Consensus Breaking (The Auran Chronicles Book 2) (24 page)

The man who looked at him was Cranks, the caretaker from Domus. The one he’d seen die and then brought back to life.

But this wasn’t Cranks. Sure, it was his body that stood before him. The same near-opaque eyes that stared from a face that was so worn it could’ve been made from leather. But up close Seb could see beyond that. He could see the truth behind what his eyes told him. Beyond his
sense,
it was just a knowing born of hundreds of hours spent in the presence of this man.

His mentor.

His friend.

Tears filled his eyes. Something hot stuck in his throat. He felt the words forming, a pair of words he’d never thought he’d ever say again.

‘Hello, Caleb,’ he said.

***

‘Don’t just stand there, boy, take a seat will you before that shock reaches your legs and you fall over,’ Caleb said. ‘Actually, make a drink will you. One of those revolting tonics that soothes aching joints. I think I’m going to need a lot of those going forwards.’

Almost on autopilot, Seb reached for the copper kettle and filled it with water from the pump. He placed it above the fire and stepped back, casting a quick Script as he did so, making the fire increase in intensity.

‘That’s better, so much better,’ Caleb said. He wiped away the dust from his old chair and eased himself down. He closed his eyes for a second. Then opened one, noticing Seb still stood by the fire, his jaw hanging. ‘I used to think that look was because you were new to us, but now I’m wondering if it’s some kind of affliction?’

Seb shook the expression off his face and pulled a stool closer to Caleb. It was disconcerting. Even up close he was definitely Cranks, the same guy who’d died and come back days earlier. But the inflexions, the movements, the twinkling of the eyes, they were all Caleb. Right down to the sarcastic barbs.

‘Caleb, it is you isn’t it?’

‘Afraid so, Seb, although not quite how I expected to see you again.’

‘What the hell happened, Caleb? I know it’s you, but -’ he threw his hands up in the air and shot up from his seat. ‘What the hell, Caleb? This isn’t possible. You’re dead. I saw you die!’

‘Calm down, boy. I would’ve thought by now you would’ve known the difference between possible and impossible is a lot less defined than before.’

Seb lowered himself down. ‘Sure, I get that, but
this!
’ he waved a hand.

‘It’s a lot to take in, I’m sure. Imagine how I felt?’

‘Tell me, Caleb. What happened?’ He handed Caleb a cup of green tea and sat back down. Caleb took a long sip on the hot draught and let out an appreciative sigh. He sank back into the chair and made himself comfortable.

‘The short answer is, I don’t know.’

‘Well take the long way round.’

‘I died, Seb, there’s no doubt about that, before you ask.’

‘The sheol. You were possessed?’

Caleb shuffled, his aged face creasing into a grimace. ‘I can’t even begin to describe how it feels. You’re a prisoner in your own body. You can see all that is going on, but you have no control, nothing. It’s like banging on soundproof glass whilst your controller goes about its business.’

‘When did it happen?’ Seb said, asking a question that had bothered him for months. ‘I’m guessing it must’ve been Kollmorgen’s,’ he continued, thinking back to the near-disaster at the collector’s house that had resulted in Caleb being seriously wounded. He shook his head, ‘but you came out of that, wounded, but alive.’

‘Aye, I thought so too. The wounds were deep, but they healed. The poison was removed. Once Avatari was able to kick in I thought I’d be okay.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Nothing at first. I felt fine, more than fine in fact. I felt strong, alert, but yet, something else. I felt nervous all the time, anxious. I put it down to the fact I’d been nearly torn to pieces by the sheol, but even after talking with the Magister it remained.’

‘You never said anything to me,’ Seb said, trying but failing to hide the hurt he felt.

‘You? Seb, you had your own cross to bear with Marek and the rest. Besides, you were still so new to all this, it would only distract you from your training.’

‘So what happened after that?’

‘It just got worse. But more than that, I felt
distant
from everything. It’s hard to explain, but I was there, at least physically, but it felt like I was being drawn away, like watching everything from a distance.’

‘Why didn’t you tell the Magister?’

Caleb shrugged. ‘Foolish pride? I tried self-treating. I should’ve know really that this was more than just some kind of magical infection. I trusted Avatari and Sentio would warn me of anything to worry about.’ He shook his head and gave a weary smile. ‘Then one day I was looking in the mirror. Shaving or something. I looked up, and instead of me looking back it was one of those
things
.’

‘An improvement then? Every cloud I suppose,’ Seb said, smiling. Caleb scowled for a brief moment before letting out a guttural laugh that slowly petered away as the memory took hold.

‘The strange thing was. I didn’t jump. I didn’t scream. I just stared back. I remember now the feeling, like icy water being poured down my back. With that, all the doubts, all the anxieties just melted away. And the strange thing is, I liked it, Seb, you know?’

Tears were forming now, covering Caleb’s eyes in a shimmering veneer. He took a long draught again then wiped the back of his sleeve across his face.

Seb waited, letting this pour out.

‘I just let it take over me. It was a welcome relief, from the pain, the fear. I just slipped into this prison of darkness without a murmur. The next thing I knew I was back in the Great River. What happened? How did I die?’

‘Cade. He put a bullet in your head,’ Seb said, omitting the bit about the Caleb-fiend murdering the Magister. Some things were best left unsaid.

Caleb smiled. ‘Cade, eh? Figured. He never liked me that one.’

They both laughed that time. A comforting sound that removed some of the tension in the air.

‘And then what happened? You died Caleb, we both agree on that. But now you’re here. In someone else. What gives?’

‘Some of that I can explain. Why I remained, and why I didn’t return back into the Weave with the rest, I don’t know. All I know is that I was adrift in some kind of in-between. It was like an astral walk but just this grey murk without a sense of time or place. I don’t know how long I was there for. I just floated. Every now and again I saw these flashes, like lightning but smaller. Every time I drifted to the source it had vanished. I thought I saw you on a few occasions. I tried to contact you but you just couldn’t hear me.’

‘I think I did
sense
you, at least on some level,’ Seb said, thinking over some of the experiences he’d had of being watched. ‘Was it some kind of limbo?’

‘Yes, but nothing I’ve ever heard about.’

‘So what got you inside poor Cranks here?’

‘I saw a flash, but this time it didn’t go. It stayed, fluctuating between a bright white light right through to almost nothing. I drifted across. I couldn’t see anything at first, but then the smoke began to clear slightly. I could see Cranks on the floor, surrounded by various Aware. He was staring straight at me. I could see his spirit form trying to leave, but his body wasn’t quite ready to let go. Then there was one last jolt and he was free. He soared past me, vanishing into the gloom.’

‘He saw you, you know,’ Seb said, remembering the incident. ‘He thought it was an angel, when he saw you. Doesn’t say much for the afterlife if they all look like you.’

‘Bastard,’ Caleb snapped, his eyes twinkling.

‘So you entered his body? How?’

Caleb raised both hands. ‘No idea. I looked at him, then I saw
you
Seb, and you looked so lost, so angry. No one else seemed to be aware but you blazed away like a furnace. I looked at the body of this man, and I just
knew
I could do it. I know there are Scripts for this in Novo, but it’s nothing I’ve ever learned. Way above my pay grade. Perhaps it was some kind of vestigial knowledge that I’d picked up from the sheol that possessed me. I don’t know. All I do know is that I looked at him, and whilst his body was still fresh, I knew I could possess him.’

‘So you just,’ Seb made a diving action with his hands.

‘Pretty much. His body had died. His heart had just stopped. I think the jolt of me entering it made it start again. Even after that though I didn’t think it would last longer than a few seconds. Yet I’m still here.’

‘But then you, I mean Cranks, you just left?’

‘I was confused, Seb. My memory hadn’t returned, not fully. I was half full of Cranks’ stuff whilst my old memories were trying to come through. I just upped and left, taking a van and going to the only location I really knew.’

‘Skelwith.’

‘Skelwith,’ Caleb frowned as he scanned the Drain. ‘Although it’s a little more
run down
than I recall.’

‘So you don’t remember anything about the attack? About Marek?’

‘No, I’m guessing it didn’t go too well. Tell me what happened.’

Seb told him the whole story from the moment Cade put a bullet in his head. The assault by Marek and the sheol. The deaths of Cian and the Magister. The destruction of the Spoke Stone that activated the sentinels. Caleb listened intently throughout, his eyes widening and jaw dropping until they reached their limits. When it was over Caleb sat back, drained.

‘You did well, boy, so very well,’ he said quietly.

‘Yeah, that’s what people say,’ Seb shrugged.

Silence fell. Seb sat back, the cup nearly spilling into his lap. He couldn’t believe this. Every time he thought he was getting the hang of this twisted world, another curve ball came and shook it up again. Most of the time it was for the worse, but now, for once, something had happened that allowed a little bit of joy back into his life.

‘So how does it feel? Do you have your powers?’ he said after a pause.

Caleb shook himself from his silent meanderings. ‘No. Nothing. I can’t sense. I can’t interact with the Weave. I’m basically Unaware, although sometimes I feel as if there’s something there, trying to get through.’

‘I can’t imagine how that feels, not anymore.’

‘It’s not all bad. It’s good just to be
me
, just have my mind and nothing else. Of course,’ he raised his hands, gnarled by time, ‘there are some things that I could do without. The aches this guy goes through nearly all the time. I never realised.’

‘Perhaps that’s a problem with the magi, they’ve been this way for so long they no longer know what it means to be human.’

Caleb frowned and tilted his head. ‘That chip on your shoulder hasn’t gone away I see.’

‘If anything it’s a full blown forest.’

‘Well there were plenty of seeds to begin with if I remember correctly.’

‘Thanks,
old man
,’ Seb replied, giving him a mock smile for his efforts.

A howl came from somewhere in the grounds. Seb
sensed
but for some reason he couldn’t get a clear echo back. He looked at Caleb, puzzled.

‘What is it?’ Caleb said.

‘The sheol are out there but I can’t feel them.’

Caleb shrugged. I suspect it’s to do with what happened here. You know, with Marek. I’ve seen it before. A mage dies, a powerful one, and they leave an imprint on the area. I moved some of the old wards to around the Drain. They come near, but they never enter the ruins. At least those around here.’

‘Amen for small mercies. I’m not sure I could go another round today. Or ever.’

Caleb sat forward, his eyes drawn to the raw-looking arm that Seb clenched against his chest. ‘Yeah, I meant to ask you about that. What the hell has happened?’

Seb whistled. ‘Where do you want me to start?’

It was the same vision as always. The tower. Emerging from the fog. Always there. Eternal. Waiting.

But now broken.

Seb knew even before he alighted on the platform that much had changed since his last visit. The lip of the open plane had crumbled off, and cracks a man wide ran throughout its length, ending at the archway where a rusted door now lay broken on its side.

Upstairs, in the study where he’d met the serpentine creature, the strange study was equally barren. The hearth was empty, a chill filling the room that even Seb’s astral self could feel.

‘I did not think you would show.’

Seb spun about. The serpentine creature stood before him, but it seemed smaller, diminished even. Its red armour, formerly so burnished and whole, now stood cracked and damaged. Dents covered the breastplate, and green blood seeped from cleaved holes in the arms and legs. The creature was breathing heavily, resting on a giant spear that was soaked through with black blood.

‘You are injured,’ Seb said.

‘My time is nearly at an end. I cannot hold for much longer.’

‘Hold? Against what?’

The creature tipped its head towards the open balcony. ‘See,’ it wheezed.

Seb vanished and reappeared by the balcony. What was it referring to? Aside from the tower and the mountains from which the tower was carved, there was just an endless cloud of black that extended as far as the eye can see. There was nothing--

Wait. He looked down.

No. Dear God, no.

With eyes amplified with Avatari, he saw it then. He saw the reality of what the creature was referring to.

Sheol. Millions of them. A mass of fiend and daemon that expanded in all directions. They marched as one. Thousands of ferals, snarling and barking. They rolled across the landscape like a tidal wave, moving forwards at a great pace.

‘How many are there?’ he whispered, feeling the creature appear by his side.

‘There is no number I know that can describe their magnitude. All I know is that they are coming. For the first time in millennia they are as one. Something calls them. They gather now, spewing forth from their cracks and their dens, joining into the mass you see before us. They march together with only one direction in mind.’

Seb swallowed, knowing the answer before he’d even asked the question. ‘Where are they heading?’

The creature looked at him and gave a weary smile. ‘Of course you know. They seek the last sanctuary. The only place where the power exists to free them from their prison.’

‘Earth. My realm.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Sedaris,’ Seb said, suddenly remembering the incident at Domus. ‘He must be behind this. I saw him. I saw him as he was, underneath his human skin.’

The serpentine warrior gave him a curious look.

‘You felt you recognised him, yes?’

‘Yes. I did. What does that mean?’

‘It means, mageling, that you are almost ready.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You do. At least, part of you does.’

A massive crash echoed up the tower. At once the room was full of snarls and growls that echoed out of the stairwell. From somewhere far below Seb heard the clatter and scrape of claw and steeled boot on the stone steps. He shot back into the room.

‘They’re in here!’

‘It was a matter of time.  This tower is just one of several along the route they must take. Others have fallen. More will fall still. I must go. I must make them pay for every inch of this place they soil with their foul stench.’

The serpentine warrior marched towards the stairwell. Its aura blazed and the wounds on its arms and legs knitted together. The armour unbent and reformed.

‘Wait!’ Seb appeared by the creature’s side. ‘What can I do? I’m a part of this. This whole thing, aren’t I?’

The creature stopped and looked at him. A scaled hand reached up and lifted up its visor. ‘Indeed you are, although a “part” does not do your role justice.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Go now. This is not your battle. Yours is still to come. But you need to find me. You cannot complete the final stage of your re-emergence until you make it here.’

‘Emergence? What the hell is that? I don’t know where here is!’

‘Then you are not ready. When you are, you will know. I only hope we still have time.’

‘Time for what?’

But the room was already vanishing from view. The cracked and moss-covered walls of the room faded away, slowly being replaced by the shadowed, slimy bricks of the Drain. Seb’s last image was that of the creature as it vanished into the stairwell.