The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence

The Great Convergence

Joseph R. Lallo

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Joseph R. Lallo

Cover By Nick Deligaris

http://www.deligaris.com

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###

A story half told is a crime, and there is no
crime greater. When this tale began it was the tale of a common
woman in an uncommon circumstance. A woman unprepared, unskilled,
and unready. When the last words were written, they spoke of a
master many times over. She was a woman filled with resolve.
Fearless, steadfast, and above all, determined. A woman firm in her
belief and single in her focus, willing to charge into the jaws of
doom for her cause. A job needed to be done, and she had the tools
to do it. Imagine what the next pages will bring . . .

#

"I have lost my mind," Myranda muttered to
herself. "Behind me is paradise. A warm bed waiting for me every
night and hot meals waiting for me every day. The people there care
for me, respect me, even admire me! I am turning my back on it in
favor of a dark cave that will very shortly be filled with water,
chasing a confirmed and shameless killer with hopes of convincing
him to end a war and save the world."

The paradise was Entwell. It was a place of
learning, populated by the wisest wizards and the mightiest
warriors. All had come seeking a beast of legendary ferocity. A
beast that each believed had taken the lives of all before them. A
beast that had turned out to be the cave itself. For two short
periods a year the cave was dry and passable. The most recent such
period was, in moments, going to come to an end.

The killer was a creature with seemingly no
true name. Myranda first new him as Leo, then as Lain. The name
most knew him by was The Red Shadow. He was an assassin, known and
feared throughout the continent. He was also a malthrope, a hated
and dying breed of creature that looked like a human and a fox
combined. Most important, though, was what had days ago been
revealed. In a ceremony designed to both summon one divine warrior
and identify another, he had been revealed as a Chosen One. A tool
of the gods, fated to end the war that had been eating away the
people of the Northern Alliance and Tressor for one and a half
centuries. Rather than embracing his fate, he had turned his back
on it. Now he was somewhere within this cave, heading for the
war-torn world, with no intention of playing his role. And so she
had followed.

"I
will
find him. I
will
convince him. I must," she insisted.

Myn merely shot her a quick look of
acknowledgment before continuing on her task. The dragon, not yet a
year old, hadn't spent a day away from Myranda, and she never
intended to, no matter the difficulties the travel may bring. Her
claws were better suited to the rough walls of a normal cave. The
glassy walls of this one offered a challenge, but it was by no
means the greatest challenge on the horizon. Already the pair was
far enough along that the light from the entrance was dimming
behind them. They were rapidly approaching the point of no
return.

Myranda pulled the staff from her bag as the
darkness deepened. The well crafted tool was longer than her own
had been, and stouter. No doubt perfectly suited to the height and
grip of its former owner, her friend and former teacher, Deacon.
She coaxed a light from within the crystal with ease. Being in the
cave reminded her of just how recently she had come upon these new
talents. When she was here last she'd had to rely upon a torch.
Now, thanks to Deacon's teachings, she could simply will light into
being. She dared not dream of such a thing months ago.

The pair had only been walking for a few
minutes when the mountain let out a bone-shaking roar that each
knew all too well. A blast of icy air was cast up from behind her
as the way to safety was drowned in a flood of water. She quickened
her pace while Myn practically jumped out of her skin, scrambling
with renewed vigor along the glassy tube. When they had faced the
flood last, it seemed to creep up at a few feet every minute. With
any luck she would be able to keep ahead of the rising water.

It was not long before it became clear that
luck would most certainly not be with her. During their escape,
they had thankfully been pulled from the basin of the waterfall
before the falls had begun in earnest. Now she heard the roar of
the mountain grow steadily. Before long she could hear the restless
rapids sloshing about behind her. They were not creeping along as
she had hoped. They were surging. Myranda tried to quicken herself
to a run, but the slick ground would not permit it. Finally she
stopped and strapped the bag of supplies to her waist. There would
be no outrunning the water. Best, then, to brace herself for it.
Myn, far from willing to meet her fate standing still, cast a
pleading glimpse upon her friend. When Myranda saw the terror in
the beast's eyes, she knew the roaring water was upon them.

The wall of icy water met her with the force
of a raging bull. She was swept along at a speed faster than she
could run. Faster than a horse could run! A moment later she
collided with the familiar form of her dragon, and she held tight
to the terrified creature with one arm as the other held firm to
the staff. Amid the chaos of the water she had precious little
concentration to spend on light. What little she did have of her
mind was devoted to a blur of spells aimed at keeping she and her
companion from being dashed apart against the walls. There was no
telling how much of the cave was whisking by her, and her dim
memory of the way she had come would be useless to her, even if she
managed to survive the flood.

The unwilling trip she was taking ceased to
be an upward one and doubled in speed as she found herself sliding
down an increasingly steep incline. For a moment Myranda wondered
if this was a fortunate turn of events or an unfortunate one. As
usual, fate made its answer to her prompt. The ground sliding along
below her suddenly dropped away, and in an instant she was
plummeting. She released Myn and tried to set her mind to
levitation, hoping to stop her fall, but there was a reason this
mountain had been so trying to wizard and warrior alike.
Crystal-strewn rock mangled and twisted all but the simplest of
magic. This spell, it seemed, was just a bit too complex to slip
past the cave's confounding effect, as she soon felt her hold on
the mystic energies scatter. She felt a sharp pain in her abdomen
as she collided with a wall. Instinctively she reached out with
both hands, clutching madly at anything that offered a grip.
Somehow she managed to cling to the rough surface of the wall. For
a long moment she held firm and slowly reclaimed the wind that had
been knocked from her by the impact. The roar of falling water
surrounded her. She opened her eyes, though doing so was ultimately
pointless, as the staff she had released would give off no more
light until she willed it to do so. Indeed, before she could even
think of illuminating the cave, she would have to
find
the
staff. Having dropped it into the chasm below when she struck the
wall, there was a stronger likelihood of the staff finding
her
than of she finding
it
. As she sorted through the
limited options open to her, Myranda felt a nudge at her shoulder.
The unexpected feeling nearly jarred her from the wall.

"Myn! Myn you are all right!" she cried.

Of course, the dragon was once again in her
element. She could scamper up and down these uneven walls as easily
as along the ground. The dragon flicked her hot tongue in and out,
licking at Myranda's ears, thankful for getting her through that
torrent.

"Yes, yes. You are welcome. Now it is time to
pay me back. I can't cling to this wall forever. I need you to find
a tunnel out of here, or at least a ledge to recover on," Myranda
said.

Myn flapped from the wall and into the air.
For a moment Myranda wondered how the dragon would be able to see
in the utter darkness. A moment later the creature cast out a
column of flame, bathing the gray walls and frothing white water in
yellow light. In the flash, Myn's keen eyes took in the wall. In
another moment Myn was beside Myranda on the wall again. With a few
helpful taps of the dragon's tail to guide her, Myranda managed to
inch her way along the wall to a ledge and pull herself up.

"I don't suppose you might be able to find my
staff. I let it go when I hit the wall," Myranda said to her
friend, whom she imagined was sitting right before her.

When she held out her hand to give the
creature a few rewarding scratches, she found that she was alone on
the ledge. Myn was certainly eager to please. There were two or
three more blasts of flame before she was joined again by a very
pleased dragon clutching a staff in her teeth.

"Good Myn. Very, very good," she said,
feeling her way blindly to the dragon's brow and scratching it
madly.

Myn squirmed with delight at the attention
and dropped heavily into Myranda's lap, disturbing the large bag
Deacon had provided her with. There was a metal clink, stirring
thoughts of what Deacon imagined was a necessity. Myn deserved and
required significantly more petting and rewarding before she
allowed Myranda to indulge her curiosity. She propped up the staff
and brought about the light again as she looked through the bag.
The first thing she withdrew was a page from a spell book. For a
moment Myranda marveled at the torn edge. Deacon took better care
of the books than he did himself, and yet when he learned that
Myranda planned to find Lain, he tore this page free without a
thought. It was an old one, she could tell. Whatever it was that
they used for paper in Entwell aged to an odd mahogany color. The
black letters were difficult to read against the reddish paper. She
carefully stored it away. The metal clink was revealed to be a
stout dagger he had provided. That would no doubt be quite useful.
There was a small kit with bandages and potions. Thoughtful of him
to include it. Finally she found a stylus. There was no doubt. It
was the very one that he carried with him at all times. She ran her
fingers along the side of the pen, carefully feeling the point
before stowing it with equal care.

Quickly she checked her tunic. Lain's tooth
was mercifully still clinging to the inside of her waterlogged
pocket. In a fit of anger during a training session with the
warrior, she had managed to knock it from his mouth. He had
presented it to her as a reminder of her anger. She removed the
tooth from her pocket and fashioned a pouch for it from a bandage.
Using a bit of thread, she hung it about her neck. With that done,
she secured the bag again. The time had come to find some way out
of here.

Standing as best as she could on the somewhat
precarious ledge, Myranda surveyed her position. There were
numerous openings dotting the wall. Most were far too small to
offer much in the way of an exit, and all were a fair distance up.
Already the sound of the thundering water was that of a torrent
falling upon a pool rather than hard ground. The water was
gathering at the bottom of the crevice, and though the level was
still beyond the reach of her light, if the trip she had just taken
was any indication, it would not remain so for long. She had to
make the right choice the first time, lest she face a dead end with
nothing but a wall of water behind her.

"Myn, I think this is another job for you. I
need you to see if you can find Lain's scent. He had a head start,
but I would wager that rush of water closed the gap for us," she
said.

Before Myranda was through speaking, Myn had
scrambled off along the wall. She sniffed and flicked her tongue
intently, traveling from hole to hole and sampling each. Shortly
she returned and sniffed at the pouch about Myranda's neck.

"I'd feared as much. We are probably far from
the safest or quickest route, so I would imagine there would be
half of a mountain between us and Lain. Best to find a new plan,"
she said, patting the dragon for the effort.

Myranda set her mind to the task. Not having
the benefit of Myn's sense of smell, she was not certain what sort
of things would be reasonable to ask her to find. Finally she made
up her mind.

"I need you to find fresh air, or failing
that, some sort of animal that can be found outside of a cave
occasionally. If they need to find a way out, then we can find
their way," Myranda said.