Consensus Breaking (The Auran Chronicles Book 2) (27 page)

Following a day of planning, where Cade, Barach, Sylph and Morgan exchanged various ideas for how an attack on Osgog would go, they finally emerged just as the purple orb was coming to life, and the surface sun was beginning to set. Cade assembled six of his best warriors, not the best of the Brotherhood in its prime, but loyal to the cause. Alongside him came Sylph, now dressed in white combat gear. Barach joined them, wearing similar gear to Sylph, his shrunken staff attached to his back.

Gough walked with them, all the way to the gate.

‘Are you sure about this, Cade?’ Gough said.

Cade smiled. ‘I thought it was our
duty
?’

‘It’s easy to say, not as easy to watch you all go.’

‘We go willingly. An encounter such as this was going to happen sooner or later. If we succeed, well, perhaps there’s hope for all of us.’

Gough clasped the warrior by the shoulder. ‘Come back safely.’

‘We’ll do our best.’ Cade nodded past, towards where Shimmer was supervising the loading of various wagons for a trip through the Ways. It had been decided that the Sanctuary wasn’t a good enough place to defend, should Sedaris find out its location. Cade had managed to persuade Gough that there already existed a place that could take Sanctuary’s residents and provide defences that the underground town could never do.

‘Are you happy with what you need to do?’ he said.

‘We have it easy. If all goes well, we’ll be at the Croft by sundown.’

‘I bet you’ll miss this place,’ Cade said.

Gough took a lingering glance around Sanctuary, at the ever growing populace. ‘I will, but I recognise that we need to move on. There’s simply too many now. With the Croft we have protection, running water, food. It’s a no-brainer.’

‘Good, I’m glad you took my advice.’

‘I may be stubborn, but I’m not stupid,’ Gough said.

Cade let out a short laugh. ‘Reassuring. Good luck, Gough.’

‘Good luck, Cade.’

***

The group trudged in relative silence for a couple of hours, following a narrow passage that led to a Way that would bring them to Russia. From there Cade had contacted allies on the surface who would take them the rest of the way.

Aside from Cade, the Brotherhood warriors consisted of seasoned ex-soldiers that had been on external duty when Silas had turned many of those that had remained at the Croft. Following interviews with each of them, where Gough had scrutinised them for any kinds of deception, Cade had accepted them, and many others back into the fold. They weren’t the best, but they believed in the cause, and that mattered much more at this time than being the best with a rifle at three hundred yards.

The path ahead shrank even further. Roxie, his lead scout, paused at the path that was now no more than a crack, and peered into the gloom.

‘Great, as if it couldn’t get any smaller.’

‘Told you to keep off the pies,’ Cade winked at the scowling Roxie as he crouched and crawled into the shrinking tunnel. Roxie followed closely behind, then the rest of the brotherhood warriors. Sylph waited to the end, nodding Barach forwards.

‘After you,’ the mage said.

‘You afraid I’m going to stick a knife in your back?’ she said.

‘If you’d intended to do that you would’ve tried by now,’ Barach replied.

‘
Tried?’

‘Tried,’ Barach said.

‘I like you, Barach, you’re a grumpy bastard but you’re not up your own arse as much as the rest of them.’

‘Charmed.’

Barach grudgingly ducked inside the tunnel and followed the rest. Sylph cast one last look at the passage they’d just left before joining him.

Minutes passed, and the passage shrunk even further. By now Cade was edging sideways, sucking in as best he could, his face scraping the cold stone that pressed against him.

‘Now who’s wishing they’d kept off the pies?’ Roxie said, her slighter form moving easier through the crack.

‘It’s not like this for long. It opens out into a Way that leads right to Norilsk, the village nearest to Osgog,’ Sylph said, ‘There’s a path that leads to the Putoran mountains. It’s a bit of a climb but it brings us around the back of Osgog.’

‘And this is the only way?’ Cade grunted, cursing as he scraped his cheek across a jagged piece of rock.

‘A frontal assault on Osgog would be suicide,’ Barach said, grunting with exertion as he moved. ‘We studied it several times over the years, just in case they tried something and we had to
act.
This route, if what the Night Sister says is correct, will give us a way in that is lightly guarded, if it is guarded at all.’

Thankfully, the tunnel didn’t last for too long, and within minutes they emerged into a wide, circular chamber. A pool of still water claimed the centre, and ruined pillars, some still bearing visible Runic Script, lay in a heap around the perimeter.

‘This has seen better days,’ Barach said, his staff lighting up at the end, a ball of light appearing that dispelled the blackness.

‘It’s collapsed,’ Sylph replied, leaping from rock to rock. ‘The real world has seeped into the Way here. If you go up that crack there,’ she pointed to a thin fissure that led up from a far wall, ‘you’ll end up with the Unaware.’

‘You really have been around, haven’t you?’ Cade said.

‘Marek insisted I learn everything there was about this world, not just what the magi wanted us all to know.’

Sylph ignored the barbed look she got from Barach and dropped from the last rock. She melded into the shadows and reappeared at the far side, where a partially collapsed pillar had fallen across the exit.

‘This way. It’s not long now.’

‘How long?’

‘An hour, tops.’

‘Okay. We stop here. Let us go through what we need to do. I don’t fancy doing a briefing halfway up a mountain.’

Barach set up a glowing perimeter of orbs that bathed the chamber in a welcoming combination of heat and light. Cade sent two of his warriors into the tunnel beyond to keep watch, ensuring they didn’t go too far that he couldn’t maintain his mental link with them at all times.

This would not be another Skelwith.

‘Barach, tell us what to expect. We need a clear picture of what we’re dealing with.’

‘This will help.’ Barach closed his eyes. His brow furrowed in concentration. A strange glow appeared before the group, almost a smudge in the air. As they watched the smear grew, adding colour and a more refined resolution. As the blurriness vanished an image began to form, a collection of buildings and other structures, but as if from far away.

‘Is that Osgog?’ Sylph said, passing her hand through the image, which shimmered and reformed with the movement.

‘Yes,’ Barach said. ‘I’ve reconstructed it from my memories and those I ripped from the Ninth soldier.

‘That’s amazing.’

‘Not all magi can do it. It needs a strong Sentio to work.’

‘I am just glad you have it,’ Cade said.

‘It has proved useful in the past, although I cannot hold it for long, so get what you need, and quickly.’

Cade stepped up to the image. The complex resembled a cold-war-era factory, with many large buildings intertwined with miles of sprawling pipelines. Large cooling towers stood at the back, outlets for whatever by-products the facility had made in its operational years.

A high wire fence surrounded the three sides of the complex, which sat on a snow-covered plateau at the base of the mountains. Watchtowers stood at the intersections of the fence. A single road trailed off from the complex, dipping down into a narrow valley that allowed just one access route to the complex.

Behind the complex loomed a fearsome looking wall of rock that provided protection from any kind of large scale attack from the rear.

A fortress in all regards.

‘How is that place assailable?’ Roxie said.

‘It’s not,’ Cade replied, ‘and that’s the point. They’re on high ground. The winds through this valley are vicious at best, meaning access by aircraft is a dangerous business. The only way in is by that road, and you can be assured they’ve got their eyes trained on that at all times. Both technology and Weave-based.’

One of Cade’s warriors, Dmitri, paced round to the other side of the image. ‘So, I’m assuming there’s some good news with this?’ Dmitri said.

Cade looked at the mage. ‘Barach?’

Barach pointed towards the steep mountainside at the back of the complex. ‘Here. Unfortunately the defenders of Osgog don’t appear to be the brightest bunch, and have failed to think in three dimensions. If a small force were to come from the mountainside, they could drop straight in. Literally,
drop
straight in.’

‘Why do I not like the sound of that?’ Sylph said.

‘Here,’ Barach indicated the three cooling towers. Security is tight in the compound, with forces patrolling near constantly. However, they won’t have people inside the towers. If we drop in through them, we can go straight below ground. And
that
leads into the catacombs underneath the complex, and is where we will find the Manyway.’

‘Wow, sounds so easy,’ Roxie smirked.

‘It is the only option of getting below ground without raising the alarm.’

‘So what happens when we get underground? Where then? And what about the magi? How do we avoid being
sensed
?’

‘Maintaining
sense
all the time takes effort. Although most of their magi will be out on the missions to retrieve the Spoke Stones, there will be some that remain. These will be magi involved in security. Their
sense
will be active, like a searchlight. I will maintain a shield across us to hide us, but should we encounter them we’ll need to take them out sharpish. It’s not something I can maintain for long.’

Cade nodded, ‘Okay, sounds good. And once underground? The Manyway is right at the bottom. Show us how we get there.’

Barach wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. The exterior view of the building vanished.

‘As you wish,’ he said.

‘Better. Much better,’ the simulacrum said, not moving from its place in the centre of the ring.

‘Really? It doesn't feel like that.’

Seb sat outside the ring, clutching his arms to his chest, the unpleasant numbness slowly changing into an itchy fire of pins and needles that rippled up into his shoulders. When the sensation had passed, he rose to one knee, sinking down further into the mud, before standing upright, his legs aching with every stretch of muscle.

‘You need a break, Seb,’ Caleb said, stifling a yawn as he opened a flask of coffee.

‘I’ll take a break when I can hit this
thing
without my arms feeling like they’re going to drop off.’

Seb turned towards the ring. The simulacrum still remained in the form it had assumed in the past few hours. That of the daemon Kranor, the one he’d fought at Domus. The simulacrum had been specially trained by Cian to adopt pretty much any form that could be found amongst the sheol ranks. It was amazing, but also terrifying. The ferals were just the bottom tier of a hierarchy that extended up many levels. True, Kranor was high up there, but there were other, equally terrifying creatures in existence that he hoped he’d never encounter.

‘This is the problem with the magi,’ the simulacrum said. ‘You cling to your three schools like they’re the only way the Weave works. It is a credit to your kind that you’ve managed to understand it that way, but it also limits you. The Weave is more than Novo, Avatari and Sentio, but by your own designs you are blinding yourselves from it. It is this reason why you cannot strike me.’

‘So what’re you saying?’ Seb circled the ring, cracking one knuckle inside the other fist, a habit he’d picked up from Cade.

‘I am saying, mageling, that you need to learn control. There is anger inside you. You bury it now, but there is something there, something even I do not understand. You need to control it, or it will be your undoing.’

‘That’s easy enough to say. But when that thing is in your face it’s another story.’

‘If you cannot control your emotions, the fiend will prey on them, and use them against you.’

‘So what do I do? How do I beat it?’

‘This again is your problem. It’s not about how fast you are or how hard you hit. It is your state of mind that is key. You are a mage. Reality is yours to control. This
fiend
is a construct of the Weave, created by another mage.’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘You measure things in terms of strength, or fitness or power. All of these things are just constructs of reality, of the Weave. What makes reality, Seb?’

‘All of us.’

‘Exactly. So what limits our abilities? What limits our strength, our speed?’

Seb thought on that. ‘The same. All of us?’

‘The pain you feel now. Who makes that?’

From somewhere far away, a penny began to fall. ‘All of us,’ Seb whispered.

‘The fatigue you feel. Where does that come from?’

‘All of us.’

The simulacrum nodded. ‘Good. Now, remove the pain. Do not use your
Avatari
. This is beyond that. There is no pain.’

Seb raised his arms.

Nothing.

‘Stand up.’

Seb obeyed.

‘Your legs. How do they feel?’

No way.
He looked up. ‘They feel fine. What have you done?’

‘I have done nothing, Seb. It is you who has taken a further step on your journey. You are freeing yourself from the shackles of the schools the magi have placed upon you.’

‘What? You mean I don’t need Runic Script?’

‘I mean you have taken a step. A step few have walked before. In time you will take another step. You are different, Seb, there is something fundamentally different between you and the rest of humankind. It is beyond my abilities to discern, but it is there nonetheless. It was for that reason you have taken the step you have today.’

‘I feel different,’ he said, and meant it. A strange current was rippling through his mind, sending an icy shiver down his back. He couldn’t place what it was, there was nothing specific he could detect, but change was happening. That was inescapable.

‘It will not last. Your mind is conditioned, not just by your mage training, but by your experiences in this realm before you learned of the Weave. You must work on this, keep taking those steps on this road you are on.’

The sensation was already fading. It had been fleeting at best, but he felt re-energised. The aches had gone. He could breathe again without wheezing. An image popped into his mind.

The serpentine warrior. The Parathi. Its armour unfurled and reformed. Its wounds knitted together and healed.

Seb opened his eyes. The simulacrum’s eyes turned up. If it had a face it would’ve been smiling.

‘You are ready to continue?’

Seb cracked his knuckles and stepped into the ring. Purple electricity rippled up his arms.

‘I’m ready.’