Darkvision

by Bruce R Cordell

  Dazed, Warian went down on one knee. He cradled his throbbing head with his right hand. His aggressors moved in, thinking to fall on him, Revi in the vanguard, the bloodied metal bar raised high to finish the job.

  Without standing, Warian reached with his left hand and grabbed Revi’s lead leg just below the knee. He could feel Revi’s muscles and bones through the crystal. He squeezed. The muscles and bones pulped in his hand like rotten fruit.

  Revi dropped sluggishly to the floor, screaming and clutching at his ruined leg. The iron bar spun free, then clattered dully to the floor.

  The downed man’s friends failed to grasp Warian’s strength and speed—they continued to move forward. Or perhaps they didn’t have a chance to react in the brief interval Warian allowed them.

  He stood up, still rubbing his head with his right hand. The eyes of his attackers had trouble following Warian’s movements. Good.

  Warian strode to the fellow who stood nearest the entry hall, grabbed him, and threw him out the doorway. Ditto for the man’s nearest friend, who had just enough time to scream and try to run, though it did him no good. He sailed, flailing, through the air, and was gone.

  The other two, seeing their plan going horribly awry, turned to dash back the way they’d come, farther within the tenement. A few quick strides let Warian catch the hindmost. He plucked the man right off his feet. The weight of Warian’s quarry was astonishingly little. The man’s legs kicked, and he yelled in protest. As if he held a doll, he bumped the man’s head against the ceiling. The man went limp, and Warian dropped him.

  Who’s next? he wondered.

  Fatigue ambushed him.

  The light in his prosthesis guttered out. Dullness flooded the crystal, and the world jittered back to its natural timeframe.

  Warian stumbled and nearly fell flat on his face. Exhaustion hammered him. He sucked breath like he’d just finished a marathon race. His living arm trembled as he used it to support himself against the wall. Now that he’d returned to normal perception, he understood what the men were yelling. “He’s killing us! Gods, he’s killing us!”

  Warian didn’t have the strength to protest. Hurting badly, yes. Killing? No. At least, he hadn’t tried to kill anyone. He looked at his left arm again. It looked as it always had, save for the dark tendrils at its core. Were they growing? Hard to tell. But one thing was certain—he’d managed to consciously activate the extraordinary new strength his prosthesis harbored. If he could consciously trigger it once, he was confident he could do it again. But should he? The way nausea struggled against his exhaustion, twice as bad as the first time…. If he called on the arm’s strength a third time, would the aftermath multiply again? The wall was no longer enough to support him. He slid down to a squat, still leaning on the wall, and studied his feet. They seemed strangely far away.

  A man appeared from down the inner passage—not one of the toughs who’d failed to overcome Warian. The newcomer wore the tailored black and gray robe of a businessman. His assertive posture, wiry frame, and dark but thinning hair were all too familiar to Warian.

  It was Uncle Zel.

  Zeltaebar Datharathi, who sat with his uncles on the family council, was a schemer, a dealmaker, a master of disguise, and a self-proclaimed scoundrel. Warian and Zel never had much to do with each other.

  “Nephew, is that you?” asked Zel, squinting in disbelief. “What in the name of the Ten Dark Gods are you doing back in town? And why are you killing my men?”

  The destrier flitted across moonlit hills, its stone feet pounding out a tempo that mimicked the world’s heartbeat.

  Kiril roused from her dozing trance when Thormud called a halt. Blinking, she gazed around at the monotonous plain, at low hills and rocky ridges silhouetted in the silvery distance. Nothing seemed amiss.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “I am uneasy,” Thormud responded. “Another prognostication is in order.”

  “Really? In the middle of the night? I thought we traveled by night to avoid the heat of the day and unfortunate observation.”

  “The same principle holds for conducting arduous prognostications, Kiril. I prefer to undertake such exertions during night’s cool and shrouding darkness.”

  Kiril looked around again. The destrier had stopped atop a low, smooth bluff.

  “I’ll tell you where to put your ‘shrouding darkness,’” she murmured as she slipped off the stone destrier’s back. The wait while Thormud performed his ritual promised to be excruciatingly boring.

  Thormud let the elemental mount bend low before he dismounted. As soon as the dwarf’s feet touched down, he moved to the center of the bluff and began scrawling in the earth with his rod. Kiril recognized the preliminary chicken scratches as standard geomancer preparations for “magical surveillance and interrogation of the mineral bones of the world,” as the dwarf had once described it. Bah.

  Kiril sighed and paced out a perimeter. She always hated waking from trance—her thoughts were too clear and connected. At those times, the temptation to draw Angul was worst—she wanted to drown her questions and uncertainties in the blade’s overwhelming certitude. It was nearly a compulsion.

  Nothing the verdigris god couldn’t fix. She gulped down a burning shot and gasped. As the fire settled into her stomach, Angul’s lure faded into low background noise, as always. The trick was to desensitize her mind. His call couldn’t penetrate her alcohol haze.

  She finished her circuit around the periphery of the bluff. A gauzy film of cloud partially obscured the moon, but her eyes were sharp in the dark. She spied nothing to threaten the dwarf’s impromptu magical rite. Kiril found a likely rock and sat, gazing at Thormud.

  The geomancer pulled a chest from the destrier’s back. From it he produced various vials filled with mineral salts and viscous oils. These ingredients, along with his selenite rod, were familiar implements of high geomancy. Kiril barely paid attention—if a branch of magic existed that was slower and less exciting than geomancy, she hadn’t seen it or heard of its disrepute.

  Thormud created a circle on the bluff top by pouring out measured quantities of multicolored dusts. He quartered the circle with his moon-white rod. When he finished, an invisible spark of connection passed up from the ground and into the dwarf, jolting him as if it were an electrical charge.

  The dwarf stumbled and managed a controlled fall into the circle’s center. He closed his eyes, not to see darkness, but a vision bequeathed him by the soil.

  The world was composed of the four primary elements: air, earth, fire, and water. But earth held Thormud’s attraction, and earth responded to his fervent attention. And more often than not, earth gave up its secrets to the dwarf.

  Earth accepted all and tolerated all; earth observed all that occurred on or within its embrace. To those who knew the language of stone, earth poured out its knowledge in a slow, steady stream. Because so few had the patience to bother learning the deliberate arts of geomancy, Thormud often found his solicitations were answered energetically, almost eagerly, as if stone relished its rare opportunity to communicate.

  The geomancer saw lines of connection running below the ground, lines of attraction and correlation, currents that passed telluric energy to all points of the world-sphere. He followed the lines south and east, and was slightly surprised when his trace pushed far beyond his past attempts. The disturbances which had turned to gibberish all his previous attempts to understand the earth’s vision remained, but this time, he managed to slide between the disruptive waves and push forward.

  An image flashed behind Thormud’s eyes—a body of water shining like molten gold. The golden water ran up to a rocky coast. Inland from the coast, the ramparts of mountains unfamiliar to the dwarf darkened the sky, but these were not the focus of the insight. The vision concentrated onto a single, lonely feature close to the shore, like a lone tooth of a predator, a vicious animal’s incisor cast in stone. The slender peak towered several miles above the surrounding lands. Thormud’s ex
pertise identified the peak as natural, but as the vision narrowed further, bringing him closer and closer, he spied signs of occupation: a narrow road winding up the peak, tailing beds in haphazard order, and pools of murky, tainted water.

  The peak housed a mine—one that had been in use for years, by the size of the tailing beds …

  Thormud’s vision plunged into the side of the peak. A moment of jagged dislocation suffused him, as if he pierced a void far greater than the mountain could contain. He was overcome by white lights, threads of connection between vast spaces, and an empty feeling in his stomach as he flailed madly for purchase and understanding.

  Then another jerk of true dislocation—he could not tell in which direction his sight was wrenched. When his vision steadied, the geomancer glimpsed a plain that shimmered under harsh sunlight. Vast dunes of sand rolled in paralyzed majesty to every horizon. All was silent and unmoving, bright and glaring, and empty. Then Thormud saw something lurking on the horizon. Something slender as a tower, something dark—something unnatural. Was it the spire of some great fortress unglimpsed by history? Or was it a shard of some alien reality standing unnaturally tall and narrow, a splinter in the world’s flesh?

  His vision closed on the spire. Its edges shimmered and flashed every color in the sunlight, but at the center, there was no color—it was black, a pure darkness whose paucity of light was a presence unto itself. The earth whispered a name into Thormud’s mind: Pandorym.

  With the name, Thormud understood that the splinter sapped the earth and pained it. The splinter was the source of the geomancer’s discomfiture.

  But where was it? His knowledge of place and location had scrambled during the last dislocation. If he wanted …

  Something in the dark splinter looked back at Thormud.

  Kiril idly flipped stones down the side of the bluff. Most of the stones bounced and slid into a gully. The elf pondered the stars above, those that weren’t drowned out by the vast light of the moon. They were like—yet unlike—the constellations from her childhood. And as a young adult, when she took the Cerulean Oath and met her soul mate in the citadel called Stardeep, her home was situated in an enchanted forest above which yet another wholly different set of constellations wheeled.

  Not even the positions of the stars were a constant in her life, she mused.

  She picked up another stone and paused. She hadn’t heard the dwarf speak for a suspiciously long time.

  Xet cawed out in alarm, an amazingly lifelike yowl.

  Kiril whirled and looked for Thormud. He lay in his circle, thrashing. Moonlight revealed blood oozing from the dwarf’s wide but unseeing eyes. Kiril’s stream of invectives propelled her toward her prone employer. Xet fluttered ineffectually from its perch on a boulder, squeaking and chiming.

  Thormud routinely impressed upon her the importance of not interrupting him while he remained in earthen communion within one of his circles. He’d noted that breaking the periphery could be dangerous.

  Stuff that.

  The elf, running hard, dived into the circle, hands stretched wide. Luminescence, violet and violent, stabbed at her eyes, and a scream of fury—not her own nor the dwarf’s—broke upon her ears. Undeterred, she tucked and tumbled, grabbed Thormud’s limp form in mid-roll, and allowed her momentum to carry them both out of the circle.

  The moment she passed the boundary, the escalating scream ceased. The quiet of the night was like a balm, and a cool breeze caressed Kiril’s face. She rolled Thormud over. The dwarf still breathed, and his eyes were coming back into focus. He groaned.

  The elf yelled into his face, “What in the name of the nine were you doing?”

  The dwarf shook his head and mumbled something inaudible.

  “What was that scream?” Kiril demanded.

  “Something … followed me,” the dwarf croaked. He raised a trembling hand and pointed.

  The swordswoman snapped her gaze back to the circle, or where the circle had been. Darkness cloaked the bluff top, too deep even for her elf eyes to pierce.

  Kiril scrambled to her feet. “Great. Things keep coming up roses,” she murmured, palming her dagger.

  Two fiery violet eyes blinked open from within the unnatural night. The darkness coalesced, and a presence was revealed—a shrouded, half-real visage roughly human in outline. Kiril couldn’t tell whether it was dressed in white robes or if its flesh was just naturally loose and flowing. Free-floating sigils pulsed a pale, dangerous light, slowly orbiting the creature. The glyphs seemed to promise death and severance, but severance of what, Kiril didn’t want to pursue.

  She flung her dagger. It flew with deadly accuracy, transfixing the creature between the eyes.

  Or it would have, if the creature’s flesh hadn’t parted like mist and completely ignored the blade of elven steel. The dagger clattered on the rocks somewhere on the other side of the bluff.

  “Blood!” spat Kiril.

  The dwarf staggered to his feet, one white, bloodless hand still tightly gripping his selenite rod. Thormud pointed the rod at the earth where the creature stood. The ground trembled, but one of the free-floating glyphs surrounding the creature flashed like a shooting star. Thormud screamed, dropped his rod, and clutched his head. The temblor faded.

  “My earth sense!” wailed the dwarf. “I can’t hear the earth! Where is it?”

  The half-material newcomer advanced down the slope in streaming folds of translucent flesh and unfixed symbols. The dwarf fell upon the ground he’d just vacated. Thormud’s crystal familiar turned wing and flapped straight away across the plain, pealing a random series of plaintive notes.

  It was up to Kiril Duskmourn to quell the threat.

  The elf squared her shoulders and pulled Angul free of his sheath.

  Clarity flashed over Kiril like a sunrise, its brilliance rolling in all directions, chasing away every shadow, every shade of gray, every doubt, and every worry. Warmth, peace, and freedom from uncertainty and skepticism suffused her. The Blade Cerulean burned triumphantly in her welcoming grip, its color tinged the brilliant blue that only stars could achieve. She wondered anew why she didn’t draw the blade more often. It was like coming home.

  The distractions that made moral judgments difficult burned away in the glorious certitude that pulsed from Angul. There was right and there was wrong—no extenuating circumstances, no means to an end, and no second chances.

  Not even for Angul’s wielder.

  As always, the blade singed her hands and sent a thread of agony through her mind. The pain was her punishment for the alcohol blurring her brain and thinning her blood. If she were not the wielder and sole gateway through which Angul could affect the world, her punishment would have been harsher. But it was this pain, and the toxic effects of the whisky, that allowed Kiril to retain the least thread of herself when she had Angul in hand.

  Sometimes.

  Kiril raised the Blade Cerulean, and his white light doubled, then redoubled again, shedding light like the day in all directions. Her lips moved, but Angul’s words formed in her mouth. Angul said, “We do not suffer abominations.”

  In the light of the blade’s radiance, the creature was undeterred and continued its advance. One of the intruder’s free-floating glyphs flared purple and darted forward, striking Kiril.

  It struck her with the force of an iron mallet, then shattered, used up. But Angul helped her bear the pain stoically and without flinching. The creature was wrong, and would be dealt with. Its sorcerous attacks couldn’t be allowed to deter justice.

  The elf charged, bringing her blade around to slice the creature’s head from its shoulders. One of the floating sigils interposed itself and flared on contact with Angul’s steel. The sigil shattered, but in so doing, Kiril’s blow was blocked.

  Kiril counted ten more floating sigils. Her strategy was simple. She would target each sigil individually, until she had destroyed every last one of the intruder’s protective glyphs. Then she would slay it, without hindrance.


  The elf set to work, hacking at the creature’s floating glyphs even as it flowed forward to threaten the insensate dwarf. Each of Kiril’s swings smashed another defending sigil, and the air was aglow with violet motes and crunching sounds akin to plates being shattered on the floor, one after another.

  A remote voice clamored for Kiril’s attention. It was a wisp, a filament, but she was able to discern its message: She would not be able to destroy all the sigils before the creature fell atop Thormud. What of it? The creature was an abomination, and had to be destroyed. To take any other action jeopardized doing what was right. Besides, the dwarf had much to answer for, and in other circumstances might face Angul’s wrath. It did not concern anyone …

  The faint voice yelled, No! Listen, you motherless-son-of-steel! I am the wielder—you are the blade!

  Are you sure? Kiril felt like herself, only better, righteous, and perfect in her resolve …

  The portion of Kiril that was concerned with Thormud’s welfare gathered into a knot, then launched itself against Angul’s surety of purpose. If Thormud were attacked in his defenseless state—there would be consequences.

  Consequences? What of it? Let us not worry. We do what is right, no matter. Too much thinking is an excuse to avoid doing what must be done!

  Damn it, consequences matter! Grunting with effort against her own misfiring muscles, she feinted with the blade at a sigil, but at the last moment deflected her thrust so that the shining length of steel sliced deeply into the creature. The Blade Cerulean found solid, yielding flesh in what had seemed a completely immaterial foe.

  The creature screeched. Angul had hurt it—the blade’s blessed hunger found vulnerable flesh even in ghostly tissue. The intruder trained its fiery eyes on her, forgetting its goal of reaching the dwarf.

  All but one of the sigils shot at her, and flensed her skin like tiny knives.

  Kiril knew pain, then pain redoubled. The shock jerked Kiril back to her right mind, even as smoke curled up from her skin in numerous spots where she’d been struck. Angul’s unwavering holy conviction kept her on her feet, barely. The sword was only as effective as his wielder—he spent some of his hoarded power to send a healing current through her limbs. The intruding creature turned and flowed back toward the bluff top, where inviolate darkness remained. With only a single floating glyph, which looked more like a chunk of purple crystal than a glyph, it was defenseless and declawed.