Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept (53 page)

The other Ravathan skittered across the floor toward Jataan, but
the battle mage recovered much more quickly than Alexander had, tuck rolling and landing on his feet in position to counterattack. His Weaponere’s stone transformed into a spear as he lunged, reaching out and piercing the armor plate covering the Ravathan’s torso, driving through the creature and out its back. It stiffened for a moment, then looked intently at Jataan.

He
fell backward as if someone had hit him in the chest with a war hammer, flopping to the ground like a dead fish and coming to an awkward stop, eyes open and distant.

Alexander rolled to his back, Thinblade still firmly in his grip
. The glaive was raised to strike, but the creature stopped when a spout of blood erupted from one of its legs.

It turned and blindly directed a force
-push into the area where Jack was crouched. He flew back across the stone floor, his hood coming down and dispelling his invisibility.

Lita hit the Ravathan in the shoulder
with a light-lance, burning off one of its arms. It squealed and then chattered angrily as it spun its glaive up into the other hand, bringing it around on Alexander again. He rolled, letting the blade slam into the floor beside him, then slashed at the creature’s forearms, cleaving them off with a stroke.

It s
hrieked, holding up its severed arms just as Anja arrived and cut it in half between the torso and the legs. It toppled to the ground, focusing intently on Anja even as it died. She fell back with a shock, dropping to the floor like a sack of beans and going still, her eyes open and glazed.

“You all right, Jack
?” Alexander asked.

“Just got the wind knocked out of me,” he managed, getting to his hands and knees.

Alexander opened his Wizard’s Den as he sat up and rubbed his back.

“Let’s get them inside,” he said, dragging Luminessence closer and using it to help him get to his feet.

“I can’t wake her,” Lita said, still kneeling next to Tasia.

“I’m hoping they’ll recover with time,” Alexander said, checking on
Anja and finding her breathing steadily but completely unresponsive. He dragged her into the Wizard’s Den and lifted her into a bed, wincing in pain from his back injury. He sat down for a moment as Jack and Lita carried Jataan and Tasia into the Den. It hurt to breathe—a sharp stabbing pain when he filled his lungs, and yet he felt starved for air and wanted nothing more than to take a big, full breath.

He
lay down while Jack and Lita did what they could to make the others comfortable. Lita cast her healing spell on them, but didn’t seem optimistic.

When they finished,
Alexander rolled slowly to a sitting position, groaning slightly, in spite of his best efforts to hide the pain.

“We’re not in any condition to press on,” Lita said.

“They’re not, but I am,” Alexander said.

Chloe buzzed into existence in a ball of light right in front of him
.

“You’re not either,” she said. “You have a broken rib.”

“I don’t have time for a broken rib,” he said, getting to his feet, struggling to endure the stab of pain he felt without showing it.

“You can hardly stand without wincing
… how are you going to fight?” Chloe asked.

“She’s right, Alexander, you need to rest and heal,” Lita said.

He stretched his back, letting the pain wash over him, embracing it. Then he carefully took a deep breath, holding it for a moment in spite of the agony it induced before letting it out slowly. He was stiff and sore, but he felt strong enough to do what needed to be done.

“I can manage,” he said, heading for the door. Jack followed, tossing his hood up without a word. Lita frowned but followed anyway, casting her shield as she passed out of the safety of the Wizard’s Den.

Chloe buzzed out into the hall just before Alexander closed the door.

“You know there’s darkness ahead,” she said.

“I’m counting on it.”

Alexander
headed to the set of stairs leading down to the next long corridor. This one was filled with fog, thick and swirling, cold and oppressive. He sent his sight into the mist and found three demons living within the confines of the hallway, the fog beginning and ending at the thresholds of the staircases at each end. The formless, shadowy creatures of the netherworld trapped inside were ravenous—desperate to feed on any source of life they could find.

Alexander took the stairs carefully, approaching to wit
hin a few yards of the corridor, and waited. The fog swirled and then something hit the plane of the threshold like a bird crashing into a window, hard and loud, bouncing away into the fog, a forlorn shriek following it into the hallway.

“Don’t much like the looks of that,” Jack said.

“Me neither, but it’s the only way,” Alexander said, raising Luminessence to just a few shades dimmer than full brilliance—enough, he hoped, to keep the creatures at bay, though probably not enough to kill any but the weakest demons.

“Stay close
,” he said, stepping out into the fog. Jack and Lita followed, though both showed colors of fear. Another shriek moved past them, turning from rage to pain when it got too close to Alexander’s light. He started breathing again and increased his pace, focusing his mind on the light and the next step.

The fog swirled around them, indistinct forms just beyond the light, howling with rage
, snarling and snapping with unquenched bloodlust. One came into the light, rebounding with a yelp.

Alexander pressed on, holding his light bright even
as it began to sap his strength and drain his will. His awareness began to narrow to the light and the next footstep, each of paramount importance. Everything else was set aside. His pain, his worry for Isabel, the Nether Gate, even the Wraith Queen was displaced with the single-minded effort it took to maintain the light while simply walking down the hallway.

And then he found himself stopped with Jack gently shaking his shoulder.

“You did it,” Jack said.

Alexander
had reached the stairwell at the far end of the hallway, the shadowy demons railing against the barrier holding them inside the corridor, Jack and Lita both alive and well, though slightly paler for the experience.

He frowned when he gently stretched his back and it felt better than it had before the harrowing passage through the mists. On reflection, he decided that he felt better in general than he had any right to
feel, given all of the injuries that he’d recently sustained.

He sent his sight down the staircase and into the fourth corridor of Phane’s gauntlet. It was empty, though well
-lit with softly glowing ceiling stones. The entire hallway radiated magic, but there was no specific location or concentration that he could see.

He led the way down, stopping well away from the threshold and frowning to himself.

“Nothing?” Jack asked.

Alexander shook his head.
“Just lots of magic.”

He opened his Wizard’
s Den and went inside, checking on Anja. She was still dazed and entirely unresponsive. Jataan and Tasia were in a similar condition. Alexander could only imagine what an army of Ravathan could do. It was no wonder that Shivini’s name had always evoked such fear.

He sighed heavily, getting to his feet.

“Only one way through,” he said, drawing the Thinblade and heading for the door.

“Alexander,
” Jack said, waiting for him to stop and turn.

“Is there a potion you could drink that would help?”

Alexander blinked, the rhythmic stab of pain from each breath causing him to flinch almost involuntarily. He went to the chest and found a potion of warding, drinking it without hesitation. Then, almost as an afterthought, he took a vial of liquid fire and put it in his pouch.

Jack followed him out.

“Are you sure?” Alexander asked.

“Relatively,” Jack said with a shrug, peering out into the hallway for any hint of a threat.

Lita stepped out and cast her shield.

“We don’t know what’s out there,” Alexander said. “You might be better off in the Wizard’s Den.”

“Nonsense,” Lita said.

He closed the door with a thought and stifled a grin. Sword in one hand, staff in the other, he stepped across the threshold. The magic filling the entire corridor suddenly condensed into five points of reddish, angry
-looking magical energy, the first just thirty feet ahead. They shined, swirling and refracting, sending bright red light dancing across the walls and ceiling. Then they took shape … five perfectly proportioned men, wearing plate armor and armed with swords and shields, but instead of flesh and blood, they were made entirely of red magical force, transparent and terrible.

“Get to the far side any way you can
!” Alexander said, trotting toward the first enemy. It lunged at him, crackling energy radiating waves of heat toward him as he slipped past the textbook thrust and sliced through the guardian at the torso. He felt a surge of heat rush into his hand through the Thinblade a moment before the force knight vanished. He rushed ahead toward the next.

Lita hit it squarely with a light-lance
before Alexander could reach it. It raised its shield, which failed a moment later, and the second guardian vanished in a flare of light. Alexander looked down the hall, expecting to see three. Instead he saw four … then a fifth appeared.

He opened the door to his Wizard’s Den and motioned for his friends to enter.

“What are you going to do?” Jack asked.

“Cheat,” Alexander said. “Inside
. Hurry.”

Lita and Jack hesitated for
only a moment.

Alexander
closed the door and sprinted directly toward the next force knight, opening the door to his Wizard’s Den just scant feet away, barely avoiding a collision before running inside and closing the door behind him. Pain stabbed into his chest with each breath and his leg ached, but the battle was joined … he wasn’t about to stop now. After a moment to slow his heart, he opened the door, stepped out, closed the door behind himself and opened it again right in front of him, stepping back inside and closing the door before the enemy could react.

When he opened the door next, he
ran into the corridor at full speed, closing the door with a thought and racing away from the magical apparitions. The force knights began to give chase, but quickly fell behind.

A moment later one appeared twenty feet ahead of Alexander. He swept into it, dodging its attack and slashing at it in passing with the Thinblade. It flickered out of existence with a flash of heat that only served to make Alexander run faster.

His leg hurt. His back hurt. His ribs hurt.

Two more appeared before him, both angling to attack simultaneously. Alexander
slowed, sensing another threat. He ducked and swept his blade back through a force knight that had just materialized behind him. The other two lunged. He rolled to one side, coming to his feet and sweeping his blade up through the nearest enemy before running toward the end of the hall again.

He hadn’t made it ten steps when his battle sense showed him the coming moments—a force knight materializing behind him and killing him with a single thrust to the back of the skull. He willed the door to his Wizard
’s Den open and tumbled inside, seeing the phantom blade come within inches of ending his life. He closed the door an instant before it could follow him through, then crawled to the foot of the nearest bed and sat with his back against it, breathing shallowly and carefully.

“I guess we know what they are now,”
he mumbled.

“Come on, let’s get you into a bed,” Lita said. “You’re of no use to anyone like this.”

As much as he hated it, he had to agree, though he didn’t tell her that.

Chapter
40

He woke to find Jataan, Anja, and Tasia awake and well. They were all sitting around the table waiting for the effects of Lita’s spell to wear off. He still hurt, but it was more distant, less urgent.

“I’m glad to see you’re all awake
,” he said, sitting up.

“How are you feeling?” Anja asked.

“Beat up. How are the three of you?”

“Well enough, considering the power of the creature’s magic to stun and confuse,” Tasia said.

“It was impressive,” Jataan said, “though somewhat unsettling.”

“You up
for a fight?”

“Of course, Lord Reishi,” Commander P’Tal said.

Lita sighed, shaking her head.

“Hit them hard and keep moving,” Alexander said. “They don’t die, they just vanish for a few seconds
and then reappear, so the objective is to get through the hall alive, not to kill them all.”

Anja shrugged when he looked at her pointedly.

“I’m still going to kill some of them,” she said.

“Just keep moving,” he said.

“I will,” she said, drawing her oversized sword.

Jataan was rubbing his Weaponere’s stone like a
good-luck charm. Jack vanished. Lita cast her shield spell and Alexander drew the Thinblade.

He opened the door and they filed out into an empty hallway, running toward the far end, about fifty feet away now, when the five force knights materialized as one amongst them.

Alexander saw it coming, shouting, “Fight!” as he swept through one, dispelling it with a stroke. Jataan danced outside the thrust of another and stabbed into its empty skull with a short spear. The knight vanished. Lita hit another with a force-push, blasting it off its feet and out of her way. She and Jack sprinted past the remaining enemy and raced toward the staircase landing.

One stabbed at Anja. She slapped its force blade aside with her broadsword and thrust into its chest and out its bac
k. It vanished with a loud pop.

The fifth charged Tasia. She launched a jet of fire at it that seemed to have no effect. It
smashed into her, but she caught her balance with a hand on its shield. It stabbed over the top, driving its hot blade down into her shoulder. She screamed with pure rage, whipping the apparition around by the shield and throwing it into the wall with such force that it shattered in a dazzling display of sparks.

Already two had reappeared between them and the end of the hallway. Lita stopped just this side of the threshold and hit one in the back with a light-lance, causing it to vanish again for a
few moments. Another appeared. Alexander reached the nearest one, walking deliberately toward it, focusing on his battle sense, waiting for the moment when he saw the coming seconds, then stepping into just the right place to avoid the enemy strike and deal a killing blow. He didn’t even break stride, his focus turning to the next closest force knight.

Jataan came up to his left about a half
step back, allowing him ample room to work but closing a vulnerability in Alexander’s guard. The final push was quick and decisive. The conjured guardians were flawless swordsmen, quick and light, but without heart or instinct or experience or any of a hundred other things that make a warrior dangerous. The force knights fell with each stroke as Alexander and Jataan advanced, Anja following close behind.

They reached the far side of the corridor without
further injury. As soon as they passed the threshold, the force knights vanished, leaving a subtle aura of magic filling the entire hallway again. Alexander opened the door to his Wizard’s Den and helped Tasia to a bed. She protested, but not too loudly. Her wound was deep.

Alexander handed Lita a healing potion. She helped Tasia
sit up to drink it, then gently laid her back down and cast a healing spell.

“What do we face next?” Jataan asked.

Alexander nodded to himself as he sat heavily on the edge of the nearest bed and closed his eyes, taking a look at the next path they would need to negotiate. The stairs descended around and around a central shaft for over a hundred feet, some of them glowing with magic. Alexander moved in closer and found a variety of mechanical traps of gruesome and ingenious design distributed randomly but with terrifying frequency down the entire staircase.

He turned his focus to the
central shaft, leaning over the railing at the top and looking down to the landing. He inspected more closely, looking for traps or wards, but found none other than those on the stairs themselves.

“Stay here,”
he said, going to his chest and selecting a featherlite potion. “I’ll see you at the bottom.”

He
drank the potion, then waited until the magic took effect before stepping over the railing and off the edge, falling quickly, the wind rushing by for a moment, before he slowed as he neared the ground, magic breaking his fall and depositing him safely at the base of the stairs.

When he
opened the door to the Wizard’s Den, Jataan stepped out ready for a fight, then relaxed when he saw that all was calm.

“We’re through the worst of it,” Alexander said. “All that’s left are some wraithkin.”

“Is this Phane’s inner sanctum?” Jack asked.

“Part of it, I think
. This level and the ones below it are where he did his demonic summoning. The stairs are this way.”

“Deeper still?” Jack said.

“I’m afraid so.”

Alexander led the way with his light raised.
He kept his sight pushed out, searching the surrounding area for any hint of danger and finding a worrisome number of wraithkin. They were staying out of his light, blinking from shadow to shadow just the other side of the walls surrounding them.

He stopped at the top o
f a spiral staircase.

“Stay
in the light … wraithkin are close.”

He led the way down slowly, keeping his light bright enough to flood the stairs with brilliance in both directions. They went down ten levels, passing floor after floor of summoning chambers and horrific
-looking experimentation rooms. All the while, Alexander was tracking the progress of dozens of wraithkin blinking down, floor by floor, as they descended.

The stairs ended in a
small chamber. Alexander stopped short of rounding the corner, sending his sight forward. In the middle of the room was a simple stone pedestal. At its center was a glowing red crystal spinning on its end like a top. It shined with powerful magic.

“More defenses,”
he said, “and a bunch of wraithkin close enough to blink in.”

Everyone tensed a bit.

Alexander thought for a moment before coming to a decision.

“Fall back
, one level up,” he said. “Stay in the light.”

The level above wasn’t defended. It was a cold unused laboratory that looked
to have been in full operation when it had been abandoned and left to rot. Alexander filled the room with light, forcing a few wraithkin to blink into adjacent rooms.

He looked
into the level below for the hallway he wanted and went to the spot just above it, cutting a hole in the floor with a few precise strokes. After a moment’s look, he dropped through the hole.

Chaos erupted from above, shouting and fighting.
With a jolt of horror, he realized that the wraithkin had waited for him to separate from his friends. He quickly raised Luminessence, flooding both levels with brilliant light and searing away the demonic protection … the six wraithkin that had ambushed his friends all toppled over with looks of horror frozen on their faces.

A moment later Jataan lowered a limp and bloody
Anja down to Alexander. He maneuvered her to the ground, letting her slide down his side so he could keep his light raised. Jack came next, holding a wound on his side. Then Jataan lowered Lita. Jack caught her, letting her gently to the ground. She’d been stabbed in the belly with a wraithkin blade. Her face was grey and her colors shone with pain. Jataan came through last, favoring a gash in his leg.

Alexander opened the door to his Wizard’s Den and
he and Jataan carried their friends inside. He dimmed his light only after the door was closed, discovering that Luminessence had been projecting bright and protective light without his deliberate concentration.

“Anja was slammed into a wall,” Jack said. “She hit her head and fell like a rag doll.”

“Lita was stabbed with a wraithkin blade,” Jataan said in a monotone, more fear in his colors than Alexander had ever seen.

“Were both of you cut with the wraithkin blades as well?” Alexander asked, going to his chest and getting
three healing potions.

Both nodded.

“My wound is minor,” Jataan said.

“I can manage,” Jack said, “though I wouldn’t mind some help with a bandage.”

Alexander sat Anja up in bed and tipped her head back. It lolled to one side. He fought off a wave of nausea. Her colors were alive and strong, but she looked like she was dead. He gently held her bloody head and poured the healing elixir down her throat, silently hoping that it would have enough power to help her. Once she had swallowed the potion, he eased her back onto the bed.

He took the second potion to Lita, helping her sit up to drink it. She tried to resist, tried to argue that the potion would do no good against a wraithkin wound, but Alexander poured it into her mouth anyway. He knew that it
probably wouldn’t save her, but he also knew that it might—and besides, it was all that he could do at the moment. Jataan went to work cleaning and dressing her wound.

Alexander
cleaned Jack’s wound. It wasn’t deep enough to be deadly under normal circumstances, but a wraithkin wound would take a long time to heal. Once he’d bandaged it, he checked Jataan’s dressing, which the battle mage had expertly applied to his own leg.

“Jack, I want you to stay here,”
Alexander said.

“I might be able to help,” Jack said, wincing and almost keeling over when he tried to stand up. “Or not,” he muttered, sitting back down.

“Rest and keep an eye on our wounded.”

Jack nodded, looking up intently. “Be careful
.”

Alexander raised his light and opened
the door. Wraithkin vanished from the shadows when he stepped into the hallway, Jataan right behind him. He closed the door and started forward. A wraithkin appeared thirty feet down the hall. Alexander held his light and his pace. The wraithkin blinked away.

He reached the door that he’d bee
n looking for and stepped up beside it, slipping his blade into the stone several inches outside the doorjamb at a sharp angle. Stepping across the door quickly, he sliced into the other side as well.

A moment later,
the door exploded outward, sending stone and splinters into the opposite wall and filling the corridor with dust. Alexander pulled a splinter out of his cheek just a few inches from his eye, then he entered the room quickly, cutting down two sentinels that were just coming to life.

He
looked around the room for the casket that held Hector Lal. It sat at an angle on a specially made rack as if on display. Alexander could see Hector through a window in the casket lid, alive but suspended in time, a prisoner to his own folly, locked in a magical box.

“I’m sorry,” Alexander whispered
, closing the distance quickly, slicing through the casket several times, cutting Hector across the head and torso, killing him instantly.

“I hope you’re watching, Siduri,” he said to the ceiling.

With renewed focus on his light, his Thinblade firmly in hand, he led Jataan back into the hallway. Two wraithkin were standing at each end.

“Great darkness is near, My Love,” Chloe said, spinning into existence and then vanishing again.

“I know,” Alexander said. “We’re getting close.”

He raised his light
enough to deter the wraithkin and proceeded to his next target. He passed three more doors, stopping at a fourth. He could only imagine what lay within Phane’s laboratories, but he didn’t have time to worry about it at the moment.

He slashed through the door, causing the wards protecting it to blast
it away, hurling it across the hallway. This time Alexander had an arm over his face to avoid flying debris. Wraithkin appeared down the hall, close enough to be burned with Alexander’s light, which had diminished somewhat from lack of attention.

He
stood in the doorway, flooding both the hall and the room with light until Jataan had passed. A howl of fear filled the level, followed by several more. Alexander’s battle sense flared, revealing multiple threats. He raised his light, killing ten more wraithkin that appeared all at once. Their desperation told Alexander that he was close.

Then he saw the gate. It was made from the same dull black stone that the Reishi Gates were crafted from, but it was smaller and its colors weren’t nearly as expansive or complex.
A single word was carved into the stone at the top of the arch. Alexander smiled to himself—he’d seen this and was prepared.