Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1) (71 page)

Teacher let the wall dissipate. He rushed over and guided the swaying man to sit on the hard ground next to his incapacitated friends.

“Perhaps,” Teacher said dryly as he stood, “You should take this as a lesson and find another line of work.”

The bleeding man looked at him stupidly through the mask of pain that dulled his features.

Teacher knelt again to check on the two men who still lay unmoving.

Scar-lip was steadily breathing bubbles through a broken nose, and new gaps decorated the already repulsive smile. Teacher sighed in relief. Respect for life was a core virtue of the Monastery. He was allowed to defend himself, but if he had taken a life, even in self-defense, he would perform a penance.

Teacher moved to check the other tough that now lay facedown on the ground. He turned the body over and twisted his lip at the blue tinge around his attacker’s mouth. Teacher laid two fingers on the man’s throat where the hand strike had collapsed the delicate tissue.

A pulse thumped slowly but erratically; it wouldn’t last long. Teacher’s strike with his enhanced strength had almost been enough to crush the man’s spine. This man would die.

Teacher reached within himself once more and touched his stored energy. Healing was not his best talent, but he thought he had enough skill for this. The powers of the Shamonrae flowed through him and into the broken tissues of the man’s throat. Teacher directed the magic as it partially repaired the tissue that his blow had crushed.

The blue faded from the man’s lips as air once again began to whistle into and out of his chest. The man’s voice would likely never sound the same again, but perhaps it was appropriate that he pay some price for the violence he had tried to perpetrate tonight.

Teacher stood and moved deeper into the alley.
Good enough
, he thought after turning a bend, leaving the men and their bruises behind. It was finally time to find Rylan.

He focused inward again. This time, however, his intent was different. He pictured himself as transparent as a clear pane of glass. His skin shimmered for a moment and he smiled as he held a hand before him and looked directly through it to the rough-hewn wall beyond. His flesh was now completely invisible. Teacher turned his attention to his clothes, which hung in the air, empty to any eye that might chance upon him. The body was easy, in comparison to the fabric and metals that were draped about him. Mastering one’s own body was the first thing an acolyte must do, and it was accomplished in part by an intimate knowledge of self. Changing the body’s state became second nature to most initiates, or they did not move forward.

The clothes flickered then faded to transparency. Teacher redirected the power he wielded to lift him above the rooftops.

Teacher opened his mind to the essence of the young girl he had followed through the fringes of insanity. In some ways, her presence had been easier to follow in Dausos. All things beyond the veil were so alien that once he had locked his mind onto her vibrant life force, it had stood out like a beacon in the void. Here, life thrummed powerfully on all sides, but still, the feeling of her soul had been burned into him by days of pursuit. He would likely
never
forget this young woman. Teacher fixed Rylan’s direction in his mind and flew toward Terrandal.

His pulse began to quicken as he flew closer to the giant tree. Questions he had set aside in his quest through Dausos surfaced and nagged at him now. Whoever had taken the girl was obviously skilled in the use of the Shamonrae. This posed its own set of questions, as practitioners beyond the walls of the Monastery were rare, and figures of power were rarer still. Most of those in existence came from the savage lands or farther south in Skelris. None he had ever heard tell of wielded such control as he had seen apparent in the manipulation of the Dausos minions.

Rylan’s essence reached out to him from directly below. A courtyard full of people celebrating the royal wedding opened below him, nestled between two roots of Terrandal. Cobblestone paving had been set in patterns that reflected the shape of the massive, twisting roots, creating rivers of night-muted colors on the ground below the celebrants’ boots.

Teacher settled to the ground, unseen by the cheerful throngs. He sensed that Rylan was somewhere deep within the stones below his feet. A quick look about showed him no openings that might provide a path into the earth. Rylan’s nearness made him anxious. The girl was too close for him to be reserved now. He took a deep breath and drew upon his stores of power once more. This time, he willed his flesh into a ghost-like state.

The effort shook him. Teacher had to concentrate to keep himself from being blown apart by even the most gentle of breezes.
Eos preserve me
, he thought as he battled to hold himself together.

Teacher quickly slipped below the earth, focusing on his sense of Rylan to draw him down like a lodestone. The vibrations of the celebrants above ceased within moments as he plummeted through solid rock into the bowels of the island.

A moment of panic seized him as the cobbles slid past his face and he dropped into absolute blackness. The silence of the earth surrounding him made him want to scream and claw his way back to the surface. He could feel nothing. He could hear nothing. There were no smells or tastes to convince him he was alive at all. Rylan’s call and his absolute grip on himself became his only reality.

Suddenly, the darkness gave way to soft greenish light, and the earth surrendered him to an open cavern. It was with unreserved joy that Teacher willed himself back to solidity and dropped the last few feet to land solidly on a rough stone floor. Cool, clammy air surrounded him, and he realized with some chagrin that he had not transformed his clothing to make this part of the journey.

A rattling hiss jerked his attention away from himself and was joined by several others moments later.

The mage spun in place to face the unearthly noise and sent the Shamonrae to course through his bare limbs.

Four nightmares borne of Dausos surged from the gloom of the far reaches of the cavern. Sickly white bodies the size of young tundra mammoths moved at a lightning pace across the stone floor toward Teacher. Dozens of jointed legs propelled each of the four monsters as if they were weightless.

Teacher brought his arms up before him, palms facing inward and fingers extended toward the roof. Arcane power lanced from his fingertips into the fissures of stone above the creatures. With a shout and a surge of power, he yanked his hands down, and tons of fractured earth crashed down upon his enemies.

Two of the beasts were crushed below the boulders and debris. Ichor and shards of carapace flew into the air as the force of the falling rock pulverized the bodies. The remaining pair had leapt to the sides and skittered forward with their spiked legs chewing up the distance at a horrifying pace.

One of the ghastly creatures leapt for him, and Teacher ducked under its reaching arms, allowing it to sail by. The second rushed forward and attacked with several limbs, thrusting them toward him like spears.

Teacher brought up an invisible wall of force behind him while dodging the savage attacks of the monster before him. Power from the Shamonrae suffusing his body allowed him to match his assailant’s unearthly speed. None of the horrific hooked limbs had torn his flesh—yet.

Teacher gave a vicious snarl of his own as he dodged attack after attack. He had only moments before the thing behind him would join the fight. Rolling away from another assault, Teacher came up to one knee and slammed his fist onto the cavern floor.

Power flowed out from him in a rush and fractured the rock below the aberration. Many of the disjointed limbs lost their purchase and the thing stumbled.

Teacher pitched himself forward into a roll and he came to a stop directly below the heaving, spike-covered belly. He thrust both palms forward, releasing a blast of raw force into the slime-covered body.

The monster shrieked as it flew through the air and crashed into the ceiling above. Chunks of exoskeleton and ichor rained down on Teacher and the ground around him.

With a quick wave, he summoned a shield of power into a dome around himself.

A wet thud drummed off the dome as the fourth creature bounced away, chittering and screaming. The shield blazed with sparks and then collapsed.

Sweat poured from Teacher and he breathed in ragged gasps.
Too tired
, he thought. Days without sufficient rest and the trek from the surface had taken their toll. Even the twelve hours of sleep he had allowed himself had been insufficient to prepare him for this.

He staggered to his feet and spun in place to face the final abomination.

The pale, insectoid monster hissed in rage and launched itself at Teacher. Clawed legs whirled and reached in lethal unison. A gaping maw in the forebody of the creature was filled with gnashing teeth, like a forest of crooked spears. The snapping jaws would grind his flesh easily if the legs had a chance to force him in.

Teacher touched the tips of his index fingers together, willing arcane power into each. Warmth spread through his hands and where his fingers touched, a brilliant pinprick of light formed.

The monster’s spear-like legs closed in on him.

He stretched his hands apart, creating a razor-thin rope of pale blue light that bridged two fingers of each hand. Holding them forward, Teacher braced himself for the creature’s assault.

The first attacks came at his chest.

Teacher swung his arms across his body at the last possible moment and the pale blue light cut cleanly through the limbs, sending them flying away, trailing ropes of black alien blood. The shadow creature reared away from him, keening in pain and rage. Black ichor spurted from the stumps that remained, painting Teacher and the floor with gore.

The thing hissed and came again, legs flashing with the ferocity of a hurricane. Teacher spun and leapt, dodging and slicing with his blue razor. The two circled and danced in a primal dance of life and death.

Teacher surrendered himself entirely to the dance, and his mind and body moved as one. He ducked below a swiping attack and came up just before the snapping maw. He swept both arms up with his hands spread wide and sliced into the creature.

The monster’s “head” flew away in a spray of black fluid, and its body staggered momentarily before collapsing in a quivering mass.

As the urgency of the hand-to-hand combat faded, Teacher’s growing fatigue threatened to overtake him. He stumbled away from the twitching creature and settled to the floor, pulling his legs into a cross-legged position.

Years of ritual served him well. Teacher fell into a trance light enough that he would not be taken unawares, but deep enough to allow the Shamonrae to refuel his depleted reserves. As the power flowed in, he directed a portion once more into his body, washing away the weariness from the fight and banishing the fatigue from his mind.

The silence of the cavern lent itself well to his regeneration. Only his steady breaths marked the passage of time. Bare minutes had passed before he felt capable of continuing. He affixed a small ball of summoned light to a stalactite and stood to examine his surroundings for the first time.

The place appeared to be a natural cavern; streams of water dribbling in sheets down the walls in channels that had been smoothed by the centuries. The water crossed the floor in wide fans of moisture, culminating in many wide pools that were spaced irregularly. Patches of moss and lichen glowing soft blue and green surrounded many of the pools like beaches. Smells of mildew and fungus permeated the air, overwhelming even the stink of the blood that covered Teacher and the crushed bodies of the monsters.

Teacher made his way around the cave, inspecting each crevice as he passed. The drier nooks were free of the glowing plant life. He assumed it was from within these oubliettes that the monsters had issued.

Rylan had passed this way. He could feel a resonance of her passage, but the source of her self was further on, toward the deeper pits. Despite the fact that she was not here, he heaved a sigh of relief. It was easy to imagine her small body pierced and twisted by the things he had slain.

A wisp of clean air touched his face as he followed Rylan’s trail to a fissure that was barely half the width of his own shoulders. The light illuminated rough stone walls on both sides that zigzagged back into the darkness, quickly obscuring what lay beyond.

Teacher summoned the light from the ceiling to a position just behind and above his head and dimmed its radiance to cast light a mere handful of feet ahead of him. He focused his mind and stepped into the narrow pass.

As he worked his way further into the winding crevasse, he became aware of a deep thrum.
The falls
, he thought, continuing to pick his way carefully forward. The vibration was comforting, in a way. The earth had a steady patience that cared not for him or his intent. He could live, or die screaming, but the stones around him would stand regardless. Now, at least, he could guess as to which direction he traveled, and the increasing vibrations affirmed that he had not stepped outside of time. How dwarves could stand making their homes within the confines of rock, he would never understand.

The wall to his right disappeared after what he thought was yet another bend became an opening to another cavern. He dismissed the softly glowing bulb behind him and waited in the blackness, listening intently.