The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept (49 page)

Amric returned his gaze to the pit below, studying the foul creature shifting in place as she glared up at him
. He looked again at the prisoners, bent and huddled on the stone floor in that hellish cavern. He could not see any Sil’ath among them, but the distance and the poor light made it impossible to be certain. Regardless of race, they were mortal men, his kind. Soon to become her kind.

He spun on his heel and strode over to the
group. He relayed in brief everything that he and Valkarr had seen in the void below. He described the towering creature and the numbers it commanded, and he watched their expressions tighten as he told of the captives and the horrifying transformation one had undergone before their eyes.

“So,” Sariel muttered
. “It may not have been a trap before, but it is almost certainly one now.”

“Without a doubt,” Amric replied
. His storm-grey eyes were cold and hard, holding an iron promise as they shifted back to the gaping maw in the crater that led into shadow below. “And I am going in anyway.”

A wolfish smile spread across Sariel’s face.

The black-robed man
sat, cross-legged on a high parapet, with eyes closed and mind far away. Wan sunlight spilled across his upturned face, giving his dark beard a tinge of gold, but he did not feel its meager warmth. At his back, the colossal fortress hummed with the power that coursed beneath it like a winter river swelling against its ceiling of ice, but he took no note of this either. If not for the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the occasional furrowing of his brow, he could have been one with the stone.

The clouds crawled above him
as time passed, and the sun fell slowly in the sky as if it sought a better look at his still features.

At last h
is eyes fluttered open as he returned to himself, and his face settled once more into hard lines. He drew a deep breath and spat a sulfurous string of oaths. Slamming a palm to the stone, he pushed himself to his feet. He looked out over the walled courtyards surrounding the fortress, and past there to the spreading mantle of forest. He stood rigid, fists clenched, and then his shoulders slumped.

Almost three days he had spent in this wretched place that reeked of musk and death, and the trail was cold
. The marks of his quarry’s power were in ample evidence at the core of the fortress, but the lack of guile and restraint employed there was in sharp contrast to the thoroughness of the vanishing afterward. It was a maddening mystery; the cunning and skill required to evade one with his considerable tracking skills bespoke an astonishing discipline, a long practice at the art of concealment that did not match the hasty, brutish splash of power used inside.

Worse, no matter how far he extended his senses, he could detect no further
signs of his quarry exercising that power, to any degree. What Adept could go so long without embracing so much as a hint of his potential on this pathetic world? He could be a veritable god among the primitives here.

He sighed and looked down, digging through a pouch at his belt
. He brought forth a small, dense loaf of travel bread and a sheaf of dried meat, eyed them both for a moment, and then returned them to the pouch and tucked it beneath his robes. He had hoped to be done with this mission by now, and his supplies were running low. Much longer, and he would have to seek food among the indigenous races here. He frowned in distaste. The fortress still held considerable stores of clean water, for which he was grateful, but what food he had found was either spoiled or revolting in nature. The stench of the lifeless place had grown to such an extent that he dreaded venturing within to scavenge for stores.

For the hundredth time that day, he considered simply striking out to the west in the hopes of following a more mundane trail
. He was skilled in such methods, but he would be forced to exercise his power repeatedly to fend off the creatures being driven mad by the draw of magic. Such outbursts could mask the subtle and remote magical signs of his true prey. Worse, they would eventually alert his quarry to his own presence.

He shook his head in frustration
. For a mad, impulsive moment he considered returning to Queln and activating the Essence Gate in full. He had the knowledge, as an agent of the Council in a remote and hostile land. No amount of clever hiding would save his quarry from the consequences. Let him go to ground on a sundered world, he thought with savage satisfaction. It beckoned invitingly as the solution to his quandary, but at the same time he knew he would be a fool to do it. It would rather undermine his efforts at redemption, he decided with a regretful sigh, if in the process he committed such an unsanctioned act. In fact, tampering with the Gate without the Council’s express orders would make their fury at his previous blunder seem like nothing more than a frown of disapproval; his life would almost certainly be forfeit.

No, a
s much as he was galled by the delay, patience was still the key. And until his quarry gave himself away by using his power, he was just another grain of sand lost in a desert.

A sudden itch tickled at the fringe of his awareness
. He stiffened and immediately squeezed his eyes shut as he reached out with his senses to seek its source. He found only echoes of a single tantalizing pulse of power, fading before he could ascertain more than a general direction: west, as he had surmised, and a bit south as well. Somewhere in the wasteland, then. He looked at the heavy clouds thickening the sky in that direction, and he fought down the wild urge to rip open a Way and leap closer to the one he sought. The pulse had not lasted long enough for him to get a location with any accuracy, however, and so if another signal followed it would likely force him to open yet another Way in rapid succession. If the awaited confrontation was near at last, it would be rash to tire himself without need.

He dropped to his seat upon the high parapet and waited
, his eyes closed and his mind searching far away. Patience was the key.

Amric stalked down the crude stairs, and the gloom of the cavern closed over him like dark waters over a sinking stone. Bellimar followed a few paces behind him, a cold, soundless presence at his back. More twisting stairways ran like veins down the interior wall of the great chamber. On three of them, the other Sil’ath warriors mirrored his progress.

He did not glance up; he had to trust that Thalya, Syth and Halthak were following his orders
and staying out of sight as well as possible. Given the way the creature’s narrowed gaze remained riveted upon his every step, it seemed unlikely she was even aware yet of their presence up top. Amric smiled in grim satisfaction. If things became chaotic down in the chamber, Thalya’s skill with the bow could prove useful from her high perch. By her own admission, her normal arrows had proven ineffective when she was attacked by the black creatures, but she still had two of her ensorcelled arrows remaining. Halthak and Syth were charged with watching the surrounding dunes for an ambush, and with protecting the huntress if they came to grips with returning black creatures. Syth had uttered weak protestations at having to remain behind, but from the sidelong glances he stole at Thalya, it was evident that he was relieved to have an excuse to remain with her.

The plan was a simple one
. The fiend had fixated upon Amric, and evidently she thought he was something he was not. Perhaps she attributed to him the strange tremor that had shaken the hive and given away their presence. Regardless, whatever manner of creature an Adept was and whatever had caused her to label him as one, it seemed a sufficient threat to force a grudging degree of fear or respect from her. He knew an opening when he saw it. He would keep her attention focused upon him, then, long enough for the others to secure the release of the prisoners. What would transpire after that was anyone’s guess, and might well depend on how convincing he was in his assumed role.

It was a dangerous game he was playing, he knew
. He had to be convincing as something about which he had not a shred of information, and somehow manage to get both the prisoners and his warriors out of here alive. For a brief window of opportunity, however, the monstrosity was without her army of minions and had even dismissed those closest to her. At any other time it would require a much larger force to have a hope of successfully assaulting this place. He glanced at the prisoners, huddled and sprawled in the shadows. For these men, and perhaps for his own missing warriors as well, it had to be now. He tried not to think about the fact that he had not caught a glimpse of a Sil’ath among their numbers. The light was poor, and hope was not yet lost.

His gaze
drifted to the nondescript shapes submerged in the viscous pools of green fluid, and he dragged it back to the creature at the center of the chamber.

Concentrate on the task at hand, he chided himself
. Free the living before thinking to avenge the dead.

“Name yourself, Adept,” the towering creature called up to him in a grating tone
. “We would know our enemy.”

It was confirmation that she viewed an Adept as an enemy, at least
. His mind raced. Would she recognize a false name? And who else did she include in
we
?

“Names hold power, foul one,” he
shouted back. “You may continue to call me Adept for now.”

She hissed and shifted in her stand, but
gave no sign that she found his response suspect.

“What of you?” he asked
. “By what name would you be known?”

“Nar’ath queen
s have no name,” she spat. “Only purpose.”

Nar’ath
? He frowned at the term, even as he heard a soft intake of breath from Bellimar behind him. He glanced back at the old man.

“Nar’ath means ‘of the sands’,” Bellimar whispered
. “Just as Sil’ath means ‘of the scales’, very loosely translated. Both names come from a tongue long lost to this world, and it implies these creatures have chosen a name from another time, or were given it very long ago.” He stared at the creature below. “It implies they may not be new to this world after all.”

Despite the low pitch of his voice, the Nar’ath queen overheard him.

“This fleshling speaks true,” she said with an odd mingling of anger and pride in her voice. “But of course the Adept knows this already, for it was his kind that named us. A dismissive, scornful name it was meant to be, given in arrogance. But still we have kept it all this time, and we have made it our own. We have grown strong, and you will not dismiss us again.”

The queen watched him with an air of expectancy, but he did not know what reply to make and so made none rather than risk giving himself away
. She hissed in dissatisfaction, grasping with long black claws at the stone formed about her. Amric heard a grating noise from within that enclosure, and he wondered at the size and shape of the concealed portion of her form. From the harsh, heavy nature of the sounds, he guessed that there was more of her hidden than showing.

He reached the bottom step and his boot heel sank slightly into the firm sand of the cavern floor
. He strode toward her, his manner confident and unhurried, hoping to emulate the being that was fearsome enough to give her pause. Without glancing aside, he was aware of the others stealing like shadows around the edge of the room. The queen paid them no heed, as if they were utterly beneath her notice. Instead she continued to track him and him alone, her alien features an expressionless mask, her eyes a simmering green.

He stopped at the outer edge of one of the pools and looked down
. The waters gave off a soft, pulsing glow that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere. It was impossible to tell the depth of the pool, as it was packed near to overflowing with tightly wrapped bodies. Some unseen current tugged at those cocooned forms, rippling the top of the pool as the pods rolled and churned beneath the surface. The sickly green glow peeked through gaps in the moving clusters, cupping them with spectral, possessive fingers of light. It was a disorienting display, a sinister and graceful dance in slow motion.

Amric’s stomach turned as he realized that not all the motion came from the current
. Some of the shapes were writhing and straining against their bonds. He fought the urge to draw his sword and cut the folds of cloth-like material. Grim instinct warned him that he was not witnessing natural creatures struggling to survive, but rather the awakening of new fiends, subservient to the queen.

“Cunning Adept,” the Nar’ath queen murmured, breaking the brief silence
. “Have you come to make me pay for my overconfidence in sending forth nearly all of my forces?”

Amric noted her change in reference from plural to individual; another oddity that would hopefully become clear soon.

“Perhaps,” Amric replied with a noncommittal shrug. He began a slow circuit of the chamber, circling her from outside the pools. “For now, I am more interested in discussion. For example, I wonder at why you would leave yourself so exposed. What goal could be worth the risk to one such as you?”

“What risk was there?” she sneered
. “The fleshlings of this world are weak, and they wield weak magics as well. They are divided and fearful, huddled in their walled city, oblivious to the wracking cries of the land. Oblivious to our presence and to the true threat against their world as well. There is nothing we need fear from these trifling creatures.”