Sorcerer Rising (A Virgil McDane Novel) (46 page)

Dorne was wide eyed, showing the most emotion I had ever seen from him. And why not? This was…boundless.

“That is...is…” It looked like Dorne was about to have a panic attack. “Wrong,” he finally sputtered out.

“How is it you think we control your magic, Wizard?” Ectan asked. “We control everything in our world.”

“All of you?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said, clapping his hands.

Figures began to pop up everywhere, hundreds of them. All islanders, so much magic that it made my teeth itch.

Ectan continued. “We have learned much about magic, much of the Aether as you call it.
We know more than you could possibly imagine, have studied creatures from across the world. Let us show you what we can do.”

He clicked to our guards and they dragged
us up the coral stairs and into the dome. The inside was painted and inscribed just like the temple outside the cloud, but here the murals were greater in detail. It was like every Native American and Aborigine painting I had ever seen combined with the Sistine chapel.

Their partition. Their map room.

Ectan raised his hands, displaying the temple in all its glory. “We were starving,” he said. “The Seafather had abandoned us and our children wept for their empty bellies. But then we found a new hope, a new world. I was the first to ascend, to give myself to the mist.”

He rose up off the ground, floating toward the ceiling. He touched the mural lovingly, reverently. “We did what your people could not. We tamed the mist, shaped it in our image.” His burning blue eyes fixed on me. “We added to it.”

Ectan pointed to one of the murals, a portrait depicting woods and a blue sun. “Here is your world, mage, your Walter Cloud.”

My mind reeled with the implications. “They breathed it in,” I whispered. Somehow these creatures had manipulated this world just like a mage would with his mind. They had created a partition to provide and anchor and then
Inhaled a whole world like any object within the Aether.

They were doing what we had done for a thousand years, but on a scale that was unimaginable.

My horror was replaced with anger. “How many worlds have you destroyed? How many worlds have you sucked into this horror show?”

“Dozens,” he replied. “But you should know as well as any other, the mind is just as ripe for the picking as a whole world.”

He waved his hand and Simon appeared in a puff of blue mist, chained to the floor. He kicked and screamed, tears flowing down his face. I struggled, and Dorne was a maelstrom of magic beside me, but neither one of us could do a thing. The air wrapped around us like a vice, holding us to the ground.

Ectan floated down to the Sorcerer, wrapping his hands around his head. He brought his face down to the man’s, his skin changing from blue to a deep, blood red. His tentacle beard wrapped around the man’s face and the burning blue light from his eyes intensified. His skull began to glow, the light so intense it pierced through and I could see his brain pulsating underneath.

Then he Inhaled.

White and yellow mist began to leak from Simon’s face, then his ears and skin, until it was flowing from every inch of his body. Still Ectan inhaled. The mist flowed up and into the monster, pouring into his eyes, in through his mouth and skin.

Simon’s words died out until they were but a whimper, but I could hear his mind screaming in pain and terror. Without even trying, I could see his partition disintegrating under the onslaught as they ripped his mind out by the root.

Ectan threw the Sorcerer aside, discarding like so much trash. He faced the mural and where there was only blank stone, a full map began to bleed into existence. I saw trees and mountains, fractured and dying from being a thrall to one of the Fay for so long, a whole world that had once been a man’s mind.

And I felt the air change around me, the world responding. Somewhere, I knew they had grafted Simon’s mind into their world.

I felt sick. They were collecting us. That’s how they had subdued Creofax, Sentius, dozens others.

Ectan whirled around, the light dying off until it was just his eyes. He laughed. “Now, Wizard, tell me what is impossible!”

He clapped his hands and islanders began to pour into the room, dragging our men with them, the combined forces of our crew and the Coleman expedition.

Ectan looked them over. “They will add little to our world, but each raindrop adds to the ocean.” He paused. “But this one, it will be valuable indeed.”

He pulled the sack off one of the kneeling figures. Cecil Lancaster’s eyes were wide with fear, his perfect suit wrinkled and stained.

Ectan pointed to him and clicked something to one of the Kira Nui. The islander nodded and grabbed the Wizard by the head.

Ectan
waved his hand yet again and the world shifted around us once more. The last I heard from the temple was  Lancaster’s screams.

The world reformed and w
e were back in a cell, but not the one we had been in. James and Diana sat across from us and Arne was slumped on the floor.

“We will hold our ceremony tonight,” Ectan said, “to welcome you to our world. Until then, gentlem
en.”

He and his guard left the cell.

I looked at Dorne. He had a haunted look in his eye, and worse he looked defeated.

“Don’t give up on me now, Conrad,” I said. “This isn’t over until it’s over. I don’t intend on being in someone else’s book a hundred years from now. And I certainly don’t intend on being on anyone’s wall.”

Dorne didn’t say anything.

“Damn, am I glad to see ya’ll!” James said. “What the hell is going on?”

I filled them in on what we had learned.

“What can we do?” Diana asked.

The guard was still outside our cell. I watched him waiting. If I could just-

Suddenly, I heard a sharp whistling from behind me. I looked over and Arne was standing at the gate. He had risen without any of us noticing.

He clicked and made a whole host of guttural noises at the creature, who I could tell was surprised to hear his language coming from the machine. He held up his spear and jabbed at Arne, who clicked back offended.

The creature held out his hand and I felt power emanate from the thing. It filled the air, the ground, and my mind, like the echo of an explosion.

And then the strangest thing happened. Purple light played over Arne’s metal skin. He tilted his head and said, “Apparently that works then.”

Then he dove through the gate, shattering the coral like it was paper mache. Before the Kira Nui could even move
, Arne had grabbed the thing by its head. There was a sharp snap and the thing fell to the ground.

I sat dumbfounded. “Wow, Arne. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“You are a moron,” the machine replied. Then he turned to walk down the hall.

“Wait!” I hollered after him. “Where are you going?”

The machine turned. “I have a mission to complete.”

“What about us?” I asked. “The crew? We need to get out of here!”

He laughed, an alien and disturbing sound that made me shudder. “It brings me the greatest of pleasures to be able to tell you this, Sorcerer. Your services will no longer be needed.”

Then he held out his hand and an arc of purple electricity surged from his palm and slammed into me, sending me flying against the wall. Stars filled my vision and my body was a disturbing combination of painful throbbing and tingling numbness.

I heard Arne say, “You should have said no, Sorcerer. It would have been easier that way. For everyone.”

Dorne helped me sit up. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I think we were just fired.”

“Did Arne just kick your ass?” James asked, peeking his head out of the cell.

“Damn,” Lambros cursed.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “There is more going on here then we knew.” I looked from Lambros to James.

James shrugged but Diana’s eyes were distant. “He wouldn’t leave us like this,” she whispered.

“Who?” Dorne asked. “What is going on, Diana?”

The look in her eyes made me take pause. She was terror stricken, and not because of what she knew, but because of what she didn’t know. Things were out of her control. She had just discovered she didn’t know the plan.

“What was Arne supposed to do?” I asked. “He’s not just a navigator.”

“I-I don’t know,” she said. “Cyrus didn’t tell me. He was a new model, a prototype. I know he was excited about it, that this was a chance to test it out.”

“And you didn’t ask for specifics?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I knew I would find out more when I needed to. That’s how he works.” She cradled her head in her hands. “He wouldn’t abandon me like this!”

“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “We have to get the rest of the crew and get out of here. Maybe Arne will distract the Kira Nui.”

“And do what?” James asked. He was sweating and I could see the hint of panic in his eyes. “You said there’s nothing we can do against them!”

“They’ve lured hundreds of people here and ripped out their damn minds,” I said. “They’ve snuffed out whole worlds. I’m not going to just sit back and let this continue!”

“And how are you going to stop it?” Dorne asked quietly.

I gritted my teeth. “I don’t know. If we can get out, maybe we can collapse the cave, block the cloud. If they can’t use the Arcus, then they can’t send it into any more worlds. No one will be able to follow it back either.” I looked from Dorne to Diana to James, each looking at me doubtfully. I set my jaw. “If I have to, I’ll go to the Guild. I’ll tell them everything and get them to march in here guns a blazing! If that doesn’t work I’ll go to anyone who’ll listen!”

“And what?” Dorne asked. “Just kill everything here?”

I grabbed him by the collar. “I destroyed one world
. What’s two?”

“It’s useless,” he said. “We’re completely defenseless.”

I looked down at him and sneered. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Now is not the time to give into self-pity. I would have thought you better than this. What do you propose we do, sit here and let these things win? Kill our friends, the people who’ve put their trust in us? Like Tiffany?”

His head snapped up in my direction. “What am I to do without my magic?

“Shit, Dorne!” I shouted. “Welcome to my world. You’re six foot five and weigh two thirty. You’re holding a twenty pound shaft of hardwood! Have you ever played baseball? If you see one of those things just keep your eye on the ball and take a fucking swing!”

We searched the cells, but the rest of the crew was elsewhere. We did find a chest with the rest of our stuff.

I threw my coat around my shoulders, happily letting it settle around me. Everything was still in my pockets too. Armed and ready, we made our way down the tunnel.

The natural light of the fish began to recede behind us the deeper we went, giving way to a grungy, dim illumination that left us scrambling for the rough stone walls just to tell where we were going. The air, or water, whatever, was growing warmer, uncomfortably so. Sweat, however the hell that worked, drenched my clothes and the muggy, moist air clung to my skin.

As we crested the mouth of the tunnel, it gave way to a barren landscape.

“My God,” I heard Diana say behind me.

It certainly wasn’t what I expected. Several small peaks, steep and jagged, dotted the landscape like knives. Thick, molten lava flowed from gaping ragged holes, forming rivers of fire. Everything was stark, red rock. A great black sun hung in a blood red sky, beating down on us with an oppressive heat.

A mangled mess of crystal wrapped around the cave mouth and the peak. I took a step back and examined the scene. Shards of onyx, or something like it, twisted around the peak. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t glass or crystal, and it wasn’t entirely black. It radiated a deep, angry red.

“We have to find a way down from here,” James said.

I looked down and realized how correct he was. The whole peak was a series of cliffs and loose stone. It looked like a great way to reduce a skeleton to gravel.

I walked around the clutter of crystal, inspecting as I went. The material escaped me, I couldn’t tell if it was crystal or glass or something else entirely without a more in depth analysis.

I made my way around the bend and gasped, taking a step back, nearly tripping over the loose shale. A massive skull, easily the size of an elephant, was half buried in the side of the mountain. It was twenty feet long with a massive forward twisting horn, like that of a bull’s. The other side was obscured by the mountain, buried up to its brow. A massive jaw, filled with foot long teeth, grinned wickedly in the dim sunlight and the dark, empty socket of its eye glared angrily.

It was a skeleton.

A dragon skeleton!

The socket continued to glare at me, its darkness engulfing the fields of my vision. Suddenly, a voice, quite as the wind but with a weight that spoke of the storm behind it, said, “You have little manners, mage.”