The Essence Gate War: Book 01 - Adept (61 page)

Xenoth
turned toward him, blinking as if had entirely overlooked the thief’s presence. He flicked one hand and Bellimar was cast away in an arc. The old man landed in a catlike crouch on the barren ground and stayed low with his grey robes pooled about him. His features were a frozen mask as he stared at the Adept. Xenoth held up one hand and curled it into a loose fist, and Syth’s fluttering cloak suddenly pressed tight to his rigid body as his feet left the ground. As Syth floated toward Xenoth, wide-eyed and struggling against his invisible bonds, the latter looked him up and down with a critical eye.

“Unstable,” he remarked with a note of disapproval in his voice
. “The halves of your nature are in constant conflict, much like your vampire friend there. It is a wonder you survive at all, but you are calmed at the moment. Is this some subtle working of the rogue Adept, perhaps?”

Xenoth
looked to the others, and Syth flinched when his dark gaze fell upon Thalya.

“Ah, I see,”
the Adept murmured with a cold, knowing smile as his eyes lingered over the huntress. “Something much simpler, in fact.” He gestured toward the black, jointed gauntlets that Syth was wearing. “Does she know the price you pay in wearing those dreadful devices? Do you even know, yourself?”

The muscles in Syth’s jaw clenched as he glared defiance
down at the black-robed man. Xenoth gave an unfriendly chuckle. “No matter,” he said. “You know the information I truly seek, and I now know what you truly value. Do I need to be so crass as to state the obvious?”

Thalya gave a startled yelp as her arms were pinned to her sides
. She was pulled taut to her full height until the toes of her leather boots just grazed the surface of the sand beneath her. Syth gave an incoherent growl of rage and threw himself against the unseen force binding his limbs. He twisted and thrashed, but to no avail.

With an effort of will, Amric wrenched
free of his paralysis and burst into motion at last. He stepped forward, reaching for his swords, and the other Sil’ath warriors started toward Xenoth in the same instant. The black-robed man barely spared them a glance, making an impatient gesture with one hand in their direction. The ground rose before the charging warriors in a thick crescent and smashed into them, hurling them all backward and crashing over them like a wave.

The last sounds Amric heard before weight and darkness closed over him were the frightened screams of the horses as they thundered away, deeper into the wasteland
. A detached part of his mind was relieved that the beasts had not been caught in the wave, even though rounding them back up for the trip home would be no easy task. That was a matter for another time, however. At the moment, he was tired and battered, and needed just a few moments of rest before…

H
e cleared away such drifting thoughts with an abrupt shudder, and quelled a moment of panic as he realized just how close he had come to losing consciousness there, buried in an earthen tomb. He forced himself into motion, clawing in the direction he had last seen the night sky, squeezing his eyes and mouth shut to deny the seeping sand that strove to invade. He had not had time to fill his lungs before being buried, and his chest burned with need. His outstretched hands broke the surface first, followed by his head, and he sucked in a sweet breath. The Sil’ath were emerging on either side as well, gasping and shaken.

Xenoth was still focused on Syth and paid them no more heed than so many insects, swatted away and then forgotten
. A throaty bellow from Halthak, however, brought him around with one dark eyebrow raised. The Half-Ork ran forward with his gnarled staff held across his chest, as if he meant to push Xenoth back from the others through sheer force. The Adept’s hard features twisted into a sardonic smile.

“Another scrub talent,” he s
neered. “More than a spark, but highly limited in utility. This pitiful world certainly does suffer its share of mongrels.”

He flicked a finger at Halthak
, and a sharp snapping report wrenched a scream from the healer even as it spun him from his feet. “Let that occupy you for a time,” Xenoth said, as Halthak collapsed in a heap upon the sand. “And be grateful for my mercy. With your particular talents, I could make your end far longer and more arduous than you could ever imagine.”

Amric pulled himself from the sand and stood just as Xenoth was returning his attention to the struggling form of Syth.

“Xenoth!” he shouted. Inwardly, he was grateful that his voice rang out clear and strong, not at all like the croak he had suspected might emerge. “Let them go. I am the one you are after.”

The Adept
spun toward him. He wore an irritated, disbelieving scowl, but then his eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.

“Could it be?” he mused
. “Yes, it just might, at that. I should have spotted you at once, even in that barbarous garb. Your aura is not just weak like these other brutes, but non-existent. You are too perfectly concealed, and that should have alerted me from the start. The right age, yes, and you even look a bit like…. Come here, boy!”

Xenoth thrust one hand toward him in a lunging strike, and a vice-like pressure closed
around Amric with crushing, irresistible power. A pulsing arc of force sent the others, including the floating figure of Syth, flying away from the Adept to tumble like so many dry leaves across the ground.

Amric glared at the black-robed man as he glided toward him
. Xenoth peered back, his heavy brow furrowed in concentration. The warrior tried to shift and flex, seeking some room to move within his invisible bonds, but there was none to be had; he might as well have been encased in cold, unforgiving stone. His swords, an inviting weight at his back, might as well have been back in Keldrin’s Landing for all the chance he had to reach them now.

As he drew closer,
Amric studied his assailant. The cold light from the globe overhead cast a portion of the man’s countenance into craggy shadow, and further deepened the hard planes of his face. Amric was surprised to note the creases of age and weariness woven into those bluff features, and the streaks of iron grey that shot through his dark beard. The man’s eyes, however, remained intense and pitiless; his was the hooded stare of a practiced hunter studying his quarry without a trace of emotion. Almost no trace, Amric corrected himself. There was a smoldering anger to the man, a bitter tightness to his features that he kept behind an outward mask. And, as he stared at Amric, a slight widening of his eyes that betrayed something akin to genuine surprise as well.

“Remarkable,”
Xenoth breathed. “Truly remarkable.”

Amric eyed him
. “What is remarkable?” he demanded, but the man continued as if he had not heard the question.

“
The trail you left behind shows you are quite strong, if clumsy, and yet had I not looked more closely….” Xenoth trailed off, pursing his lips. Then he shook his head. “Even now I cannot be certain. I could just kill you. Perhaps I should. Perhaps this is some elaborate trick.” He stared at Amric with distrust and hate in his eyes, but then his brow clouded and his gaze wavered. “No, I have to be certain. There can be no mistakes, this time.”

His frown of concentration deepened, and Amric felt a strange probing at the edge of his senses,
as of a low sound just beyond his range of hearing that tickled at his inner ear, or a feathery touch hovering just above his skin.

“Remarkable,” Xenoth muttered again
. “Very few full Adepts can conceal themselves so well. Did you truly learn this on your own, without tutelage?”

Amric remained silent, glaring at his captor
. He still lacked the context to form a meaningful reply anyway, and if the man interpreted his reticence as indication of the presence of some powerful teacher or ally, then so much the better. Perhaps it would cause him to proceed with greater caution. The probing grew stronger, more invasive. It blossomed into hot, needle-sharp talons that plucked and pried at his psyche. Amric gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to flinch with each sharp new twinge. He could endure this violation, for he had endured greater pain. After all, it was all in his mind; it was not as if this attack would inflict any lasting damage, like a physical weapon––would it?

An eternity later,
Xenoth rocked back on his heels and blew out a frustrated breath. The stabbing pains ceased, and Amric sagged against his unseen bonds. He hoped that the man did not notice the prolonged shudder that ran through his rigid frame.

“However you learned
this trick,” said the black-robed Adept, “and whether you managed it yourself or it was laid upon you by another, it is magnificently done. I cannot pierce it.” The troubled lines on the man’s face hardened once more into a venomous resolve. “Fortunately, there are other methods available to gather the proof I require.”

There was a grey blur of motion at the edge of Amric’s vision, and Xenoth spun in that direction, raising a clenched fist before him
. Bellimar’s hurtling form halted in mid-air, hands extended like claws, teeth bared in an enraged, frozen grimace. The vampire’s fangs, so carefully concealed all the time by restrained expressions and half smiles, were bared beneath narrowed eyes that glowed like red embers. Bellimar hung suspended in the air, straining in helpless fury toward the Adept. Xenoth, for his part, stroked his dark beard as he studied the vampire with cold, deliberate amusement.

“That is the second time
you have intervened on the boy’s behalf, creature,” he said. “Shall we see if he feels the same concern for you?”

Xenoth brought his hands forward and together, as if plunging them into Bellimar
’s midsection, though several yards still separated them. The old man convulsed, his eyes flaring wide in sudden shock. Then the Adept whipped his arms apart in a sudden ripping motion. A rush of energy washed over Amric like a warm wall of mist and was gone, dissipating into the air. Bellimar bent like a drawn bow, arching backward with his head thrown back as every muscle in his body went taut. The scream came an instant later, an inhuman shriek of agony.

“Stop,” Amric grated
. “Stop whatever it is you are doing to him.”

Xenoth threw a glance at him, and his mouth quirked up in a
n icy smile. “Ah, boy, do not be a fool. This was the easy part. I have only just begun this one’s torment.”

Bellimar’s scream continued
. It went on and on, rising into the night air to hang there unending, as if refusing to be bound by the need to draw breath. Amric added his own voice, shouting forth incoherent rage as he strained against his invisible prison.

“Perhaps I am not casting my net wide enough, however,” Xenoth said, his words vibrating with power as they cut through the din somehow without him raising his voice
. “If this one’s plight does not move you, then we will try another.”

He turned toward Halthak, who had regained his feet on a leg that looked to be fully repaired
. The Adept made a sharp gesture, palm up as if scooping something from the ground, and angry blue fire erupted from the wasteland beneath Halthak’s feet and crawled up his limbs. The Half-Ork uttered a cry of pain and dismay, and he staggered back, slapping at the flames. The blue fire spread hungrily to his hands and arms, writhing along his limbs like a live thing. In its wake, the healer’s skin blackened and cracked. Halthak stumbled to his knees, a look of concentration freezing his coarse features into a rictus of pain. The flesh began to heal beneath the licking blue flames. Halthak scooped sand onto his limbs, seeking to smother the spreading fire, but when the sand fell away the fire still remained, slithering over his figure to blacken new flesh. Halthak groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, and the skin knit shut and healed once more. The fire, however, was an implacable foe, and continued to crawl over him.

Amric roared his fury, throwing himself into his efforts until his vision swam and
darkened at the edges from the exertion. Something cracked in the back of his mind.

Get out her
e,
he panted at the presence hiding within him.
He is killing them! Get out here and join me, or we all die, here and now!
The only reply was a mindless, gibbering terror, distant and muted.

“Or perhaps another,” Xenoth continued
in a hard tone. He flung out one hand and great gout of brilliant white fire erupted from it. The fiery display was blinding, and for a brief moment it lit up the wasteland around them in stark relief. Amric, squinting against the sudden illumination, was able to catch a glimpse of the sprinting form of Innikar, rushing forward with blades upraised, before the fire engulfed him in mid-stride. The Sil’ath warrior did not even utter a cry, so quick was his demise. The white fire flared once, dazzling and fierce. When it faded, Innikar was simply gone. His abandoned blades glowed and hissed in the sand, no more than warped pieces of metal, and the remains of the warrior’s armor were a blackened and shriveled mass.

Amric’s throat cracked and closed on a scream he had not even realized was his own
. He saw Sariel and Valkarr approaching from opposite sides, their mouths open in horror. Xenoth turned toward Sariel. Without hesitation, she hurled one of her swords to spin in a glittering arc toward the black-robed Adept. The spinning weapon struck some invisible barrier in mid-air and ricocheted to the side, but Xenoth flinched away from it with a grunt nonetheless, and it saved her life. She had thrown herself to the side as soon as the sword left her hand, and another long breath of white flame seared through the space she had occupied a moment before.