Spellshift Page 11

  Every geonode lamp had been shut off in the halls. Garen conjured an orb of white light and hovered it ahead of them as they walked. Their long shadows trailed behind them. Garen led them to the cavern entrance he’d followed Aethis to last time. He parted the metal gate and peered into the darkness below. He saw nothing in the void, but he remembered seeing the same last time. The dim lighting along the cavern ceiling wouldn’t be visible this far up.

  Naia gave a frustrated sigh. “What do we do if the Apatten aren’t here, either?”

  “Micah will need to know,” Morgan said. “If we’re lucky, they moved to a new barracks. If we’re not, they’re on the march to war.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Drake said. “Best we learn all we can.”

  Drake didn’t bother calling the lifter. He stepped into the drop-off on a disc of wind. The others followed and descended with him.

  Garen let the magic fade from his ball of light, hoping to remain unnoticed in the dark. It became impossible to tell how far down they’d traveled. Garen reformed a tiny fraction of the light and saw they were no longer contained in the narrow chute. The cavern air was open in front of him. There wasn’t a single light or sound in view. Garen increased the intensity of his light until the abandoned structures below him were visible.

  Once they landed, the surroundings told them little. Inside and out of the barracks and forges, there were no signs of struggle or a hasty exit. Everyone was simply gone.

  “I guess that’s it, huh?” Garen said, moving his orb between him and Drake. “Do you want to carry us out of here?”

  “I’d prefer to check the perimeter before we take our leave. We know how gifted Sarkos is at tunneling. He could have led them out in any direction, and that alone could tell us something.”

  Garen looked around. “Good thought, but you’re going to need a little more light than this or we’ll be here all day. Garen raised his orb to the cavern ceiling and spotted the recessed geonodes. He cast one of them on.

  It burst apart in a flash of yellow and billowed smoke, dwarfing even Garen’s light. They heard the sound of cracking stone above them even before the first pieces fell. No one hesitated to run out of the way. Chunks of stone collided with the ground and burst apart. The Spellswords kept a safe distance until it stopped.

  “What was that?” Morgan yelled, emphatic but not angry.

  Naia delivered the judgment her sister lacked. “Just once, Garen! Just once I want you to light up a room for us and not bury us in the ruins! Is that too much to ask?”

  “You saw it. That geonode…it looked like—” Garen froze to compare his memories. “—like the explosions in Vikar-Tola.”

  A distant voice spoke from across the cavern. “And it defeats the purpose of me waiting here if you’re going to set them off yourself.”

  The cavern’s echo made it hard to trace the source. They listened for a moment longer, but heard only the sound of settling dirt above them. Drake spoke in a tense monotone. “We need. To get out. Of here.”

  Two more flashes of yellow lit the ceiling. A dozen more followed. The cavern shook and roared from every direction. Garen expanded his ball of light as large as he’d ever practiced, enough to see fragments breaking loose and raining down throughout the cave. Panic clenched Garen’s spine for a moment. This was Vikar-Tola all over again. None of them would survive this time.

  The sudden movements of the others snapped him free. The first chunk of ceiling shattered beside Garen. He was spared only by a measure of luck. Morgan shouted, “Follow me!” and ran back toward the entrance. Naia kept in step with her.

  Drake and Argus took to the air, one via the wind and the other riding upon his green-glowing shield. Garen didn’t have the kind of agility to maneuver mid-air. He decided to chase after Morgan. A boulder-sized fragment crashed between him and the sisters. Garen slid to a stop. Smaller pieces shot out as it cracked against the cave floor. A spray of gravel pelted Garen.

  The pain was sudden and breathtaking, but he had to keep moving. Morgan and Naia were almost out of sight. He saw fires flare around her. Garen wasn’t sure whether she was blasting the stones or needed the light. The latter he could help with. Garen split his orb of light in two. One shot across the cavern toward Morgan and Naia. The other he kept overhead to protect himself.

  Drake and Argus were faring better than expected close to the ceiling. They had less time to dodge the pieces, but the stones were slower moving as they broke free. Drake and Argus kept a little distance from the rumbling, unsure if more explosions would follow. On the ground, smaller pieces were raining everywhere at once. There was no dodging what felt like a hailstorm. As larger pieces came crashing down, he knew that unpleasant pelting would be the least of his concerns.

  A sheet of the stone ceiling spun toward Garen. He light-shifted away from it. He retook physical form and saw another headed for him. His second light-shift gave him no time to look where he was going. He reformed on a pile of rubble where a layer had already fallen. It tripped him forward onto his hands. He rolled over to keep his sight above him. The entire cave was collapsing. It wasn’t solid stone at this point, but even the thick, clay soil would flatten him if it collided all at once.

  His orb of light vanished as a mass of earth dropped through it. He had no light to see how long until he was crushed. Garen reached up with a short-sighted solution. He poured his depth into restraining the clay falling toward him. He met enormous resistance, but with death as his only other option, he poured all he could into the spell.

  Twenty feet of the soil and stone pressed against him. In a second, a quarter of his depth was spent. Segments broke off as Garen pushed. The weight was lighter, but the sound of crashing around him strained his focus. Half his depth remained. Beams of light broke into the cavern. Garen couldn’t see the sky yet, not stuck under a slab of dirt the size of a house. But he made a risky light-shift out from under the crushing weight. It slammed the last ten feet and exploded against the floor.

  Smaller fragments still fell where Garen reformed, but they exposed cracks into the daylight above. One more light-shift and he would be free. Even Drake and Argus were making their way toward a gap in the ceiling. Drake gracefully slipped up and out of harm’s way. Argus moved toward it.

  A chunk of stone sailed horizontally from across the cavern. It collided with Argus’ shield, knocking it out from under him. Argus reached up and got a hand on the stone ledge. A second rock shot out of the darkness, this one cracking hard against the arm he dangled by. It broke his grip, but Argus wasn’t completely reliant on his shield for wind magic. He summoned a disc of wind to keep him aloft and rose back toward the beams of light. Argus’ dark red tunic flapped violently. It was no small amount of wind needed to keep a man of his size floating.

  Garen needed to see where these attacks were coming from more than he needed his own escape. He reconjured the ball of light and pushed it to where the projectiles originated.

  A man stood amidst the impending ruin. Falling stones of all sizes parted over his head, leaving him untouched. His menacing stare was locked on Argus. A mix of gray and black hair jutted outward along his head. The cord of hair on his chin was the color of ashen coals. It twisted into a single point. Unlike their last encounter, he donned the silky robes and gold jewelry of a man who thought himself king. Sarkos plucked another rock from the abundance overhead and shot it forward.

  Argus balanced in the air but couldn’t elevate himself quickly enough. The stone struck him on the underside of his chin. The wind beneath him dissipated. He fell backward. Garen ran toward Argus. His friend’s body plummeted. There was no reaching him in time. A spike rose from the ground under Argus. Garen watched him land through it.

  Chapter 12

  Garen fell to his knees. He knew the posture was unwise as the final shower of dirt and rocks rained down. He couldn’t bear to stand. He wanted to melt into the floor if his body would have let him. To be a tiny flicker. But a state of light would
be too much movement. Too much purpose. Argus was dead, and any dreams of purpose were dead with him.

  Garen could hear Sarkos approaching.

  “I consider all of this your doing,” he announced. “I tried to create a world without magic. My Apatten would have been an insurmountable force, and petulant children like you would have no role to play. I find it fitting to watch you die by the same magic you fought to protect.”

  Garen could not stand, could not look away from Argus, and could not hold back the tears in his eyes any longer. “Why Vikar-Tola? Why us?”

  “Yes, I know. I could have leveled Kalyx instead. But then your arrogant kingdom marches on mine and the greedy ingrates undo my work. This world doesn’t just need to be destroyed. It needs to be rebuilt. And I’m the one with that vision. All that’s left is to remove misguided souls like you from preserving this broken—”

  A fractured lattice of stone above snapped free. It fell toward Garen. Sarkos raised a hand and batted all of it to the side with a sneer. “—this broken world. Do you understand that our birthright as a race has been stolen? We should be able to craft the elements with our knowledge, not drain our souls in service to them.”

  Garen clenched his fists and ground his knuckles into the dirt. He could barely enunciate words with the tension locking his jaw. “You’re ridiculous. Talking about abusing power while using it to kill good people.”

  “Oh, I’m not condemning power,” Sarkos said, “only the immature use of it. You wouldn’t hand your sword to a child. Likewise,” Sarkos’ voice lowered, “I question the judgment of whoever handed one to you.”

  Far overhead, Drake surveyed the figures below. At the sight of one, Drake screamed in rage. “Argus!” Drake fell back into the cavern next to him. He broke the spike holding Argus aloft and laid him down. The air around Drake rushed with his anger made physical.

  “I’d hoped for more,” Sarkos said. “Those were some of my first attempts at volatile transformation via geonode. I actually buried them in case Aethis ever thought she could betray me.” His glare softened. “I’m happy to have needed them for this instead.”

  Kallista’s voice rang through Garen’s mind. You must leave now.

  He was trembling too hard to question the advice. He stood up. “Drake, I think we need to go.”

  “I’m not running away. He believes we’re cowards.” Drake stared Sarkos down. “In a moment, he’ll wish we were.”

  Garen was torn. For every reason in the world, Sarkos needed to die. But the environment favored him too heavily. They were unprepared, and Garen didn’t have the depth to start another fight. Surviving the collapse had taken almost everything he had. “It’s not cowardice. It’s sanity. We find Naia and Morgan, and we get out of here.”

  Drake ignored him and took a step toward Sarkos. “Why did you assume Vikar-Tola was your enemy?”

  “Oh, please,” Sarkos groaned. “Do I need to repeat myself to each one of you?”

  The winds circling Drake were fierce enough that Garen needed to look away. Drake spoke with a piercing rage. “No, hear my words carefully. You had the tools to end the greatest evil of our time. The Apatten. These explosives. Both threats that could force a king to his knees and spare every life you desire. We could have been allies! And instead, you use it for murder.”

  “For control,” Sarkos corrected him. “A crude solution to reflect the broken world we’ve been forced into. If I cannot fix it, I will rule it.”

  “You selfish bastard!” Drake screamed. Garen could no longer see through the winds that circled Drake. They swirled with every bit of dirt and pulverized stone in the air. Tendrils of the dark wind shot forward. Sarkos raised a wall of stone, but the winds wrapped around it and enveloped him. Sarkos strained to move against it. The winds lifted him off his feet. Sarkos’ face reddened. He gasped for air, but there was no sound.

  Meanwhile, Drake ground his teeth and walked toward Sarkos. Garen had never seen him this unhinged. He knew Drake could restrain a slow enemy with bonds of wind, but he’d never seen him choke the life out of someone.

  The ground beneath Sarkos rumbled. Pebbles rose in a swirling column. Larger stones followed. They wrapped around his feet, weighing him back down. The flow of rocks continued until it covered Sarkos’ torso. Eventually, they wrapped around his head, fusing into a solid cluster. A muffled gasp followed.

  The winds around Drake showed no sign of relenting. He sent a second gust forward. This time, Sarkos didn’t budge. He took a step to the side, testing the mobility of his creation. A couple stones fell off his face to let him see. A few more had to shift along with his steps, but it became clear he could move without leaving gaps in his armor.

  Drake vaulted forward with longsword ready. Garen still wasn’t comfortable fighting this battle. Drake wasn’t giving him any choice. Garen bent the light around his ally to make him invisible. Sarkos looked back and forth. He expelled a layer of shrapnel from his armor in every direction. Drake easily deflected the volley approaching him. The moment those stones changed course, Sarkos turned to face him.

  The ground in front of Drake’s path stirred. It didn’t shoot upward. Pale yellow crystals formed. They exploded under him with the same intensity that collapsed the cavern. Garen feared for a second he’d lost another friend. Drake sailed through it, ignoring whatever injury it brought. Sarkos conjured a more traditional series of walls, which Drake nearly collided with. It forced Drake to redirect and slow his approach across the wide cavern.

  Garen felt cowardly keeping a safe distance, not while he could still see Argus’ body lying there. Garen was ready to spend what little depth he had left to end this fight. If Sarkos’ shell was thin enough, fire might be able to cook him out. He light-shifted all the way to him and released a broad jet of flame. It covered Sarkos’ side in a red glow. Sarkos turned with a slow, heavy step and transformed the ground under Garen into needles of the yellow crystal.

  Before it could erupt, Garen shifted to his other side and continued the jet of flame. The rocks surrounding Sarkos were scorched black, but it didn’t seem to affect him yet. Garen didn’t know how long it would take for his plan to work. His flames sputtered. He poured all the depth he could into it. He needed to make the blaze as fierce as possible. The spell took a painful, stabbing toll on him. He recognized the feeling of near-emptiness in his chest, his breaking point. The fires died out.

  Sarkos faced him, but Garen didn’t plan to move until he saw the crystals form. He drew his katana. Garen felt the dirt under him sink slightly, but nothing transformed. It occurred to him how foolish it was to trust his sight on the surface alone.

  A deep explosion ripped through the ground. It threw Garen back and left his head ringing. He tried to stand, but the pain in his feet was unbearable. His leather shoes were shredded. The cuts in his feet bled instantly, turning the encrusted dirt into reddish mud. He looked up from his agony and saw Drake closing in on Sarkos. The matchup was not comforting. In his wildest imagination, Garen couldn’t see how sheer force of air would overpower solid stone.

  Then he noticed Drake’s feet. Drake had taken an explosion directly under him earlier. Yet his leather shoes and cloth trousers were completely intact. Now that Garen had felt it first-hand, he knew there was more protecting Drake than sheer willpower.

  Sarkos raised a dozen shards of the pale crystal into the air. Yellow needles spread out between them. Drake continued without fear. Sarkos’ deep laugh echoed within his shell as Drake flew through them. The crystals detonated one by one. It bathed the cavern in yellow light. Each explosion had enough force to rip apart anything caught nearby. The debris clouded Garen’s view a little, but he could see Drake’s movement as wind parted the smoke. The explosions arced around him.

  Sarkos’ ability to make the ground into a weapon was astonishing, but he overstepped his bounds. He’d been relying on the air to carry these explosions. Drake was ready to remind him whose arena he’d stepped into.

  The
yellow bursts stopped. Drake emerged unscathed from the fiery cloud with his longsword back. Tight braids of wind circled the blade in a way Garen had never seen him use. The wind danced along his sword quickly enough to blur the metal. This was his focused strength. In the same way that Garen had narrowed his rage into a fine beam of cutting light once, Drake was doing the same. The magic was a testimony to his emotional outpouring. It also blinded him to any options other than execution. Drake crashed into Sarkos and drove his blade through the solid stone covering Sarkos’ heart.

  The stone armor fell apart and rolled off him. Drake leaned in eye to eye. He poured his hate into the stare and twisted the sword. If Sarkos had clung to life before, it was gone now. The winds quieted as Drake pulled the blade from Sarkos’ body and stared down at him.

  With the shouts and explosions now silent, Garen heard another sound of shifting stone. He realized his luck, being in the center of the cave. Here, the open Western skies hung above them. Behind him, the southern edge of the facility had collapsed into the cave. The stone structure piled into a mountain of rubble where the entrance once was. It was where Garen last saw Morgan and Naia fleeing toward.

  The stones shifted. A crack formed along a fallen chunk of wall. Both Talia sisters hobbled out of the tunnel they’d carved. They saw Garen and Drake standing in shock and walked toward them. Midway, they noticed Argus’ body.

  Naia screamed. Morgan approached the body, knelt beside him, and closed Argus’ eyes. Drake went toward her and placed his hand against her back. She stood. Her posture stayed rigid, but she leaned a teary eye into Drake’s shoulder. Naia refused to look toward Argus at all, taking only short breaths. She seemed physically incapable of speaking. The rest simply had no words.