal we close, two more open. The small ones aren’t too bad. The big ones, like the one in the tower, require a considerable amount of power to close, and we’re running thin on both Masters and stamina.”
“Then my question remains, what’s going to happen to Janessa?”
“She’ll probably die there.”
“Good riddance,” Baris said. Volinette rounded on him.
“That’s not right, Baris. She was supposed to go before the High Council of Masters. They might have granted her appeal. We can’t just leave her there to die. What if it were one of us?”
“We wouldn’t be down there,” he returned, just as heatedly. “Need I remind you that Janessa’s friends are the ones who did this in the first place? If it w
eren’t for her taking something that didn’t belong to her, people wouldn’t be dying.”
“You can’t believe that she told Nixi, Halsie, and Syble to summon demons on purpose.”
“I don’t know what to believe, but I’m not about to give them the benefit of the doubt.”
“Did they?” she demanded of Olin. “Did you find them, or the Prism?”
Olin shook his head again.
“No. Adamon and I got as near to the girls’ dormitory as we could, but we weren’t close enough to either find the girls or locate the Prism.”
“Do you think they did this intentionally?”
“What difference does it make?” Baris asked, and Volinette held up a hand to shush him.
“It makes a huge difference, Baris. Olin, do you think they did this intentionally?”
“No…and for what it’s worth, which is precious little at the moment, Adamon doesn’t either. He may be a first rate pain in the ass and about as social as an angry hornet, but he is very good at what he does. He didn’t get to be Grand Inquisitor by being everyone’s friend. He got there by doing the jobs that no one else wanted to do. Or couldn’t do, for that matter.”
“So if Adamon doesn’t think they did it intentionally, doesn’t it stand to reason that they shouldn’t just be left to die? We’re better than that.”
“There’s a fine line between a live hero and a dead lunatic, Volinette.” Olin pinned her with his gaze. “The tower is infested with portals to the Deep Void that are still spewing demons into our realm. We barely made it out the first time. Going back now would be suicide.”
“So the tower is lost? We’re going to, what, let the demons take up residence while we cower in this building?”
Olin shot to his feet, his face suffused with rage.
“Good men are dying out there, Volinette! We’re doing the best we can to save as many people as we can. You weren’t there! You don’t know…”
He trailed off, realizing what he’d said. He closed his mouth with a snap and sank back into the chair.
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