Shattering Earth: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Magic of Nasci Book 4)

by DM Fike

I sucked the D batteries of lightning and let it overwhelm my tired pithways. With so much energy coursing through my veins untamed, I couldn’t really control it. It churned like primordial soup in my body, a mini Big Bang about to explode. It drowned all my senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, and even taste. I became a blank slate of electricity.

  I didn’t have the ability to warn anyone. I simply forced the lightning out toward Rafe with all the grief and fury I could muster.

  A lightning blast stronger than anything I’d ever released struck so violently that it bathed the mountainside in a throbbing bright white. The brunt of it hit Rafe, but branches of it arched around him, striking other targets: the golems, Guntram, the Oracle, and even the lava dome itself. Some of it even rebounded back into me, which I swatted back like a pro tennis player at Rafe. I didn’t stop until the last spark of electricity faded from my body.

  The aftermath of such a powerful strike leaves you shaken, to say the least. Everything tingled, from my spleen on outward. The world slowly came back into focus: the jagged landscape, the sharp chill in the air, the ringing silence. No one—not the Oracle, Guntram, nor Rafe—remained upright, each crumpled in bundles where I last saw them. The golems had vanished along with the Oracle’s barrier, revealing the lava dome in its full pulsating glory.

  I rushed over to Guntram first, his head hidden underneath his cloak. I pushed it away to reveal his unconscious face.

  “Guntram?” Wet drops splashed onto his cheeks. I realized they were my tears. “Please be okay.”

  He didn’t stir, so I searched for a pulse. The steady rhythm of blood underneath his skin eased my nausea, as did the breath flowing in and out of his slightly parted lips. His facial hair and clothes had been singed, and he had some angry burns on his hands, but otherwise, he looked okay.

  “What in the name of Nasci happened here?”

  I lifted my head to find a furious Tabitha and huffing Darby climb up over the ledge toward us.

  “It’s over!” I called as she stalked toward me. “Rafe’s out cold.”

  Out of nowhere, a seething Tabitha sent the rocks underneath my boots rolling. Darby yipped as I fell to the ground, gasping. Tabitha responded by pinning my chest down with her bare foot.

  “How do you know that name?” she demanded. “After binding a shepherd, we vow never to speak their name ever again.”

  Uh oh. I couldn’t come up with an excuse on the fly. “I-I…”

  Tabitha leaned so close over me that she blocked out the sun, the whites of her eyes the only bright spot amid the shadow of her hair. “You’re part of his little scheme, aren’t you?”

  “No!”

  That, of course, sounded like I was. Tabitha grabbed me by the throat and pulled me upward. Sputtering, I was forced to stand or choke under her grasp.

  “Don’t lie to me, haggard.” Her free hand swept over the scene, honing in on the prone Oracle, who suddenly looked as ancient as her age. “Did you do this?”

  I realized how bad it looked with everyone else but me unconscious. “Yes, but—”

  I couldn’t finish as Tabitha squeezed even tighter. “You knocked out the Oracle?”

  As I squirmed to get free of Tabitha, I could hear Darby’s hesitant voice. “I don’t think Ina meant to—”

  “Stay out of this!” Tabitha threw her head to the side.

  But the distraction was enough for me to land a solid kick on Tabitha’s thigh. She groaned and relinquished her grip so I could lumber away.

  Tabitha immediately spread her own legs into a sigil stance, hands at the ready. “I always knew you were the enemy.”

  A mocking voice sliced between us. “You never did like anyone who bent the rules after Phineas, did you, Tabitha?”

  We all froze and turned back toward the dome. Whereas moments ago, Rafe had seemed asleep for the long haul, he now had one hand directly plunged into a lava stream. His entire arm glowed with its power, illuminating him up to the elbow as it churned.

  Tabitha twisted so she could watch both me and Rafe. “Get away from Nasci’s lifeblood!”

  He tossed Tabitha a horrible smile, all teeth and sick joy. “Or what? You’ll kill me? Like you killed that fenrir but only after you let it suck on your eyas’s marrow?”

  An explosion of earth shot up from her feet without a sigil, large rocks flinging toward Rafe. “You shut your filthy mouth!” she screamed.

  I thought for sure the rocks would smash the idiot’s head in, but instead, they disintegrated into dust as they approached him.

  “Tsk, tsk,” he chided. “You can’t fight Nasci with her own power.”

  Darby paled with a shriek, but Tabitha merely sprung forward. “Then I’ll beat you with my bare hands!”

  Tabitha flew upwards in a gust of air pith and came down, fisted hand ready to strike. Instead of connecting with Rafe’s skull, though, it met a sudden wall of water that sprung from out of nowhere. It encased her in its watery grip and flung her away like a rag doll, her limbs askew as she headed back toward us. If it wasn’t for Darby’s quick counter air cushion, Tabitha probably would have been knocked out cold with the others. Even so, she coughed and sputtered in a daze.

  Rafe plunged a second hand into a river of lava, his entire body now glowing with its strange pith. “It’s over!” he cried in triumph. “No one, not even the Oracle herself, can stop me from destroying the filth that is humanity!”

  Given how easily he’d tossed Tabitha aside, I didn’t doubt it. I bit my lip so hard I could taste blood in my mouth. A direct attack wouldn’t do anything, but there had to be something we could do.

  Darby threw an arm around her augur’s shoulders to help her stand. “Tabitha?”

  “We must separate him from the dome.” Tabitha paused to cough. “Any sigils we use against him will be useless with Nasci’s essence flowing directly through him.”

  An idea lodged in my brain. “Then we absorb it out of him. Like the golems.”

  Tabitha snorted. “At best, that would destroy your pithways. Worst case scenario, it will kill you on contact. No shepherd of Nasci can drink of her essence without consequence.”

  Initially I accepted that. I didn’t have a death wish. But then I considered the alternative. Watching people die because I’d helped this lunatic. I couldn’t do that. And besides, I was going to be bound after this anyway.

  I slapped on my bravest smile for Tabitha and Darby. “Good thing I’m an optimist.”

  I blocked out their yells of protest as I sprinted toward Rafe, his skin like the magma itself as he absorbed the dome’s energy. He tilted his head to acknowledge my approach, eyes glowing like embers.

  “I really believed you were different, Ina,” he said, his voice deep like a devil’s.

  “I’m not a sick bastard like you. I don’t murder people because I don’t agree with what they’re doing.”

  “Then you abandon Nasci! And how are you going to stop me now, lightning shepherd? With your singular talent?”

  I skidded to a stop several yards away from him. “I’m fresh out of batteries.”

  He laughed. “Then what? A fire stream, maybe? Wall of water? What can you possibly do to me?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “The same thing you taught me to do, Rafe. I’m going to suck the pith straight out of you.”

  And I latched onto his pithways and yanked.

  None of my previous golem battles could have prepared me for this. Sure, I’d experienced a lot of pain in the last few weeks, but the sensation ravaging my insides felt more like a complete dissolution of my cellular structure. I’m honestly not sure how my body remained intact as my pithways stretched, twisted, and groaned past every limit they should have been able to endure.

  Yet, as I held on, I had just enough mental capacity to steal a glance at Rafe. He looked like my insides felt, face screwed up in a kind of horror I’d only ever seen in slasher films. His volcanic glow lost some of its edge, and one hand disconnected from the dome.

&
nbsp; I had to keep it up, as long as I could. Instinctively, I wanted to release this crud, but I couldn’t. It bounced off any exit points, pummeling them even further. The world around me blacked out a few times, but I pulled that awful crap into me, hoping it would finish this asshole even if I died.

  Then, a miracle. The magma pith suddenly drained outside of me, as if it had sprung a leak. My bloated pithways pulsated, but it lessened so I could hold onto coherent thought. Rafe remained attached to the lava dome but barely, his fingertips brushing a vein.

  “Stop it!” I heard Darby yell.

  A confident voice answered. “It’s the only way we win this thing.”

  That’s when I realized it wasn’t a miracle at all but Tabitha. She’d come up behind me, hands a blur of motion to suck the magma pith out of me. Despite her self-assured tone, the lava damaged her too, cracks of light appearing on her skin as if she had become a bomb about to go off.

  “What?” I managed to breathe.

  She threw a half-wince, half-smirk in my direction. “You can’t be the only one to make heroic gestures. Besides”—she glowered at Rafe— “you don’t have the capacity to handle all this pith. I do.”

  “Tabitha!” Darby screamed behind us, the wail of a terrified child. She tried to take a step forward, but the energy exuding from all three of us laced with magma pith caused her to shy away. “Tabitha, stop!”

  Tabitha twisted to face her eyas. “Get Guntram and the Oracle out of here!”

  Tears streamed down Darby’s face. “Not without you!”

  Tabitha set her jaw against Darby’s pleas. “That’s an order!”

  Darby looked like she might vomit, but trained by one of the toughest shepherds of the Talol Wilds, she did as told. She lifted her arms in a series of sigils to shift the rocks beneath both unconscious bodies, creating a rolling gurney of stones to aid them downhill.

  Tabitha pointed at me. “You must rip this jerk off his energy source.”

  She was right, of course. Despite her taking part of the burden off me, with Rafe still hanging on by his fingernails, the rate of magma flowed at the same steady pace. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “The dome’s just a wound, a place where Nasci’s lifeblood has bled to the surface.” She set her jaw. “We can cauterize it.”

  Rafe had the presence of mind to comprehend our conversation. “And how will you do that?”

  Tabitha stopped drawing sigils and lifted one crackling hand up to Rafe, streaks of lava like blood dripping down the sides. “With this.”

  Rafe’s eyes widened in horror. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  Tabitha ignored him, turning to me. “I can’t do this alone. I need your help.”

  I straightened, shaking my limbs to ease my aching joints. Tabitha had never looked at me before with such confidence. I suddenly understood why Darby always pleased her.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  Rafe continued to rant as Tabitha gave me a brief rundown of her plan. “I’m going to seal the lava dome. You make sure Rafe doesn’t jump in after me. Even if he’s merely touching the lava while I’m securing it, he could disrupt the process.”

  “I-I’ll try. But my pithways are shot. I’m not sure how much magic I have left.”

  Tabitha snapped at me. “Just do it, Ina. It’s the only way to force him to release his magma pith. Do you understand?”

  She radiated so much power and authority. I didn’t have another plan, so I nodded.

  With that, Tabitha shot upward toward the dome, faster than her kidama deer. Before Rafe could defend himself, she slammed her shoulder into his chest, knocking him off balance to the ground a decent distance away from the dome. She then executed a series of square sigils, trapping him from the waist down underneath gray igneous rock.

  “Stay put!” she ordered.

  “You stupid bitch!” Rafe howled. “You’ll blow up the entire mountain.”

  “Not if I control it.” She broke apart the dome with her earth magic, exposing the radiant lava flows underneath.

  “But you’ll die too! You can’t seal the dome without letting your physical form burn away.”

  Tabitha’s eyes went suddenly blank. “You’re right. I can’t.”

  My heart leaped up in my throat. “Tabitha, what are you doing?”

  Tabitha glared at me. “What needs to be done. Hold Rafe here, away from the lava, even if it kills you. Otherwise, he not only wins, he uses Nasci’s lifeblood to destroy the very creatures we vowed to protect.”

  My entire body shook. I didn’t want anyone to die, not me, not Tabitha, not even Rafe. “There has to be some other way!”

  But warrior Tabitha faced the writhing coils of lava and semi-formed rock, black crust forming at the seams. The magma sent flickering shadows over her cloak as her hands executed sigils in a blur.

  “I’ve always thought you were weak-willed and not worthy of being a shepherd!” she yelled as she stared into the lava. “Prove me wrong, haggard!”

  Then she flung herself inside.

  As she hit the lava, bits of soil flaked off her skin, starting with her extremities. She vaporized like a statue slowly being chiseled away into dust. And as the last echo of her face became lost within the fiery orange light, the rocks of the dome closed behind her, along with all other visible lava cracks.

  Tabitha had disappeared for good.

  But the dome remained, burgeoning in size as if her energy had fueled its own. It created new streaks where lava threatened to spill, although magically the cracks resealed themselves as the bubble grew several feet in diameter.

  Rafe worked his own series of sigils, freeing himself from his earthen prison. “I won’t die here!” He staggered to his feet and grasped for the dome.

  I couldn’t let Tabitha’s death be in vain. I ran forward to place myself between Rafe and the dome. I spread my arms out wide, meager physical barrier though it was.

  “You’re not getting anywhere near the dome!”

  Rafe laughed. “As if you could stop me.” He lowered his head and barreled right into me, his skull cracking into my ribs. Winded, I staggered backward, and he pushed past me.

  As Rafe took the last few steps toward the dome, I wrote a quick sideways S and flung it toward his center of gravity. It shoved him to his hands and knees, leaving him in a daze. Knowing how much even that simple sigil cost me, I couldn’t execute any fancier moves, so I went with simple stuff.

  I stuck my palm in the earth for pith and drew a square with a triangle in the middle, adhering one of his hands to the ground.

  Rafe lurched forward, his arm bending awkwardly since he didn’t expect to find himself stuck. He screeched in pain as his wrist twisted at an unnatural angle.

  “You heard Tabitha,” I yelled. “Stay put.”

  Panting, I thought I’d succeeded in keeping Rafe away from the lava but then noticed the dome still growing. At its current rate, it would eventually reach where I’d pinned him, giving him access to the lava inside.

  “Ina!”

  A new voice from downhill broke into my frazzled brain. Darby, streaks of dirt where she’d been crying marring her face, ran up the hill toward us.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth so I could hear her. “Azar and Baot are getting the others off the mountain! I’ve come to help!”

  I waved her away. “Get out of here! The dome’s about to explode!”

  That’s when Rafe began laughing like a madman. Through the agony of his many injuries, he’d noticed the lava dome inching toward him. He stretched his free hand toward it, muscles straining to make contact.

  “No!” I tried to draw the sigil for raising earth upward, but I couldn’t. My pithways jammed, refusing to release any more pith.

  I could no longer execute sigils.

  But Darby could. She took one look at Rafe reaching for the lava dome, and her face grew taut with unbridled fury.

  “You will not defile Nasci any longer!” Her hands created a beautiful s
ymphony of earth sigils.

  A chasm opened under Rafe so quickly he had no time to react. One minute he kneeled affixed to the earth, the next he slipped, falling into the deepest, darkest hole I’d ever seen. I had to scramble backward as the edge of Darby’s crater widened to almost swallow me. His wails receded until I could barely hear the faintest echo of his voice.

  Then Darby snapped the hole shut, encasing him within that horrifying void.

  As I sat shell-shocked from watching Rafe plunge to his death, Darby’s hands clamped on my shoulder. “Where’s Tabitha?”

  Breathless, defeated, and completely drained, I could only point to the lava dome a few yards away from us. A massive earthquake suddenly shook the entire mountain, emanating from somewhere inside the nearly bursting bubble.

  If Darby hadn’t been there beside me, I would have died in the subsequent explosion. As it was, she reacted just fast enough to weaken the ground beneath our feet so we went skidding down the mountain over a steep incline, the worst playground slide ever. The dome ruptured when we’d only made it a football field away, and the cascading rocks from the explosion buried us almost instantly.

  As dust and rocks swooped over our heads, filling my lungs, nose and mouth, I sputtered for one last breath. “Sorry,” I whispered to Darby as the sky faded underneath the avalanche above us.

  The last I saw of Darby, her hands worked so furiously, I expected her fingers to break off. Then silence as we suffocated underneath the earth.

  EPILOGUE

  I DID NOT die, even though I deserved it.

  Darby managed to drag us out of the avalanche on Mt. Hood, although I remember none of it. She earned her full-blown shepherd rank that day, alternating between providing the two of us oxygen and digging us out of a cascade of dirt and rock. It took her so long that, by the time she emerged, Baot and Azar had already assumed we’d died and left. That meant she also had to drag me to a safe place at the mountain’s base, then go find help.

  I didn’t learn about any of this until a week later, when I finally rose from my coma. I was only the second shepherd knocked out on the mountain to recover. Guntram woke first. He was the sole visitor at my bedside as I recovered, refusing to allow me near the hot spring. Gone was his usual grumpy demeanor, replaced by a cold and calculating expression that all but announced my days of being a shepherd of Nasci had ended. He asked me sterile questions about Rafe, and I answered him in a similarly stoic fashion, leaving out no details.