The Hollow: At The Edge (24 page)

“What are you talking
about? You mean it wasn’t you two?” Serrel looked back and forth at
them.

“It all happened so
fast,” said Mouse. “One moment you were there, the next you were
gone.”

“I was too busy hanging
on,” agreed Victor. “There wasn’t time to do anything.”

Serrel glanced around
the group.

“Don’t look at me,”
said Caellix.

“I didn’t even see what
happened until cliff fell,” said Jurgen. “I haven’t weaved in years
anyway. Are you sure you didn’t do it yourself?
Subconsciously?”

Serrel thought about
the way he had stopped in mid-air. “No. I’m sure I didn’t.”

“You must have. There’s
no one else. Except Annabella, and that sort of weaving is beyond
her.”

“Can we focus on one
crisis at a time,” snapped Caellix. “Elf, how’s it coming?”

“Slowly, Sergeant,”
replied Dhulrael.

“Where
is
Annabella?” asked Victor.

“I’m here,” the other
assassin said, rejoining the group. “And look what I found.”

She shoved a man in a
torn Legion uniform onto his knees in front of Jurgen.

Caellix frowned.
“Morton?”

“Ah. Hello, Sergeant,”
said the former mage. “I should have known it was you. You always
had a poor sense of timing.” He tried to rise, and was pushed back
down by Annabella.

“This one of yours?”
Jurgen asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Not by choice. But
technically he is in the Hounds. Morton, what the hell are you
doing here?”

“I’m a prisoner,
Sergeant. I would have thought that was obvious.”

Annabella snorted. “A
prisoner. Of the Ferine,” she said disbelievingly. “I found him in
an unguarded tent, unbound, unharmed, surrounded by these.”

She handed Jurgen a old
and worn book with a frayed leather cover. It looked like it had
suffered fire damage at some point.

“So the Ferine captured
you, and then invited you to peruse their library,” said Caellix.
“You’ll forgive us if we seem a bit sceptical about that.”

“If I could explain,
Sergeant, I’m sure...” Morton trailed off when he saw Dhulrael
reaching out to the Illudin. “DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

Dhulrael jumped
backwards in surprise. “What...? Who are you?”

“Don’t touch it!”
Morton hissed. “You don’t know what you’re doing, you stupid elf.
Do you have any idea what this is?”

“I might have a vague
idea, yes,” Dhulrael replied, affronted.

“If you break it...”
Morton tried to stand, and was again shoved back on his knees by
Annabella.

“You,” Caellix pointed
at Dhulrael. “Get back to work. You,” she rounded on Morton.
“Answer my question. What are you doing here?”

“When the camp was
attacked, I was taken prisoner,” Morton replied, trying to see
around her at what Dhulrael was doing.

“The Ferine don’t take
prisoners unless they’re planning to eat them. They especially
don’t give them their own tent and some reading material.”

“The one in charge, the
mage. He wasn’t Ferine. He recognised my worth and offered me the
chance to see the Illudin for myself.”

“And you just went
along with him, willingly?”

“Of course,” said
Morton impatiently. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Um, maybe not
surrender,” suggested Brant.

Serrel thought about
what he knew of the man. A unpleasant idea occurred to him.

“The Ferine don’t take
prisoners, so they when they attacked the camp and found you, they
wouldn’t have dragged you all the way back to their leader,” he
said. “You went to them, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” said
Morton unabashed. “When I saw that light in the sky, I knew what it
meant. We had no hope against that sort of power. We should have
surrendered to them straight away. But no. Not in the Legion. Death
or glory every time.”

“And they didn’t just
kill you then and there. What did you give them?” asked
Caellix.

“Whatever they wanted,”
Morton replied. “Names, numbers, tactics. Anything that would prove
my usefulness. But what they really wanted was my expertise. My
arcane knowledge. But what they wanted most was help figuring out
how to control the Illudin. It was a privilege.”

“You bastard,” said
Caellix levelly. “I always knew you were a piece of shit, but for
you to turn on us like this-”

“Turn on
you
?”
Morton almost laughed. “People like you have led us into a war we
cannot possibly win. You would have us fight to the last man, and
for what? I am trying to save us, all of us. You are all
fools.”

“You want us all to
surrender to the Ferine, and
we’re
the fools?” asked
Serrel.

“Do you idiots have any
idea what this is?” Morton said in agitation. “This isn’t a weapon.
It is a gateway to unlimited power. With this, we can do anything.
All your petty wars and squabbles are irrelevant now that we have
an Illudin in our grasp.”

“Correction,” said
Caellix. “In
my
grasp.”

“Please. You aren’t
worthy.”

Caellix looked about in
amusement. “Did he really just say that?”

“He really did,”
replied Victor.

“Well, Morton. These
unworthy hands are the ones currently in possession of your
precious crystal. And you know what? Wait until you see what I am
going to do with it.”

She turned back to
Dhulrael. “Elf? You’re running out of time.”

“Patience, Sergeant,”
said Dhulrael. He squatted by the base of the Illudin, and pointed
to three broad metal rings that encircled the bottom of the
crystal. Each ring was covered with a row of elvish runes. “I
believe these are how you control it. The rings turn and instruct
the Illudin on what to do. Off and on, rate of flow, that sort of
thing.”

“So can you turn it
off?”

“I believe I can,” said
Dhulrael with confidence that didn’t match his expression.

“You’re going to-”
started Morton.

Annabella slapped him
across the head. “Unless you’re planning to help, shut your
mouth.”

Dhulrael very slowly
reached out, and with extreme reluctance, gently placed his hands
on the topmost ring. There were no sparks, and he did not catch on
fire. Emboldened, he tentatively gave the ring a turn to the left.
It was slightly stiff, and he was afraid of forcing it too much and
causing any damage that would accidentally set the Illudin off and
obliterate everyone in the vicinity.

But the ring turned
into a new position with a faint click, and no one died. Dhulrael
let out a pent up breath, and turned it further. Then he turned the
second and third rings into the position he wanted. When the last
symbol aligned, the inner light of the Illudin stopped pulsing, and
stayed steady.

“I believe that has
stopped it from siphoning energy from the ether,” Dhulrael
explained.

“Can I smash it now?”
asked Dogbreath.

“Not yet. First we must
empty it of all its stored energy. Then, and only then, can you
safely, ahem, smash it.”

“Heheh.” Dogbreath
hefted his axe in anticipation.

“You cannot be
serious,” fumed Morton. “You’re an elf! Your kind created the
Illudin, how can you stand there and even contemplate destroying
it?”

“Because my kind also
went to a great deal of trouble to ensure that they remained
hidden, you idiot!” snapped Dhulrael with uncharacteristic venom.
He exhaled sharply. In a calmer voice he addressed the others.
“Now, I am not entirely sure how to make the Illudin safely
discharge its energy on its own. However, from what we have seen,
it appears likely that we can tap into the Illudin’s supply and
discharge the energy ourselves. I will need anyone who can
weave.”

Serrel, Mouse, Victor
and Annabella stepped tentatively towards the Illudin.

“I’ll sit this one
out,” said Jurgen. “In case you all die.”

“Thanks, Captain,” said
Annabella sardonically. “It’s good to know you have our backs.”

“If you die, then at
least one of us should be able to continue the mission,” Jurgen
replied coldly.

“Uh, what are the
chances of us dying exactly?” asked Serrel. “Because I’m not sure
how many of you saw that mage, but he didn’t look too good at the
end.”

“I am quite certain
this poses little risk,” said Dhulrael, with very little
confidence.

“What do we do?”

“All you need to do is
lay your hands on the Illudin’s surface, and concentrate. You need
to form a link with it, with which you can draw out its energy. I
fear this will be remarkably simple. More importantly, you must try
and limit the amount of energy you absorb. If you take too much,
you run the risk of flooding yourself with ether energy, and you
may cause your physical body to prematurely sublimate into the
ether.”

“Do
what
into
the ether?” asked Victor.

“Turn into pure energy
and explode,” clarified Serrel. “I think that’s what happened to
the mage. It looked painful.”

“On the contrary,”
explained Dhulrael. “Since every tiny cell of your body is being
reduced to its component particles, you would no longer have a body
left to feel pain.”

“That’s lucky,” said
Mouse.

“Sure,” said Victor.
“We can all explode into nothing, but at least we won’t have to
feel it.”

“Exactly. Look on the
bright side.”

“So once we connect to
the Illudin, and assuming our particles don’t make any sudden
breaks for freedom, what do we do?”

“Weave,” said Dhulrael.
“Weave as fast as you can, with as much energy as you can. Do not
hold back. You need to drain as much energy as possible. The
Illudin will be leaking a prodigious amount into the air as heat
and light. You just need to help it along. Obviously I would like
to help you myself, but... well, if things do not go according to
plan...”

“You need to survive to
think of something else,” finished Victor. “Fine. We get it.”

Serrel exhaled. “Let’s
get this over with. Although, you lot may want to back up a safe
distance,” he told the group.

“How far?” asked
Caellix.

He looked at the
Illudin, and thought about the energy the elven mage had carelessly
thrown around. “The other side of the Empire would be my
suggestion,” he replied. “For now... Let’s say the tree line.”

“You heard the man.
Anyone who doesn’t want to go up in a puff of smoke, fall back to
the trees.”

“Come on, you useless
git,” said Dogbreath as he hauled Morton upright. “Try anything and
I’ll bite your face off.”

“How droll,” said
Morton. He looked at Serrel. “I knew you were small, Hawthorne. But
I had hoped you would have had more sense than this.”

“Sorry to disappoint,”
replied Serrel. “Now, sod off.”

The group retreated a
safe distance back beyond the trees, leaving the four mages
standing around the Illudin.

Annabella sighed. “I
swore I wasn’t going to do stuff like this anymore.”

“You mean siphoning off
a near unlimited supply of energy from an ancient and mysterious
object that will most likely kill us all?” asked Victor.

“I meant doing anything
at all with the ether,” she replied. “Nothing good ever comes from
this sort of thing.”

They looked with
uncertainty at one another.

“I’ll go first,” said
Serrel resignedly. “If I don’t explode or anything, join in one at
a time.”

With that, he stepped
up the Illudin, and gently laid one hand onto its surface. Against
all reason, it was ice cold. And within the hard, glassy material
he thought he could feel a gentle vibration under his hand. A faint
pulse.

It was hard to describe
the sensation that came next in physical terms. He could feel the
energy inside the Illudin, lapping at the crystalline walls like a
great lake that laps at the walls of a dam. Once it was a river
that rushed and crashed, and now it was held still, stationary and
stagnant. You merely had to open the sluice gates and the true
power could be unleashed. If the dam wall crumbled, and fell,
everything before it would be washed away.

It seemed to Serrel
that the walls of this particular dam were frighteningly paper thin
for the roiling force that awaited behind them.

As he probed the energy
of the crystal, he swore he could feel something probing back.
Tendrils of energy that ebbed inside of him, feeling their way in
the space of his being. He had used a lot of energy fighting the
mage, and the ether had not yet trickled back into him. The Illudin
seemed to be examining the edges of the Hollow, as if noting the
space that was there. Space that was vacant and able to receive its
own energy.

Serrel wondered if the
Illudin was, in some way, alive.

He focused on the
energy within the Illudin, and its faint tendrils coiling longing
around him. He tried to match his aura with the energy, as one did
when accepting energy from another mage. The Illudin’s reaction was
instantaneous. Like a hole ripped in a dam, the weight of the lake
above forcing itself down upon it, the energy exploded into
him.

It was like being
struck by lightning, except lightning that turned into liquid when
it hit you, and forced itself into your veins, flowing through you,
filling even small niche of your body and soul with power. And even
that was barely a drop of the vast ocean of energy suddenly pouring
from the Illudin. There was no way to control the torrent that
roared forth. Perhaps as a safeguard, its creators had ensured that
the majority of the energy was discharged into the air as the giant
red beam that formed the Aurora Ethereal.

Serrel was filled in
seconds, and felt himself brimming over with energy. Alarmed, he
lifted his staff and fired off a long blast of energy, much as the
elven mage had done. He saw the other three jump in surprise as the
beam rent through the air, causing a crack like thunder. Its light
cast a bloody red hue over all the quarry.