Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (76 page)

Basic power economy on a cosmic scale.

What sustained a mage working?  The etheric power the
mage fed into it.  What sustained a god?  The faith of His or Her followers.

Marik did not know how, and it hardly mattered at the
moment, but faith somehow fed a god.  The higher the number of followers, the
richer the amount of faith that was offered.  Faith became far more than the
insubstantial beliefs and wishes born from mankind.  Offered up, it became as
real as the etheric power Xenos drew from the reservoir.  Divine manna.  Food
that nourished a deity and made Him as strong, or weak, as the followers’
faith.

But gods could not be killed.  Not truly.  They could
be cast down, bereft of power, made weak from lack of followers.  The Earth God
might not have had a meal for two-thousand years, yet He still existed in one
form or other.

And Xenos was sending Him power.  Before, the Earth
God had grown strong on blood energy that had sustained Him similarly to His
followers’ faith.  Etheric energy was no different.  It was, after all, energy
born from the land and the creatures inhabiting it.

The terrible power Xenos drew ought to be burning him
out, except he was not holding onto it.  He was sending it straight to his
god.  Whatever abilities he possessed as a preeminent priest enabled him to do
so.  Of course the sealed reservoir was too powerful for a man to safely use! 
But as a replacement for two millennia worth of prayers…

Xenos’ sacrifices in his underground temple.  Marik
had assumed the rites were a ruse to make blind fools drunk on religious
ecstasy bring him victims.  But, much as it fueled his own power, Xenos really
did
fulfill his promises.  With each sacrifice he must have sent a portion of the
life energy to his crippled god.  Mere drops on the tongue of a man dying from
thirst.

What a marvoulous shortcut the harvester had found. 
In all the world there could be no equal to this.  A million sacrificial rites
might match it.  Maybe.

Well worth inciting a war for.

Marik watched the tableau, seeing it for its truth. 
The restoration of a god to His former power.  Xenos had not been exaggerating
at all.  There he stood over the water, his aura blazing, his drawing channel
alive with energy.  For a man who could exert such control over his personal
aura that he could make it invisible, it certainly writhed with a life of its
own.

Or…not.  Xenos would never let it beyond his control. 
That was nothing so simple as excess life energy.  It was a shield.  One that
blended both defense and offense.  Exactly like his saw blade orbs.  Constantly
in violent motion, shredding anything it came in contact with.  Changing in
shape in order to offer no structure to overcome.  Overpowering an attack
rather than deflecting it.

He had armored against any possible assault.  High,
low, and center.  Xenos had left no quadrant vulnerable.  Anything that
attacked him would fail, unless it possessed power equal to the reservoir.  And
nothing—

Marik’s eyes dilated when a thought struck his brain a
reverberating blow.  He looked at the scene again.  And again.

What’s to lose?  I’m going to die anyway.  Why in the
hells not?

He launched his awareness into the etheric plane. 
Down he plunged through the not-ground.  Down, and down, until he floated above
the baking reservoir.  Close enough to touch.  Xenos’ channel flowed only
inches from where his nose would be in a proper body.

Xenos did nothing.  Why would he?  Powerful as he was,
he could not sense Marik’s shift, for the reality was that Marik had done
nothing at all.  His earlier fears of being caught drifting too close to Xenos
had been groundless.  That was obvious now.  No astral form or ghostly self
hovered that could be seen or sensed.  Marik had only altered his perception,
focusing on specific information that lay within the range of his supernatural
senses.  Unless Marik did something foolhardy, such as touching Xenos’ channel
with his talent, the harvester would continue to concentrate solely on his
objectives.

Marik glanced up along the channel flowing to Xenos. 
The power within made it strong.  Stronger than the lines he had drawn from in
Kingshome and Thoenar.  He could never sever such a conduit no matter how he
tried.

So do the last thing anyone would expect.  The
unexpected is the most valuable asset on a mage’s battlefield.  Tollaf, you
rank old bastard, I wish I could tell you just how right you were.

He plunged his mental hands into the reservoir.  It
burned hotter than the sun.  The interior of his head was being scorched. 
Placid, tame, unchallenging, yet deadly just by its very nature.

Marik ignored the pain.  He reached deeper.  His dual
channel training had taught him to use more than the two hands he ordinary used
by custom.  Further he reached, casting numerous insubstantial fishing hooks
into the reservoir’s surface.

His entire being shrieked in agony.  But it did not
matter.  There would be plenty of respite in the afterlife.  Soothing balms to
wear away life’s torments.  He reached further, pushed his fingers deeper. 
Grabbing as much power as he could.

A mere fraction of what he held would incinerate his
entire being if he absorbed it.

Marik pulled.  Pulled with every fiber of his soul.

The energy resisted.  It had been in a single state
for untold years.  Immobile.  In stasis.

Move, curse your eyes!  Gods!   Any god!  Anyone! 
Help me!

He could feel his mental fingers searing.  Flesh would
have been charred to the bone.  Yet he refused to give in.

Help me, damn you!  Somebody!

Marik suddenly separated from the incredible pain. 
For an instant, it felt as if cool hands were resting on his shoulder. 
Hundreds of them.  Sapping the pain away.  Leaving relief in their wake.

For the briefest instant, he felt surrounded by a
crowd who silently lent him their strength.

And the energy slowly moved

Marik pulled the power upward.  As much of it as he
could.  He crafted no channel to direct it.  A perfectly usable channel was
already in place.

Xenos’ drawing channel swelled.  From a finger-wide
trickle, to wrist-thick, to a flow that matched Marik’s torso.  Marik rose
alongside the channel, pulling the power in his wake.

It picked up speed.  He kept pulling additional power
from the reservoir, forcing it to join the flow.  Drawing energy was no
different than a water siphon.  Once it flowed, it would never stop until it
ran out or was cut off.

The flow increased through the channel.  Marik moved
faster than it to keep ahead.  Together they rose toward the surface in a
volcanic eruption.

Now!  You overlooked a weakness, Xenos!  A mage
working so basic it is the first thing an apprentice masters!  It is so routine
that no experienced mage ever thinks about it!

Marik drew energy from his reserves.  Racing upward,
he crafted it into a needle, an attack he had never mastered fully.  An attack
he had learned from Caresse during their practices in the horses’ vale.  With
all his magical might, he hurled it straight into Xenos’ surge shield.

The minor shield, whose sole purpose lay in protecting
its weaver from errant energies surging along an incoming channel, burst under
the focused needlepoint.  Its curving surface popped easily.  Xenos had erected
it simultaneously with his channel.  Any longtime mage would have.  In all
likelihood, he did it without any conscious thought.

Xenos felt his shield shatter.  His attention
immediately fixed on his channel.

Too late, you goat-loving demon spawn!

Marik had timed it perfectly.  The onrushing energy
thundered past where the shield once stood in nearly the same instant he
destroyed it.  He hovered in the etheric while the upsurge swept by.

It moved fast.  Once it started, nothing could stop
it.  Xenos had less than a second to realize what was happening.  If he were
the fastest thinker alive, he would sever his channel before the influx could
hit him.  Marik held his breath.  Or would have if he possessed a body.

Xenos failed.  Marik roared in triumph, then shot back
into his body to watch without being roasted by the fierce energies.

The tremendous power hit Xenos like a mad Taur.  He
arched his back and screamed.  Power flooded into him far too fast to deal
with.  His aura-shield blew away in an instant.  In its place, flames burst out
across his robe through a hundred tears.  Small, candle-sized flames.  Nothing
compared to the fire bursting from his head, rendering his hair to ash in
seconds.  Shocked cries from the soldiers were lost under Xenos’ wail.

Marik’s skull pained him unbearably.  Exposure
headache.  He could feel his scalp splitting.  His brains oozing from his
ears.  That didn’t stop him from pounding the platform under Dietrik’s pooling
blood, shouting, “You wanted it, you bastard!  Now you’ve got it!  You’ve got
it all!”

Xenos’ arms folded.  He clawed at his shoulders with
razored fingers, howling in unimaginable pain.  Smoke poured from his mouth as
if he were a chimney.  The power surrounded him in a shroud.

“That’s right, you whore-master!  That’s right, you
mother—”

Marik stopped in mid-word, his mouth hanging open. 
The energy around Xenos dimmed.  Smoke had stopped rushing from mouth and
nose.  Xenos still stood arched, staring into the treetops…but he
could not
possibly be regaining control!  He could not be!

“No!” Marik screamed.  “Don’t you dare!  You’re dead! 
You’re dead
!”

Power still flowed in a river along the channel. 
Except where it surrounded Xenos, it faded completely.  His fingers twitched. 
They slowly left his maimed shoulders in shaky trembles.  The man blinked.

“
That’s impossible!  You can’t do that!
”  Marik
pounded splintered wood without noticing, tearing gashes in his hand.

A tremendous energy burst exploded away from Xenos. 
It forced a ripple through the water until it struck the platform.  The four immersed
solders were slammed against the edge with pained cries.

Loud cracks presaged broken wood snapping from the
boards closest to the pool.  Jagged pieces flew back.  Marik screamed.  Blood
streamed across his face.  His right eyeball splattered over his cheek, forced
from the socket by a spearing deck fragment.

He rolled to his back.  Half his vision had vanished. 
The pain burned fiercely.  Marik stared with a single eye at the inhuman
monster over the water with the knowledge that it had all been for nothing. 
His pain had been in vain, and it was only the beginning of what lay in store.

The flash of movement above Xenos failed to register
in Marik’s awareness until it was already over.

*        *        *        *        *

Colbey crashed into the demon.  Hard.  He felt his legs
snap from the force.  His sword drove deep into the demon’s chest from the
Guardian’s body weight.

The fall from the upper Euvea was hardly broken by the
demon’s carcass.  Colbey had braced his sword so he stood on the T-guard during
the plummet.  Its full length drove down through the right lung.  Missing the
black heart beating within the human guise.

His impact overcame whatever foul magic the demon used
to stand upon the pool’s surface.  They smashed into the water.  Colbey’s
decent had hardly slowed.  The water felt like solid stone.

His ribs shattered.  His left arm also broke.  In how
many places?  What did it matter?  At least his right arm remained functional. 
It kept an iron grip on the sword hilt.  Dragging the demon down.

The demon who refused to die.  Still it screamed in
defiance.  Bubbles cascaded from its mouth.  Light burned inside its eyes.

Colbey pulled the demon to him.  He embraced the
murderer, forcing his broken legs to wrap around the demon’s waist.  His good
hand reached down to his belt.

The demon fought back.  It raked Colbey’s face with
its talons.  Blood clouded the water between them.

Colbey drove his knife into the demon’s throat.  It
spasmed wildly several times before slowing.

In its eyes, the light brightened.  Across its body
the glow that had surrounded it moments before Colbey’s impact returned.  It
intensified, making the water boil.  Outshining the illuminated forest pool.

This was finally the end.  Colbey pulled the demon’s
body tightly to his, and slipped into the artesian well with it.

Around him, faces populated the depths.

Familiar faces.

Cool hands.  Welcoming smiles.

Smiles for one no longer foresworn.

*        *        *        *        *

Marik stared in astonishment at the place Xenos and
Colbey had vanished.  His head was weighed down by the wood in his eye.  He
yanked it free with a brief stab of pain he hardly noticed.  It hurt far less
than his pounding skull.