The Sorcerer's Destiny (The Sorcerer's Path) (20 page)

Azerick entered the tower and descended into the old laboratory; the heart of the tower where the Source pool now resided. Stepping into the chamber was like walking into a sauna, only it was a wave of arcane power washing over him instead of moist heat. In another room, the crystal allowing him and Raijaun to travel to the Scions’ prison beckoned. Azerick ignored its calls, knowing there was no longer anything they could do to delay the fallen gods return.

Stabbing his staff into the tower floor, Azerick began weaving the spell of translocation. Outside, the runes flared and he felt the others add their power to his. He used his staff as a focal point and to anchor him to the tower as the veil between worlds began to part. The ground beneath his feet trembled as the world resisted the attempt to steal part if it away.

Outside, buildings shook, shedding roof tiles like a dog shaking water from its fur. Buildings cracked and a section of the outer wall collapsed beneath the violent quaking. Aggie wanted to stop the spell now, but they were committed, and disrupting it at this point could be more disastrous than continuing. She was certain the tower would collapse and bury Azerick beneath it at any moment, but a closer look showed the tower was not shaking at all. It was the world around it reacting violently while it stood in an eye of relative calm. It gave her hope, and she shouted her observation to the others to reassure them. She could feel the anxiety in their shared magic, and it was crucial they not let fear distract them, or they could yet lose control just as the elves had.

Some of the weaker structures on the school grounds began to collapse, and deep fissures radiated out from the base of the old tower. Several of the mages looked at the expanding web of cracks as they crawled outward. Ellyssa glared at one running between her feet but refused to allow it to distract her. The ground collapsed around the tower as if it was being swallowed by a massive sinkhole, but it did not fall. It hovered over the pit, displaying the outside walls of the subsurface rooms. Then it began to fade. At first, it looked as though it were being cast into darkness by the setting sun despite the illumination of everything around it. Then it began to lose solidity, and for a brief moment, everyone could see Azerick in the central chamber with a look of total focus etched upon his face. A moment later, there was nothing but a massive hole in the ground and the destruction left behind.

Azerick’s world turned grey then stark white. Color slowly began filtering in, and he could define shapes around him. For a few seconds, he could see through the walls and floors above him gazed upon the light and tops of trees of the outside world. Azerick was exhausted and took several minutes to steady the muscles now trembling like an old man afflicted with palsy. Finding his balance once more, Azerick reached into the silver liquid of the Source pool. The pool radiated with power, but not like the burning heat of a fire. It was warmth, love, strength, and the sweetest promises ever whispered into one’s ear. He had to use his intense focus and will to keep himself from allowing it to pull him into its comforting embrace and consuming him. Azerick pushed back and used his mind and power to shape the living Source into the tool he needed. He withdrew his hand from the pool and admired the shining metal lying in his open palm. To anyone else, it appeared to be nothing more than an impossibly brilliant door handle, and that was what it was, except it was far from ordinary.

Slipping the handle into his pocket, Azerick made for the stairs leading up. For a few frightful minutes as he stood in the doorway of the foyer, he thought the spell had failed, but Azerick quickly realized he was somewhere else. The air was completely free of the smells of humanity. No tangy odors of forge fires or sweet smells of food cooking in the kitchens tinged the air. No voices or the sounds of mock battles played across the grounds. It was silent, and the air was practically sterile. Azerick’s tower stood as the only building for as far as he could see and suspected it was the only one in this world.

The sorcerer stepped from his tower and gazed across the open field and up at the mountains looming behind him. It was identical to the place he just departed, except no man had ever stepped here before. Every tree that had ever grown and not fallen to age and the elements still stood tall, safe from the axes and saws used to create the training grounds, farms, and pastures. It was beyond peaceful, it was tranquil. Silence lay over this world like a blanket shielding it from the horror his world was about to face. Azerick was almost able to fully relax for the first time in years until the silence of the place went from serene to disturbing. It was not just quiet; it was devoid of sound and life. Then someone threw a mountain on him.

Azerick erected a ward just as the sky vanished and something colossal came crashing down. His ward flared violently as it fought against the crushing weight of the world-eclipsing form trying to grind him to dust. Azerick poured power into his shield and was launched forward like a cherry pit being squeezed between an enormous thumb and forefinger. He rolled and tumbled inside his magic sphere for over a hundred yards until the trees brought him to an abrupt halt.

He leapt to his feet and stared in disbelief at the creature that had nearly crushed him like an insect. The dragon, if that was what it truly was, was both awesome and terrifying. Its serpentine body was a river of rippling, multihued scales with eight legs and four wings. How something that size could fly was beyond him. It was easily five hundred feet long, and Azerick figured he was probably underestimating it as his mind refused to fully acknowledge its greatness.

“You trespass in my world, sorcerer. You plant your unnatural home and defile the purity of this place, and for that, you shall die.”

The dragon’s voice struck Azerick like a wave and nearly knocked him back off his feet. Before he could respond, fire engulfed the world. Azerick raised another ward and was barely able to shield himself from the hellish flames. The trees around him exploded under the intensity and were instantly reduced to ash. The ground turned black and cracked as every particle of water evaporated.

Azerick struck back with a massive fist of invisible force, snapping the flame-spewing jaws closed and rocking the dragon’s head back.

“Stop!” Azerick shouted. “There is no need for us to fight. I do not wish you any harm.”

“You, harm me?” The dragon’s laughter shook pinecones from the trees not destroyed by his fiery breath. “I am Ancalon, Father of Dragons. I am as old as this world. You are a child who has picked up his father’s sword and now thinks he is a great warrior. You have no idea of the meaning of power. I smell the blood of one of my children upon you, so I will show you real power.”

Azerick thought back and understood Ancalon must mean the dragon who had stolen the Codex Arcana from him. He regretted killing the impressive beast, but it had been unwilling to accept a peaceful resolution.

“I had no desire to harm him, but he gave me no choice. Do not make the same mistake.”

Ancalon gave another rumbling chuckle. “Insect.”

The Father of Dragons slammed a mighty paw against the ground, causing it to heave and buckle. A huge section of earth and rock rose out of the soil like a geyser and blasted Azerick hundreds of feet into the air. The sorcerer ripped open a gate near the apex of his rapid ascent and transported himself back to the ground behind the great wyrm.

Azerick gathered in the Source as fast as he could. Ancalon sensed the power building behind him and spun to face the intruder. He was swift for such a colossal creature, but Azerick was faster. The sorcerer released a powerful blast of arcane energy directly into the dragon’s face, knocking the gargantuan creature back a hundred yards. Ancalon’s clawed feet dug furrows in the ground deep enough to bury a wagon as he scrabbled for purchase.

The dragon responded with a roar of fury that hit Azerick with as much force as a strong wizard’s spell. Azerick responded by raising a boulder from the ground the size of a cottage and launching it with the speed of a loosed arrow. The boulder struck Ancalon between his enormous eyes and shattered into a spray of gravel. The beast shook his head, raised a mass of earth the size of a large house, and dropped it on the infuriating sorcerer.

Azerick tore open another gate and leapt through just before the million ton rock smashed into the ground and caused a small, localized earthquake. The cloud of dust kicked up from the assault made it nearly impossible for Azerick to see, but Ancalon was so large he did not have to. His amalgamated ray of arcane and demonic magic pierced the dust cloud and struck the dragon low in his side between his two sets of wings.

Ancalon roared in pain and fury. No mortal creature had ever caused it harm before. This sensation was new and unacceptable. The dragon sent his magic into the sky and enormous thunderheads rolled in to answer his call. The wind began blowing furiously as lightning arced across the black clouds. Ancalon grabbed those bolts with his magic and hurled them at the human creature.

Azerick felt one and then a multitude powerful bolts of lightning strike his ward. Arcs of tremendously powerful electricity struck his shield and the ground around him by the hundreds. His hair stood on end, and tiny motes of electrical energy crackled across his flesh and clothing even inside his protective bubble. He sent magic deep into the ground and forced a lake to rise beneath them. Ancalon’s own lightning electrified the water and sent its power coursing through the great dragon’s body. Azerick jabbed the Arcanum point of his staff into the ground and added his power to the assault.

The dragon screeched once more, beat his powerful wings, and flew into the dark sky. Azerick chased him with flaming orbs and brilliant beams of arcane energy, scorching scales and eliciting more bellows of outrage. Ancalon streaked skyward until even his gigantic form was nearly lost from view. The dragon quickly grew bigger in Azerick’s vision as he plummeted from the clouds. He was sure Ancalon meant to crush him with his bulk and rend him apart with the talons of all eight feet stretched toward him. The Father of Dragons suddenly altered his course and raced almost horizontally across the sky. Azerick could hear the leathery flaps of his wings snapping under the titanic forces battering against them.

“I tire of this game. You are not welcome here, and I cast you out of my world!”

Ancalon’s talons tore a gash in the sky itself. Azerick realized what he had done just a split-second before the rift tore him from the ground and sucked him into its interdimensional maw. The sorcerer twisted in midair, pointed his staff toward the tower, and called upon the silver substance of the Source pool. Pure Source material poured out of the windows and doors and expanded into the shimmering, silver bubble. Azerick was unsure if his hasty shield would prevent the dragon from destroying his tower and the well, but he had no time to try anything else. It was an instinctual measure of desperation.

The rift swallowed Azerick whole and his stomach lurched as he spun and tumbled through dimensions. Down through the gullet between worlds he fell, stars and suns streaking by like fireflies. Millions of miles, meaningless in this place between places, flashed by in seconds, minutes, possibly hours. Time had as little meaning here as distance. A white scar appeared in the distance, a rent in space opening to his destination.

Azerick was spewed out of the non-space and into a world of life and color. Wind rushed past Azerick’s body as he plummeted toward a sea of green just a couple hundred feet below. Hastily shifting into his demonic form, he snapped open his great, bat-like wings to arrest his fall. The jungle canopy seemed to explode as hundreds of thousands of birds or some kind of flying animals took to the sky with a hellish shriek. Knowing he had no time to completely stop his plunge, Azerick directed his descent toward a strip of water barely visible between the expansive spread of foliage.

The sorcerer struck the water with a great splash, and he once again found himself being tossed about, tumbling through the rushing torrent of water as the river rapidly swept him downstream. His wings less than useless, Azerick once more adopted his human body and struggled to keep his head above water. The speed of the river made Azerick feel as though he were trapped on the back of a runaway horse desperately trying to throw him. He kicked and paddled furiously both to reach the shore and to avoid the occasional boulder peeking out of the water. The former was a complete failure and the latter achieved only marginal success.

Azerick grunted and cursed in pain whenever he failed to avoid one of the immobile obstacles. His body was bashed, bruised, and abused for mile after punishing mile. He did not know if his demonic body was capable of drowning, but if it was, it could not be much longer in coming. Only his fight with the demon lord Drak’kar could match the punishing brutality of the river.

Azerick detected a change in the tone and tempo of the torrent’s rage, and he knew the river was about to unleash an entirely new hellish experience upon him. He thrust his head above the water and saw open sky a few dozen yards ahead. The sorcerer kicked and pulled furiously at the water, but it refused to loosen its grip on him. The river flung the human flotsam over the cliff and bore him downward under the force of the powerful cascade.

Azerick struck the water below with great force, but the resulting splash was lost amidst the awesome amount of water crashing down in an unending deluge. He prayed the plunge was a prelude to some sort of respite, but if his gods could hear him in this world, they chose to ignore his pleas. He had just enough time to take in another lungful of air before he was swept away once more. Another brutal mile raced by, then another and another. His world had become little more than flashes of green and the spray of whitewater as the river, sped along by gravity, tried to flush him like a toxin from its system.

Undercurrents continually pulled him down and bounced his body along the riverbed before lifting him upward once again, usually just in time to bash him against another rock cutting through the raging water. Azerick felt himself lifted into the air once again only to come back down hard a second later. Several times the river dropped away beneath him only to land on smooth stone just a few inches below the surface. It was akin to being forcefully thrown down a giant flight of stairs.