by Clayton Wood
And despite his immense magical power, and the influence he wielded, all he could do now was wait.
Chapter 11
Ampir closes his eyes as the slab of gray stone falling from the ceiling falls toward him, draining the last of the magic from his armor's runes and weaving strands of power into a complex knot in the center of his mind. An old pattern, one he'd learned long ago, one he'd taught to Renval.
Teleportation.
He thrusts the pattern outward, right at Torum.
The air around Torum rips, the very fabric of space and time bending to Ampir's will. The dark Weaver vanishes...then reappears behind Ampir. Torum's multilayered gravity shields intersect with Ampir's back, throwing Ampir bodily forward...and out of the path of the falling stone slab.
Torum doesn't even have time to register what has happened before the slab slams into him from above.
Ampir stumbles forward, losing his balance and falling onto his belly on the stone floor. He cries out, his shattered left shoulder and broken ribs screaming in pain. Stars float in the periphery of his vision.
He lays there in agony, his breaths coming in short gasps. Then, slowly, painfully, he rolls onto his back. He raises his head, staring at the pile of rubble where the slab had fallen...where Torum had been standing.
Two black boots protrude from the rubble.
Ampir stares at the boots, then lowers his head to the floor, closing his eyes and taking long, slow breaths. Each breath sends stabbing pains through the left side of his chest.
Focus.
He grits his teeth, then rolls back onto his belly, biting back a scream as more pain shoots through him. He spins around slowly until he's facing Torum's boots, then pushes himself onto his hands and knees. Using his good arm, he crawls forward.
Slowly, painfully, he reaches Torum's exposed legs. They're covered in a tight, black, almost woody fabric. Ampir spots a tear in that uniform at mid-shin; a jagged, pearly white shaft of broken bone protrudes through Torum's skin there. Blue light emanates from it.
Ampir pulls himself forward until he's directly over the exposed shin bone, then lowers his forehead until it is almost touching it. He pulls, feeling magic flow into his mind's eye, then redistribute to his starving skull bones. He lets them fill, knowing it will be easier to weave if they're sated.
After a few minutes, the bone is drained. Ampir redirects some of his magic into his armor's runes, feeling its incredible weight immediately vanish as its gravity fields come back online. He activates its ventilation and temperature-control runes, then fills a few runes on his gauntlets.
He needs magic. So much more magic.
Ampir reaches down, clearing large chunks of rubble from Torum's body with his right hand, shoving the heavy stone aside as if it weighs nothing. He exposes the Weaver's shattered corpse, finding islands of blue light glowing from tears in that black uniform. Slowly, methodically, he drains the magic from Torum, redirecting it to the critical runes in his armor.
Then he stands up, turning away from the Weaver. With a thought, the armor covering his left arm becomes immovable, forming a virtual cast around the broken limb. It still aches terribly, but at least it's bearable now. He glances at the pit in the ground nearby, then weaves magic, a huge hunk of rubble rising up from the floor. It floats forward until it levitates directly over the pit, lowering itself to seal Vera's final resting place.
Torum was right, he knows. It was his fault that Vera was dead. And that the Empire lay in ruins.
He gazes up at the massive hole in the ceiling, at the stars far above. With a thought, he rises through the air, passing through the hole. Above ground, he sees the vast campus of the Secula Magna spread out before him. The Great Tower is nothing more than a pile of rubble, the shattered cityscape beyond the campus covered in a thick layer of black smoke.
Ampir rises high above the ground, staring at the devastation around him, feeling numb. Millions of lives had been lost in mere hours, many of them his colleagues, a few his friends. All because of Sabin.
Ampir opens his eyes, lowering his gaze and using his visor to magnify his vision, staring at the countless blackened corpses lying in the streets. At the bodies floating in the Great River. He knows what most of them had been thinking before their deaths.
Ampir will come. Ampir will save us.
He turns his head, spotting the Behemoth in the distance, now wading across the Great River. The dark water comes only to its mid-thighs, massive waves shooting upward from each leg as they move forward through the water. The fact that the Behemoth isn't flying across the river is telling; it means that its magic capacity is limited, that it is conserving its remaining power.
Ampir flies forward toward the Behemoth, passing over the campus of the Secula Magna. He crosses the Gate shield, flying over the ruins of countless buildings, until he lands on what remains of the roof of Stridon Penitentiary. He closes his eyes, picturing Sabin's small cell back in this very prison years ago. How pathetic Sabin had looked, how utterly defeated.
I should've let him rot in there.
He stares at the Behemoth, using his visor's power to study the Behemoth. A slight vibration buzzes the back of his head, and he turns to see a black-cloaked Weaver descending through the air toward him. Like Torum, he is bald, with tattoos on his face and skull. Multi-layered gravity shields surround him.
Ampir just stands there, staring at the Weaver as his feet touch down on the roof, his black cloak rippling in the wind. The Weaver stares back.
“Where's...” he begins.
Ampir reaches out with his good hand, the runes on his gauntlet flashing bright blue. The Weaver's head lurches forward, flying toward Ampir's open palm. Ampir's hand and arm go right through the Weaver's shields, and Ampir grips the man's face, a burst of white light shooting from his palm.
The Weaver's head disintegrates, his body falling with a thump at Ampir's feet.
Ampir kneels down before the headless corpse, leaning over until his forehead is inches from the stump of its neck. He closes his eyes, pulling magic from its bones, feeling his mind's eye fill with power.
Minutes later, when he's had his fill, Ampir stands, turning to face the Behemoth in the distance. Slowly, methodically, he fills his armor's runes, studying the monstrous machine as it finishes crossing the Great River miles from where he stands. A pale white spotlight shoots outward from its lone eye, scanning the buildings in the other half of the city beyond the River. A burst of green light shoots outward, reducing several buildings to red-hot rubble.
I started this.
He uses up the last of the magic he'd taken from the Weaver, his armor still only filled to a fraction of its full power. Hopefully it will be enough.
Now I'm going to end it.
* * *
Kyle opened his eyes.
He squinted against a bright light shining on him, putting a hand between his face and the offending rays. He groaned, his shoulder aching with the movement. Slowly, it came back to him...traveling with Master Banar back to the Tower. Tumbling to the ground. Master Banar's...
Kyle squeezed his eyes shut, tears dripping down his cheeks. He'd known the man for only an hour or two, yet even in that short span of time, he'd grown fond of the Runic instructor.
Then he felt a spike of fear in his belly, a horrible, sickening hopelessness coming over him.
The Dead Man.
Kyle forced the fear away, opening his eyes and blinking against the light. He was in a rectangular room, with metallic walls, ceiling, and floor. There were slit-like windows on the sides, letting in narrow beams of light. He was sitting up against one side-wall, a small rectangle of white gauze-like material laying on the ground beside him.
The room looked familiar somehow.
He braced his hands against the cool metallic floor, ignoring the pain in his shoulder as he pushed himself to his feet. Swaying a little, he walked to the narrow, horizontal window in front of him, peering out. He saw only blue light, nothin
g more. Turning away from the window, he noticed a man slumped against the wall.
Kyle froze.
The man was dressed in a simple white shirt and gray pants, his biceps bulging out of his short sleeves, the sinews of his forearms clearly visible underneath his tanned skin. His feet were bare, the calloused soles caked with dirt. He was asleep – or worse – his hands bound in front of him with metal cuffs. Kyle frowned, not recognizing the man...at first. Then he felt his heart skip a beat.
“Darius!” he shouted, running to the bodyguard. He grabbed the man's broad shoulders, shaking them. “Darius!” he repeated, shaking harder. The bodyguard said nothing, his eyes remaining closed. Kyle felt a pang of fear, and reached for Darius's neck, feeling for a pulse at his carotid. Kyle's parents, both emergency room doctors, had showed him how to do this years ago. To Kyle's relief, he felt a slow, steady pulse there. Darius was alive!
Kyle shook Darius again...but it was no use. He stood up, looking around. Where were they? In a prison cell? He walked up to the slit-like window above Darius's head, peering out. He saw more blue, as before, but this time he spotted a faint wisp of white all the way to the left. He frowned, staring at that wisp, realizing that it was moving slowly, from left to right in his field of view. He blinked, then stared at it again; sure enough, it was still moving.
Then it came to him...that wisp was a cloud.
Kyle spun about, taking in the four metallic walls, the narrow windows. He suddenly realized why this room had seemed so familiar earlier. It wasn't a room at all...it was a carriage. A flying carriage.
Kyle stepped back from the window, a chill running through him. He'd flown in a similar carriage after the Dead Man had defeated Kalibar at Crescent Lake...the carriage that had taken them to the Arena.
He stood on his tip-toes, trying to look as far downward through the narrow window as possible. Sure enough, he saw treetops below the sea of blue, moving slowly in the distance. He felt his knees weaken, and he sat down with a thump, despair coming over him. After everything he'd been through – the harrowing escape from the Arena, nearly dying at the feet of the Dire Lurker, and the final battle with the Dead Man – he'd thought that the whole experience had been far behind him. Now he knew that his escape had been temporary...a cruel taste of freedom before returning to the depths of Hell.
Kyle slumped over, burying his head in his hands. He was doomed to live underground, to be viciously and systematically molded into a servant of the Dead Man's dark lord. But this time, Ariana wouldn't be there. Kalibar wouldn't come to save him. He would be utterly alone.
Wait...
He looking up to see Darius there, still fast asleep against the wall. No, he wasn't alone...not yet. He felt a glimmer of hope, knowing that if he could just get the bodyguard to wake up, the man would know what to do. He always seemed to know what to do, after all. Kyle got to his feet, walking up to the bodyguard and grabbing his shoulders again.
“Wake up!” he shouted, shaking Darius. No response. Kyle hesitated, then raised his hand until it hovered over Darius's face. He held it there, knowing that he had to wake Darius up somehow...but slapping the man in the face was something he just couldn't bring himself to do. Then he remembered when he'd first met Darius, how the man had yanked him out of his chair, treating him like a mutt. How he'd called Kyle useless, and laughed when he'd nearly killed himself flying through Kalibar's gravity shield.
Kyle swung his arm, slapping Darius full across the face.
Then he shrieked, launching himself backward against the opposite wall. He grabbed his right hand, shocked at the pain lancing through his palm. He always figured the bodyguard had a thick skull, but that hurt! He shook his hand, massaging it gingerly. Then he stared nervously at Darius, half-expecting the man to jump up and give Kyle a royal beat-down. But Darius hadn't so much as flinched.
Suddenly, the carriage tilted, nosing downward. Kyle braced himself against one wall, feeling his stomach flip. He turned to look out the window, seeing the carriage dip below the treetops.
Kyle knew what the descent signified. It was the end of his flight, and the beginning of his trip into the bowels of the earth.
The carriage leveled off, winding through the forest, until the trees became more sparse. Then it dipped downward again, very gently, until it leveled out once more, and stopped.
Kyle backed up against the front wall of the carriage, facing the double-doors on the opposite side. Then he turned to Darius, sprinting to his side and grabbing his wrist. He pulled on it, straining to move the burly bodyguard, but the man was impossibly heavy...he didn't budge an inch. Kyle tried again, pulling as hard as he could, leaning backward. Darius slid toward Kyle, then rolled onto his side, his head slamming into the metal floor below with a dull thud. Kyle cringed, letting go of Darius's wrist and backing up against the front wall again. But not even that woke the bodyguard.
Kyle felt a subtle buzzing in the air, the familiar sensation of magic being woven. Suddenly, the rear doors of the carriage swung open, bright sunlight bursting into the carriage, making Kyle's eyes sting. He squinted, pressing his back against the cool metal wall. A tall, bald-headed man in a red shirt and pants stood beyond the double-doors. The man wore a black sash with a green diamond in the center, the uniform of a Death Weaver.
“Get out,” the man growled. Without warning, he lunged forward, grabbing Kyle's wrist and yanking him out of the carriage. Kyle stumbled onto the rocky ground beyond, nearly falling onto his face. He righted himself, looking around. In front of him stood the sheer vertical face of a mountain, its tall peak hidden in dense clouds far above their heads. A huge entrance had been cut into the face of the rock wall before them, some twenty feet wide and ten feet tall.
“Wake the man,” a deep voice commanded. The bald Death Weaver let go of Kyle's wrist at once, walking back toward the carriage behind Kyle. Kyle turned about, realizing that there were over a dozen other carriages hovering inches above the ground behind the one he'd emerged from. All of them, save for the one he'd come from, were empty. He turned forward again, and nearly jumped; the Dead Man stood before him.
“Are you hurt?” the dark Weaver asked, gesturing toward Kyle's left shoulder – the one he'd smacked into the ground when he'd fallen earlier. Kyle shook his head mutely, then glanced back at the carriage. The bald Death Weaver was inside, kneeling over Darius's motionless body.
“Your friend will be awake soon enough,” the Dead Man promised. “You've both been sleeping since yesterday,” he added. Kyle blinked, wondering how he'd managed to sleep for so long. The bald Death Weaver reached under Darius's shirt, peeling something thin and white from his chest. It was a white gossamer square, almost translucent, and rippled in the warm breeze. It was, Kyle realized, identical to the one he'd seen at his feet when he'd woken up earlier. It had to be dreamweaver silk, woven by the deadly dreamweaver spider; the substance could make its victims sleep indefinitely.
The Death Weaver threw the silk patch aside quickly, stifling a yawn as he did so, then grabbed Darius's arm, pulling upward. The bodyguard didn't budge.
The Death Weaver stood back, then placed both of his hands under Darius's armpits, bending his knees, then hauling the bodyguard upward. The veins on the Weaver's forehead bulged as he strained, managing with great difficulty to lift Darius into a sitting position against the wall. The Dead Man watched for a few moments, then sighed.
“Lift him with magic, Ethan,” he instructed. The bald man nodded, but before he could comply, Darius's eyelids fluttered open, and he groaned, bringing his hand to his right temple.
“Get up,” the bald Weaver – Ethan – ordered, kicking Darius in the hip with one booted foot. Darius turned his piercing blue eyes on the man, then looked out of the carriage at Kyle.
“I said get up!” Ethan yelled. Darius glanced back at the Death Weaver.
“You need a nap,” he grumbled, rising to his feet in one fluid motion. He glanced down at the metal shackles around his wrists, then a
t Kyle and the Dead Man standing beyond. Ethan shoved Darius forward, or tried to; Darius twisted his shoulder forward at the last minute, causing Ethan to stumble forward into him. Then Darius snapped his shoulder backward, catching the Death Weaver square in the jaw with it.
The man dropped like a stone.
The Dead Man glanced down at the fallen Ethan, then looked back at Darius.
“Join us,” the Dead Man ordered. Then he shifted his gaze to Kyle. “Come,” he ordered, extending a pale hand. Kyle glanced at it, then back at the Dead Man's black, sunken eyes. Despite every fiber of his being screaming for him to obey, knowing what might happen to Darius if he didn't, he couldn't move. His mind would not let him go forward into the cavern, to that underground prison.
“We both have...unpleasant memories to face,” the Dead Man murmured. “I assure you that mine are harder to bear.” His jawline rippled. “He took everything from me.”
Kyle lowered his gaze, swallowing in a dry throat. He glanced at the Dead man's hands, noticing that the left hand was different than the right; the fingers were longer, the skin slightly darker. He pictured the Dead Man as he had last seen him, his feet crushed by Kalibar's magic, his left arm missing, the left side of his face blackened and charred. Kyle looked up at the Dead Man's face, at the white scars spreading like pearly fingers across his left temple. He wondered what dark power had revived the Dead Man, breathing life back into his shattered body.
“We will face our demons,” the Dead Man stated, “...and our fates.” He gripped Kyle's shoulder with his icy fingers, then turned toward the huge cavern opening, gliding forward silently, his boots levitating inches above the ground. He pulled Kyle with him. Kyle stumbled forward, then matched the Dead Man's pace. He glanced back, seeing Darius step out of the carriage, following close behind. In this way, they made their way toward the cavern together, until the rocky ceiling blotted out the sun above, the cave's shadows swallowing them whole.