He had to release some of the power in his barrier. Bethal staggered forward, which allowed him to draw even more energy from the source. He shoved it forward, disrupting the angulated pattern that she formed.
He held onto it and then tried something else.
He could cut through those lines.
Sam pushed with the remainder of the barrier and slammed the door closed.
Once inside, he wrapped some of the barrier around the doors. It wouldn’t hold for long. Bethal would figure out what he had done and would force her way through.
All he needed was one of the lanterns. Even though Bethal could use the vrandal against him, he needed the lanterns to reach Havash and Chasten.
Sam backed away from the door, holding the barrier up against it. Even as he moved backward, he could maintain the position of his barrier. He didn’t know if he could do this for long, but he could feel that there was something more here. There was power—a residual sense, almost as if there had been an attack here.
He glanced behind him. There was a figure lying on the floor.
This was the room Bethal had come out of. Who else had been here?
Sam continued toward the fallen form, holding on to the barrier, which was growing more difficult to do. He was sure he didn’t have much time before Bethal crashed into the room, and he wouldn’t have enough strength to fight what she would do to him.
He decided to ignore the figure for now, and he instead turned toward a lantern and slipped the vrandal onto his hand, which was immediately accompanied by a burning sensation. Sam didn’t know if he would have to fight through that discomfort while trying to use the vrandal.
He knew the concept behind what was involved in accessing the lanterns. It was a matter of drawing upon the source, using that in a particular pattern that he had observed Lilith using, and from there, he had to hope he could try to reach anyone who opposed the Nighlan. It didn’t have to be those within the Academy, though he still wanted to reach them so that they knew he was alive. It might be better if he called to someone like Daven or Luthian, who had experience facing the Nighlan.
As he connected to the vrandal, using the power of the source, he pushed it away from himself and into the lanterns using a pattern that he had seen Lilith doing.
The green light that pulsed out of it struck one of the nearest lanterns. He watched the lantern and continued to access the power within himself. He could feel that energy and how power was flowing, believing that there would be something he could do.
“Hello?” His voice sounded hollow. Weak. “If there’s anyone there, I need help.”
Sam continued to push power out through the vrandal, letting it pour into the lantern. There was a burning sensation within him as he did, and he recognized the influence from outside the door. Bethal was using some aspect of her power to influence his connection to the vrandal.
The pale white light that streamed through the door was connected to the device. Somehow, she had known the moment he had put it on. Had she created some sort of bond to it?
Sam glanced down at the vrandal, and he slipped it off his hand again. He pulled upon the sense of the source and used a small stream of power to separate the strand that had connected to the vrandal. Was it successful?
He braced himself and slipped the vrandal back on, then called power through it. There was no burning, no pain. There was nothing other than what he normally felt. The pulsing within his hand. The deep green light that emanated from it.
It had worked.
Sam focused on the power within it and pushed more power toward the lantern. “I need help. I know you can hear me. I don’t know who’s out there, but I need help.”
Pressure continued to build against the door. He could no longer see the strands of power the same way he could from the other side of the door. He had no idea how to prevent her from succeeding. Sam could feel the barrier bulging again. Bethal was going to find her way in.
He backed into the room, moving toward the center of it. The lanterns created a ring around him. What if he was targeting the wrong lantern? He pushed out with the source, using the vrandal, and angulated the power using techniques he had long ago memorized but had never expected to utilize. He pushed that power into each of the lanterns. As he did, he couldn’t help but think that all of this was simply delaying the inevitable.
Sam swept his gaze around the room again, and it fell on the person lying on the floor. Now he could see the black hair that spilled around them.
Lilith.
Chapter Eighteen
Sam hurried over to Lilith, despite the pressure building against him. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to hold back the pressure, but he needed to see what had happened to her.
He rolled her onto her side, and a deep bruise had already formed on her cheek. Dried blood was caked around her nostrils. Sam let out a sigh of relief as she breathed in and out.
The pressure against the barrier made it difficult for him to focus on anything else. He looked over at the door. What could he do? He could feel the power that he was pushing against but couldn’t see anything within it. What if he could feel it instead?
First, he would have to remove the pressure against him so he could solidify the barrier. Sam slipped the vrandal off his hand, put it away, and approached the door. As he neared it, he found that it was easier to hold on to the barrier. Distance made it harder—that was good for him to know.
He thought about the connection to the source. Sam still had that connection within him, but he could feel how it had started to shift after Bethal’s attack. There was still a depth of power within him, but some aspect of it had changed. Sam wasn’t entirely sure what it was, only that he could feel that, and the energy, and that he had changed.
As the thunder rumbled outside, he was still aware of that power. He could feel the energy of the lightning flashes, even if he couldn’t see them. Why would that be? Maybe he’d become attuned to the power that was there. His time being blind had changed how he was able to sense and use magic, however brief that experience had ultimately been.
The power thundered around him, and each time it did, he could feel the buildup of energy through him. Through the source.
That was what Sam had to connect to. The energy rumbled, filling him. He focused on that, letting his understanding of the power come to him. He tried not to think of anything else—not on the power that was pressing against the barrier, not on the vrandal in his pocket, and not even on Lilith.
All he focused on was the power outside that connected to him. The energy continued to build. Sam could feel the way the pulsing power thrummed within him.
The source surged.
Then he turned back toward the door.
Using what he could of the connection to the source, he drew the power out and let the barrier reform in full. It connected to the door, sealing it closed.
What he needed was to figure out what Bethal tried against him. He might be able to feel it, but he couldn’t see it, although Sam wasn’t sure that he needed to see it. With his connection, he might be able to use what he could feel.
Closing his eyes, he thought about the power and focused on what he could of it. He let that energy come to him by holding on to that, and he slowly began to feel aspects of it. At first, what he could detect was vague, little more than the pressure that continued against his barrier.
Gradually, that changed. There was something else within it. There was not only power but the strands of power.
He could practically feel the way that angulation was performed. He had been able to cut through it once before, though it was mostly a disruption.
What he wished that he could do would be to use something similar, splitting that power off in a way that would permit him to have the same ability with angulation. It might grant him the potential to do far more with the source. As it was, the almanac taught him to push power out from himself using a wide band of energy. It was one of the earliest lesso
ns, though. He had to believe there was a way of drawing upon more power. As he focused, though, he could feel what she was doing.
Thunder rumbled outside. Surprisingly, there was some aspect to that thunder that connected him to something greater. It was almost as if the thunder, and the storm, and the power that was here, built within him alongside the storm.
Sam used that strengthened power to slide between her angulation.
It works for a moment, but that was all he needed.
He called upon more energy of the source and slammed back toward her. Then he created a seal around her, hoping to create a barrier to prevent her from pushing angulated power out from her. It held.
How long would it continue to hold, though?
He turned away and headed back toward Lilith. He crouched next to her. Unconscious as she was, there was none of the danger within her.
He touched her shoulder, shaking her slightly. Lilith moaned, but she didn’t come around.
Pressure against the door continued to build. Either somebody else was out there, or Bethal had recovered—and he couldn’t tell whether the seal he’d placed around her was still holding.
What would have happened had he not knocked out the men who were chasing him? Maybe they would have been able to fight Bethal. Maybe they would have been able to help him. But he couldn’t think like that. He needed to focus on getting out of here, to wake Lilith.
Sam shook her again. “Wake up.”
She continued to moan.
The power building against the door intensified. Sam didn’t have much time. He got to his feet and glanced at the lanterns. He slipped on the vrandal and began to focus on it. This time, rather than simply trying to trigger the vrandal the way he had before, he used the source.
The vrandal wasn’t vibrating for him, though he wasn’t sure that he needed to. At this point, the only thing that he thought he might really need would be access to the source, but he had no idea if he would even make a difference when it came to stopping the Nighlan. He didn’t have enough understanding of that power, nor did he have enough knowledge about how to deflect it. He needed Lilith.
He might’ve spent considerable time working through the almanac, but it had been enough to help him find the answers that he knew were there. He just didn’t have the time to work through the almanac and piece together the aspects that he needed to know. Lilith would have to teach him, but she had to wake up first in order for her to do that.
And he had to do so quickly. The Nighlan were coming for this place. There was another seal here. Another lock.
“I need you to get up,” he said, motioning to her. He tried to tap on her shoulders, her forehead, drawing upon the energy of the vrandal, thinking that the power of the source that he might be able to summon would help him access something more. It didn’t.
She moaned again.
Behind him, he could feel the energy building.
“Lilith,” he said.
She blinked open her eyes.
“There you are,” he said. “I need your help. The tower is under attack. The Nighlan are coming. I’ve managed to stop some of them—”
Lilith shifted, getting to her feet slowly, though she had a hard time doing so. She held her head, rubbing her temple.
“What do you mean that you stopped them?”
“I stopped some of the Nighlan,” Sam said. “You had summoned your halls.”
“They penetrated that deeply?”
Sam frowned at her. “You thought they only reached this point?”
“I didn’t know if they managed to breach the lanterns,” she said. “We’ve been trying to prevent their access to it, but they are skilled.” Then she shook her head again. “I’m not going to be of much use,” she said.” Not until I can reach the source more effectively.”
“I don’t think we have that kind of time,” Sam said. “I can feel the power they are using.”
He turned toward the door, and even though he couldn’t see what was happening on the other side of it, he could definitely feel it.
“How can you feel it?” she asked.
He glanced over to her and realized that he hadn’t told her about that aspect of his ability. Not yet.
Did he want to reveal it to her?
There were some things he thought that he wanted to keep to himself, but if it would help them escape the Nighlan attack, maybe he needed to open up more to her.
“I was in the Academy, and I lost my attachment to the vrandal for a little while. I was blinded. It took healing to restore my eyesight, but in the time that I was blinded, I learned how to detect power used around me.” He nodded to the door. “I can feel the arcane arts out there. I don’t know how many are there, though.”
Maybe just Bethal, but he worried that it was more than just that.
How many others were out there? How many others did he have to worry might reach them, attack, and potentially destroy them?
How many others do I have to fight?
“You shouldn’t be able to feel it,” Lilith said.
“And I probably shouldn’t be able to see it, either, but I can. It’s another side effect, I think.” Then again, he had been able to see the arcane arts for as long as he could remember. He wasn’t sure why, only that he was always aware of it.
“Maybe I was wrong about you,” she said.
“How so?”
She couldn’t answer.
There came a burst from inside the door, a bulging pressure and power, and within that pressure, the buildup of energy continued, starting to overwhelm the energy that he could feel.
“Any suggestions?”
“Are you proficient with the source?”
“I’ve been trying to become more proficient with it, especially as you made it quite clear that I needed to understand what it is that I have to do with it, but I can’t fight like you can.” At least, the way that he assumed she could.
“Besides, the almanac was mostly defensive type of power.”
“Then you haven’t read far enough.”
Sam clutched the almanac up against him. Was there more in there for him?
Of course, there was. He had been focused on trying to use what he had read, tied up in thinking that maybe he could learn something, uncover some key, and he had, but there were more things that he could have learned. Had he spent more time, worked through the almanac further, Sam was certain that he would’ve come up with an answer.
He found Lilith standing near the seal, crouching down, and pressing on some of the symbols worked around the seal.
“Are you opening it?”
She looked up at him, frowning deeply. “I am making sure that I can add to it. I can only hope that they have not yet learned how to overwhelm this power.”
“What is this power?” Sam asked, looking at her.
She held his gaze for a moment, but then she turned her attention back, continuing to push out from the source. She was glowing.
He found himself watching, marveling at how she used the source, but noting that he could see the same bubbling energy from within her, the source, that he could see from Tara when she used the arcane arts. And much like with Tara, there were specific lines of power that an angulated out. The almanac might not refer to them as angulated power, but that was what it was. And if that was what it was, then Sam had to think that he could understand. That he could learn.
He didn’t have a chance to do anything else.
With an explosion of power, the doors to the room thundered open.
Bethal stood in the doorway, four others there with her.
Lilith looked up, flicked her wrist, and a spiraling power erupted from her, a greenish streak of energy that flowed from her fingertips and struck one of the men before he had a chance to react. He was tossed back, and he slammed his head on the stone with a sickening crunch. Blood streaked along the rock.
Sam swallowed, tearing his gaze away.
Four were left.
Lilit
h got to her feet, and she looked at Sam. “Be ready to defend yourself.”
She flicked her wrist again, and other spiraling power went streaking from her, and it struck one of the other men. He was glowing with the power of the arcane arts, and when her burst of power struck, Sam expected him to go careening backward much like the last one had, but it washed over him, almost harmlessly.
And then they rushed toward Lilith.
Sam stepped forward, and he focused on what he could of the source.
It was surprisingly tiring to use that kind of energy, so that when he called on it, he rolled it out from him, creating the barrier. He slammed it in front of the man who charged at Lilith, and the man’s face wrinkled in irritation. It took barely a moment for him to blast through Sam’s barrier, but Sam had a moment to try to form again.
Lilith used that time. He could scarcely see what she was doing but recognized that she was calling upon more power, more angulated power, than he would’ve expected her to be able to do. It formed a strange triangular pattern that crossed with another, and when it exploded outward, it struck the man on the other side of Sam’s barrier.
The man crumpled.
Lilith darted off to the side, immediately beginning to form the same crisscross power.
It left Sam dealing with Bethal.
“And here I thought that we were done,” she sneered. “I’m sure you wished that you were, but you might still be useful.”
When she started glowing, a burst of her arcane arts flowing from her, Sam reacted. He formed a barrier, sealing around himself.
He wasn’t sure how long or how well he could hold onto it, but he was determined to keep it wrapped around him as long as possible. He felt a battering of power and saw the lines that she sent streaking away from her, lines that blasted into him. Each time that they did, he braced himself, trying to ignore that power, but he could not.
She battered at him.
It was brutal, and it was effective.
Lilith fought with the other two Nighlan, and Sam realized that she was having a harder time than before. She was calling upon considerable power, and yet, even as he watched the glowing lines of power coming off of her, he realized that she could only deflect so much.
Alchemist Illusion (The Alchemist Book 3) Page 18