Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (75 page)

A gesture of Xenos’ hand sent a wave of force at the
two.  It struck them both with terrible power.  Marik felt an invisible boulder
smash into him after rolling five miles down a steep hill.

He and the Arronath were flung backward.  They landed
on the debris.  Both skidded through the wreckage for several feet before they
came to a stop.

Marik groaned in pain.  The tremendous blow had
damaged him.  At the least, his tender ribs had been re-cracked.  He could feel
his entire chest tighten with each breath.  His left arm also throbbed.  It had
taken the brunt of his short journey across the shattered wood fragments. 
Gouges blanketed it.  Three jagged splinters the size of small stakes had been
driven deep into the flesh.

Yet the blow restored Marik to his senses.  Dietrik
lay only three feet away.  The one-eyed Arronath lay at his feet.  Both were
unconscious, though Dietrik might not be for long.  With so much blood loss he
could easily die if left untreated.

What was Xenos doing?  Was he coming to deliver the
final stroke that would make all future considerations unnecessary?  Marik
struggled to raise his head.

The fury ignited anew at the sight of his father’s
body laying on its side, a hole torn right through him.  Worse still, so much
worse the world nearly dissolved into a field of red pulsing to his heart’s
rhythm…the bastard had grabbed Rail’s life energy.

His father’s life force was a glowing blob of slippery
energy.  Xenos had no trouble grasping it.  No doubt he’d grown accustomed to
stealing other people’s personal energy.  It had long ago become routine. 
Rail’s life force slid up the gathering channel until it merged with Xenos’
aura.

The blood mage’s aura flared brightly.  Xenos bellowed
in ecstasy.  In his hand he formed a growing orb of pure power, pouring
everything that had once been Rail Drakkson into it.  It swirled and spun, flickering
with an enormous quantity of raw energy.

“In the end, you will
all
become the servants
of your glorious god!”

Xenos hurled the orb into the pool.  The water posed
no barrier to it since it was wholly an etheric creation.  Energy formed within
the etheric plane stayed in the etheric plane.  Only an attack created on the
physical plane would affect the ground, water or trees.

Down through the not-ground it sped.  Marik watch it
go helplessly.  He could float ethereally above his body, yet he lacked the
power to affect anything.

The twin arrowheads still struggled to overcome the
seal.  They had lost power to the point where the seal was nearly its original
shape.  Between the dark spots on its surface where the arrowheads still
ground, the orb smashed into the seal.

It pressed hard.  Not only that, but the arrowheads
were gaining in size.  Xenos was retaking direct control over them.  Would he
be able to break—

The orb created from his father’s life force bore into
the barrier mercilessly.  Inward bent the seal.  Further…  Further…

Too far…

It blinded Marik when the seal around the reservoir
shattered.  Fragments of ancient energy spun away through the etheric.  From
behind shone the placid power of seven lines continuously collected for twenty
centuries.

The power was so great it could be seen by non-mages. 
With the seal gone, it shone through to the physical plane.  Through the dark
soot the pool’s water glowed steadily brighter.  In moments it became a pond of
noontime sunlight in a celestial garden, trees emerging from the sun’s surface,
roots arcing through liquid fire.

Xenos spread his arms wide to bask in the artificial
illumination.  Marik could see the water’s light streaming past from the way
Xenos blocked it.  Rays seemed to flow around him, casting his shadow into the
forest beyond.

Marik forced his body to sit up.  It hurt
considerably.  His left arm refused to move.  He pushed himself up with his
right until he could see Xenos fully.  His body trembled violently.  What could
he possibly do in this state?

The life harvester’s aura flared larger than ever. 
More than shining.  More than bright.  His life force burned in a raging torch
that would have deafened men miles away were it capable of sound to match its
fury.  It rose higher than usual, transforming into etheric flames fanned by a
gigantic bellows.

He could sense Xenos reach for the power.  The power
willing to be used by whoever touched it.  Whoever
could
touch it at
this point.  It must be so concentrated it would burn a normal mage, despite
its placidity.

I can’t allow this to happen!  He’ll turn the world
inside out if he has that level of power!

His body hurt badly.  Marik fought through the pain,
needing to stand.  To get a weapon and fight.  He tottered to his knees…and
collapsed sideways into the blood that had flowed from Dietrik’s mangled arm.

Marik drifted from his body in time to watch a tendril
of power reach Xenos.  He had siphoned it from the reservoir.  As thin as it
was, it still shone brightly enough that it must represent unimaginable power.

Xenos took the channeled power into his core.  His
aura, already a blazing demon, accelerated until it looked as though he were
being enveloped by a thousand flames per second, the etheric fire rising from
his feet to reach the teardrop peak above his crown, painfully visible to
non-magesight.

A joyous howl escaped him.  He threw back his head to
declare his conquest to the majestic Euvea trees.

Marik heard nothing from the etheric.  He could only
watch in abject shock.  This was surely a horrible dream.  Things like this
didn’t happen in the waking world.

A lance of pure lightning struck Xenos from behind. 
From the burning deck, the Red Man emerged.  The lightning flowed from his
right palm in a writhing whip.

Marik reentered his body.  He could hear the Red Man’s
yell.  It was wordless, a defying call.  His clothing was as torn as Xenos’. 
And, Marik saw, he had not escaped damage as Xenos had.

The scaly red patch on his cheek had spread terribly. 
It covered the entire side.  In fact, it looked as if his flesh had been
transformed to a lizard’s.  Even his lip was scaled.  Yet it almost looked
natural.  His lip still curled evenly, thicker than the undamaged side, without
the twisting that severe damage ought to have wrought.

His left eye was similarly…different.  It had pulled
sideways until it was closer to an almond shape than an ordinary eye.  The iris
remained the same jewel red.  Around it, the scaly flesh enclosed the ruby that
blazed with a fire to equal Xenos’ aura.

Despair clutched Marik’s heart.  As incredible a
display of power as the Red Man showed, Xenos shrugged it off.  The lightning
could not penetrate the aura’s tumult.  It ground away the electric whip as
surely as a grater decimates a carrot.

Xenos roared with contempt.  “You know the futility! 
If you were so eager to die, you needed only to ask!”

He channeled a stream of power at the Red Man so
absolute that the decking was torn to splinters in an instant.  It continued
on, ripping through the rear Euvea roots curving from the water.

And within it, the Red Man stood.  Marik screamed the
instant before it hit.  The power was terrifying, the force enough to overwhelm
his senses.  But what unleashed his scream was the Red Man’s left arm.  It had
been hidden by his body the entire time until he raised it to shield against
Xenos’ attack.

It was twisted and malformed.  The fingers had become
thick stubs with long claws protruding from the tips.  His hand bent upward
unnaturally far at the wrist, and the entire forearm bulged with thick muscle. 
All of it under a hide of red scales.

The Red Man had thrown his arm up to protect his
face.  Around him the power streamed…and it was clear that this was an attack
that could hurt him.  He screamed in pain behind his arm, ducking his head. 
Facing Marik.  Glacial ice filled Marik’s gut when he saw the left teeth
between the lizard lips.  Unlike the normal teeth on the right side, the left
ones had grown sharper, longer.  Fanglike.

His ears rang with the cacophony of shredding wood, blazing
fire and the flooding power roaring like a waterfall.  The boards he lay upon
shuddered from an unseen gale.

The Red Man could not ward off the assault.  Within
the raging power, blood flowed from his mouth and nose.  His arm swelled
alarmingly.  It grew longer, the clawed fingers lengthening.  Scales spread up
his arm until his shoulder was enveloped.

When his left arm was half the size of his body, and
surely too heavy for him to move, the power finally overcame him.  The Red Man
was brutally hurled back.  He landed with a thud in the burning section.  His
legs were sprawled across the solid decking, his torso within the flames.

He lay still as the dead.

“Divine Turliss will strengthen Himself on you upon
His resurrection!” Xenos declared in ringing tones across the entire ruined
village.  “You will be a succulent treat to the one you wronged!  He will be
most pleased!”

Except however confident Xenos might be, he clearly
intended to put himself beyond any further possible interruption.  With the
colossal power still feeding him, he stepped onto the glowing water.  He walked
across the surface as if from a bardic tale.  Moving to stand directly over the
ancient etheric reservoir.

*        *        *        *        *

There is no one left.  I’m the only one who’s
conscious.  And what can I do to stop this monster?  What in the hells can I
do?

Marik stared helplessly at Xenos striding across the
water.

It’s impossible!  No one has the power to stop him. 
Celerity could bring the entire enclave and he would crush them with an exhale. 
We could gather every mage from across Merinor and combine their power through
a group working, and he could swat it away.  Nothing comes close to rivaling
the power in the reservoir!

Xenos had reached a point over the artesian well.  He
stood so he could see his four waterlogged soldiers who were lining the
platform’s edge, and Mendell crouching off to one side.  The two armored
soldiers, one still carrying the bow, had joined the colonel atop his root.

Father is dead.  The bastard used
his
life energy to shatter the seal!  Why didn’t
somebody stop this from happening?  Anybody could have stopped him before.  He
was a normal human once.  Now he is almost as terrible as the god he wants to
bring back from ruin.

The channel continued to draw the slow trickle up to
Xenos from the town-square sized reservoir.  It was all Marik could do simply
to look at it.  His eyes and mind felt sunburned from it.  Xenos could barely
be seen.  His aura blazed fiercely.  Within it he was a silhouette.  Blazing so
fiercely it enveloped him in the physical plane as much as the etheric.

I’m a dead man.  As dead as father.  As dead as
Dietrik.  Gods, Dietrik, can you ever forgive me?  It won’t be much longer. 
Soon he’ll fill his power reserves to their limit and then…we’ll be ashes on
the wind.  He’ll perform whatever black witchcraft will resurrect his fallen
god.  I only hope it will be quick.  But he doesn’t kill people quickly, does
he?  No.  He drags it on for as long as possible.

The power coursing through Xenos must be enough to
topple mountains.  No mortal being should be able to channel such awesome
energy.  He had been drawing for several minutes.  It must be enough to wipe
entire cities off the map on a whim.  And the reservoir had not changed the
slightest bit.  Such terrible power was only a drop from what it contained. 
How much more could Xenos possibly draw?  Already he must be completely…must
be…must…must be completely…

Wait a moment.  I don’t care
how
much he’s been changed!  Xenos started out as
an ordinary man.  He
can’t
be drawing this much power!

Marik watched the foul life harvester closely. 
Yes…Xenos was fearsome, Xenos was awesome, Xenos was terrible to behold, yet
that was all.  Or rather, he was not growing increasingly so.  His first inrush
from the reservoir had swollen his power to its current level.  Then why, with
the feed still pouring energy into him, was he not growing still further?

Where was the power going if not into his reserves? 
There was no working being crafted, no place for it to be spent.  So where
could it be—

Oh, gods.  What a damned stupid fool!  It was so
obvious he should be ashamed.  His own father had answered that long ago in the
Queen’s Head.  When he explained why the Earth God had gone mad in the first
place.

Or rather he had made a casual, if illuminating,
reference to gods.  Priests maintained that the gods rewarded their most
faithful.  And why?  Well, each priest had a different answer, but Rail must
have known.  Likely he did know because of whatever he had been taught by the
Red Man.

It was absurdly simple. ‘
Finally reached the point
where he liked the taste of that more than what his followers offered him
through their faith.
’