Void Wyrm: The Magitech Chronicles Book 2

by Chris Fox

  Nara had no idea how much time had passed when the doors swung silently. She stepped hesitantly into the darkness, straining to catch any sound as she shuffled forward. “Hello?”

  The doors swung silently shut, smothering the room in totally darkness.

  “Welcome,” a voice boomed, terrible and ancient.

  Nara dropped her helmet with a clatter, and her hands shot up to cover her ears. She gritted her teeth, snatching up her helmet and locking it into place as quickly as she could manage.

  “A wise precaution,” the voice rumbled again, thankfully muted now that she was fully encased in her armor. It still hurt, but the pressure lessened considerably.

  A single flame burst to life high above. It revealed a colossal creature with eight legs, and two wings. Nara studied it. The resemblance to the arachnidrake Aran had fought was unmistakable, but Neith was far, far larger.

  “Size seems to correlate to age for Wyrms,” Nara ventured. “Are you the first arachnidrake?”

  “Yes,” the voice confirmed. Neith scuttled forward, but stopped twenty or thirty meters back.

  Nara floated into the air and guided her spellarmor up to the spider’s face. “I don’t want to be rude, but I have so many questions.”

  “Sort them in order of importance, and ask,” the spider suggested, watching her with eight eyes, the smallest of them dwarfing Nara’s armor.

  What did one ask a living god? Should she seek power? Or maybe her past? Did she even want to know what she’d been like?

  No. And power by itself wasn’t very appealing. Maybe it was stupid, but what she wanted most right now was answers.

  The spider seemed amused, though she hadn’t spoken aloud. “And this is why, of all your companions, your mind is the most similar to my own. Do you know what I am called in the oldest tales?”

  “The keeper of secrets?” Nara ventured, remembering the passage from the book.

  “Precisely. I sought all knowledge. I could not help the desire to know. I still cannot help it.” The spider sounded both amused and exasperated. “And, given that our minds are similar, I believe I know which alterations you will most properly benefit from. Your ability to process and encode knowledge is insufficient.”

  “Alterations?” Nara asked, flying back several meters. “Uh, I’m not sure I want to be altered.”

  “The plant does not refuse the light of the star.”

  Sudden power flared in those dark orbs, and the energy pulsed out over her in waves. Warm, fiery motes of light swam around Nara’s armor, zipping inside at random. Each time, she felt a jolt of heat—not painful, but too intense to be pleasant. She flinched with every mote, finally pulling herself into a fetal position when the barrage intensified.

  The energy suffused her body, collecting in her chest and her head. She felt the power flowing through her brain, warming neural pathways.

  “What are you doing to me?” she whispered, more in awe than fear now.

  “I am increasing your cognitive recall, spatial reasoning, deductive capabilities, and several other ancillary abilities,” Neith rumbled. “In short, I am making you more intelligent.”

  Nara had no idea how to describe the sudden changes in her mind. Her senses hadn’t been enhanced, but her understanding of the data she absorbed had. She could analyze and come to conclusions much more quickly now. Even that conclusion had come in a fraction of an instant.

  “How long will this last?” She already dreaded returning to her previous state.

  “Last?” The spider cocked her head. “I have remade you. This is what you are now.”

  In just a few heartbeats, Nara considered many things. She considered everything occurring around her, the situation with Khalahk waiting for them, and the possibility that Nebiat was up to mischief back on Shaya. She considered her role, and that of her companions. Finally, she considered what other information she might be able to secure from the god.

  “You want us to succeed. You’re far more intelligent than any of us, and can perceive time differently.” She paused. “Can you give Aran his past back?”

  “Your compassion is a variable I did not foresee.” Neith’s jaws quivered as she studied Nara. “Will it enhance your chance of success, or doom you, I wonder? No matter. I will complete my work.”

  Another cloud of motes appeared, but these clustered around Nara’s staff. They shot into the silvery metal, and a scarlet sigil appeared wherever one touched. The staff grew half a meter in length, and four glowing fire rubies winked into existence around the void orb at the top. They rotated slowly, adding their power to that of the onyx.

  Nara wanted to examine the staff further, but that would mean squandering her last few moments with a living goddess. She couldn’t waste it. “What else do I need to know to keep my friends alive and fulfill whatever purpose you have for us? What other tools should I be given, or should I be asking for?”

  “More astute questions than any of your companions, though each left with the tools they will require. You have yours as well, now.” Neith gestured with a titanic leg, and a pair of doors opened at the top of wide stairs on the far side of the room. “You require nothing further in order to fulfill your role. Carry forth my will, vessel. Stop Krox.”

  The room plunged into darkness, showing only the sliver of light from the top of the stairs. Nara flew in that direction, her mind racing. The staff pulsed a greeting in her hand, and she turned her attention to that.

  “You’re alive now, aren’t you?”

  It vibrated again. Eros would be pleased.

  Nara glided over the stairs in her power armor, making for the light.

  40

  AIN'T HALF BAD

  Crewes slowly cracked his knuckles, then reached reached into the void pocket and pulled out his spellcannon. He rested the barrel on his shoulder, whistling as the gigantic golden doors opened silently before him.

  He ambled between them, but a bead of sweat dripped down his temple. Damn this room was dark. Anything could be out there. They were still in the depths, he couldn’t afford to forget that. The others had let down their guard. But him? Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Guess he needed to take the initiative.

  “I didn’t expect my first god to by shy. Hope you don’t mind if I light the place up.” Crewes activated the external microphone and his voice boomed through the room. He brought the spellcannon up and lobbed a flare spell into the air. It shot up, driving away some of the shadow.

  Something massive shifted at edge of the room, a living mountain, covered in scales, and smelling like the deep jungle. Crewes stared up at the thing. “Hope I didn’t ruin your entrance or nothin.”

  “Your simplicity is refreshing.” The creature lumbered forward, its many eyes glittering under the flare. It peered down at him, unblinking. “You lack the complex motivations your companions exhibited.”

  “You like that I’m dumb?” Crewes snorted, then shook his head at the spider thing. “I ain’t Nara or nothing, but somehow I get my own diaper changed every day.”

  “You misunderstand me. Your intellectual capacity is not meaningfully different from that of your peers. Rather, your worldview is much more reductive. You see violence as the most employable solution to nearly every circumstance.” The spider cocked its head, and a single hairy spine tumbled free. It slammed into the round with a thunderous boom.

  “Well, my granddad said if you’ve got an axe, and you ain’t got nothing else, then every problem looks like a sugar tree.” Crewes engaged the thruster on his armor, rising slowly into the air. He circled the god-spider-dragon thing. “My brother’s got a whole tool kit. He’s got a spanner, and a screwdriver, and a hammer. Me? I just got that axe.”

  “Your sense of worth is predicated upon your relation to your progenitors,” the spider-god rumbled. “You believe you are worth less than your brother, because he utilizes his mind, and you your body. Because your progenitors value those qualities, over your own.”

  It unnerved h
im how much that hit home. He did rate himself against his brother. He always had, and he’d always come up short. Always.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, I don’t hate him for it or nothing, but Mercelus is good at everything. He brought our folks from Yanthara to Shaya. He’s the reason they even got a place on the sixth branch, with proper sunlight and everything. Without him my mom would be down in the dims.” Crewes shook his head. He flew a little closer, staring at the spider thing. “Listen, man, I’m sure you’re real good at this shrink stuff, but I got shit to be about and you probably charge a lot for therapy. Why don’t you give me the secret handshake or whatever, and point me in the direction the major took?”

  “You do not fear your own death, but you do fear the deaths of your companions,” the god mused, ignoring Crewes. “You seek to protect them. You see their fate as your responsibility. Fitting, then, that you possess the tools with which to do so.”

  “Come again?” Crewes backed his armor away a few meters. “Now don’t you go and—.”

  A wave of brilliant multicolored light burst from Neith’s eyes. The energy crackled over his armor, and his rifle. Heat burst through the armor and Crewes roared. The heat burned, at first. It didn’t lessen, if anything it increased. But the pain stopped. Crewes became one with the fire, drinking deeply of the magical power.

  “What the depths are you doing to me?” He roared up at the god, a puff of flame coming from his mouth.

  “I have granted you true mastery of flame, not the rudimentary control you previously possessed. It dwells inside you, a living shard of my own power. When you engage your foes, they will truly learn to fear you, even the greater Wyrms. But first, you will use the power to stop the death of the one you are most loyal to.”

  “Now I like the sound of that. All heroic and such. You know what, spider-guy? You ain’t half bad. I mean, we ain’t friends or nothin, but I appreciate you giving me the tools to help with my, what did you call it, reductive world view. Now where’s the major? I got baddies to roast.”

  The spider thing’s jaws quivered. Was it laughing? “Indeed you do, mortal. Indeed you do.”

  41

  ALL OR NOTHING

  Nebiat hurried into the library, effecting the manner of a new apprentice scurrying to her next lesson. In her experience, few people paid any attention to apprentices, and she’d used an illusion to mute her beauty. People noticed beauty, and while she’d have been the first to admit to her own personal vanity, even she was willing to set it aside occasionally.

  She fingered the bracelet in the inner pocket of her robes. It was a powerful eldimagus, but since it had no direct spell effect, most defensive wards wouldn’t be triggered by its presence. That loophole was how she planned to take down Eros. If she failed…she stood a real chance of dying.

  Nebiat quickened her steps among the shelves, avoiding the occasional gazes of students. No one bothered her or impeded her in any way. It never ceased to amaze Nebiat how far one could get with simple social engineering. Magic was amazing, but many mages were too reliant on it. One could often effect better results with simple deception.

  The steady glow of magical light came from the office ahead, a study set into the wall along the outer ring of the library, as far from his students as Master Eros could get. Normally, she wouldn’t blame him for wanting that little distance—she lacked the patience for the endless questions students inevitably had—but in this instance it also kept those students from coming to his aid.

  She paused at the last shelf, sketching a morph spell. Her features became less angular, her hair longer and darker. Freckles sprouted across her face, and down her neck. When the spell had completed she examined herself in a pocket mirror. Perfect.

  “Master Eros?” she called timidly from the doorway. She let her thick, dark hair cover her eyes. Hopefully she’d duplicated the freckles well enough to fool him.

  “Hmm? Pirate girl?” Eros looked up from his desk. He removed a pair of magical spectacles and set them down next to the tome he’d been reading. “Aren’t you supposed to be off on Voria’s mad quest? You’ve only been gone four days.”

  “We returned less than an hour ago. We had magical help getting back.” Nebiat waited outside the room, shifting from foot to foot. “Voria asked me to bring you an eldimagus we discovered. She says it’s vital you unlock it’s potential as soon as possible.”

  “Stop prancing out there. Come show me whatever it is Voria insisted I see.” He waved at her to enter, and Nebiat stepped across the threshold.

  Fire and void exploded furiously around her, the hellish flames boiling away her clothing, and much of her skin. Nebiat shrieked, but made it her only concession to the pain. Discovery made the next few seconds a literal matter of life and death.

  Eros rose from his desk, a confident smile spreading across his devilishly handsome face. “You really thought a simple illusion would fool me, dreadlord?” he asked contemptuously.

  She flipped across the room, sketching a counterspell even as he began to cast. Her counterspell zipped into the sigils forming around his hand, and the spell shattered. She landed on his desk and delivered a kick that shattered his jaw.

  He tumbled from his chair and landed on the floor with a grunt. He began sketching again, but Nebiat’s hand flashed forward and snapped the bracelet around his wrist. Eros completed his spell—a disintegrate—and the magic flashed down his arm. Instead of emerging as a bolt that could have ended her life, the magic poured into the bracelet and was shunted harmlessly away in a puff of purple magic.

  Nebiat seized Eros by the throat. He beat at her wrist with both hands, but she ignored the feeble blows. “You could always try another spell if you like, I’ll wait.”

  Eros reached for the catch on the bracelet…only to find that it had been removed.

  Nebiat brought his bloody face closer to her own. “That’s right. Flail all you like. Your magic is worthless, so long as you wear that bracelet.”

  Eros went limp. He choked out several words. “W—What do you want with me?”

  “You’re arguably the most powerful true mage on this world.” Nebiat sketched a binding at him, but the defensive wards in the room instantly countered it. “Hmm, that won’t do. A moment please.” She strode from his study into the un-warded hallway outside. “There we go. Much better.”

  She cast another binding, and this one worked as intended. The magic seeped into Eros. She added a second, slightly different binding. Then a third, more insidious than either of the other two, and therefore more difficult to detect if her enemies somehow freed Eros. She relaxed finally, after the third spell had taken effect.

  Duels of this nature were always settled quickly, and it might just as easily have been her on the losing end. She could never afford to forget that, as it meant making the same prideful mistake Eros just had. The same mistake that had cost Kheftut his immortal life.

  As much as she hated to admit it, she’d gotten lucky. Eros had phenomenal mystic wards, but had done little to protect himself physically. If not for that, and for the bracelet, she’d likely be dead right now.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Eros. I won’t keep you in suspense. I have a very special task for you. You’re going to kill an entire city full of drifters—and, in the process, spark a civil war.”

  Nebiat set Eros down.

  He stood there, shoulders slumped, a prisoner in his own mind.

  “Here is what you will do…”

  42

  THE TALON

  The cavernous doors closed behind Voria, and she surveyed the room she’d arrived in. It looked a good deal like the rest of the library, complete with floating shelves. But a large area of the room had been left empty, and the sky above had no ceiling, exposing the yawning darkness.

  “It’s a starport,” she realized aloud. She started in that direction, scanning the area for a vessel. “There has to be one. How else would we escape this world?”

  A brilliant sapphire light blazed to life
directly ahead of her. She shielded her eyes, approaching cautiously as the light dimmed.

  A staff floated in the air—and not just any staff, but the single most advanced eldimagus she’d ever seen. Its golden haft had layer after layer of tiny sigils woven into it, and she spotted at least a dozen magical materials used in its construction.

  The head of the staff was the most striking, and it more resembled a pike than a traditional quarterstaff. A pair of sharp golden prongs jutted gracefully from the top, one artfully shorter than the other. A fist-sized sapphire sat directly beneath the prongs like a single watchful eye, and a pair of golden spikes curved outward below it, almost mimicking a jawline.

  An amused male voice emanated from the staff. “If you keep staring like that, I’ll start to get self-conscious.” The sapphire pulsed in time with the words. “Let’s get the introductions out of the way. I’ve been standing here for…well, a really long time. I was meant for greater things, so let’s go.”

  Voria cautiously approached the staff, scanning for any sign of a trap. There appeared to be no hidden bindings, no touch-triggered fireballs. She tapped into her new senses, examining the timeline to see what might happen if she touched the staff. Nothing bad, so far as she could see.

  She settled her hand around the warm metal, and it thrummed in her grasp.

  “Ah, another wielder at long last. I’m called Ikadra, by the way.”

  “Ikadra?” Voria asked. She cocked her head. “I think I’ve heard a myth about you.”

  “Well, I used to cruise around with some pretty legendary heroes, so I’m not surprised.” The voice was smug now. If the staff could have preened, Voria was certain it would have. “If you’ll head right this way, we can be off.” A ball of scarlet flame shot from the staff’s tip, zipping over to the only starship in the starport.

  A sleek, black vessel that would have blended into any star field sat under the pool of light. She was a corvette class, designed for a dozen people or fewer, Voria guessed. Less than forty meters from bow to stern. A wicked spellcannon jutted from either wingtip, and the entire vessel reminded Voria of a swooping bird of prey with its wings outstretched.