Mages path 3, p.20
Mage's Path 3, page 20
The huge black club swung and smashed the wraith, who exploded in a ball of flame that momentarily swept across the Devourer, obscuring him from Jack’s sight.
Jack drew on a trap summoning spell, and flung a spike pit full of burning coals in front of the Devourer’s feet. With a roar of anger, the Devourer leaped out from the remains of the rubble pile and straight onto the edge of the pit. He swayed, and Jack saw him gather magic in his hands.
The wraiths blasted him again, and he toppled forward. Jack made two of the wraiths move in to strike the Devourer with their burning claws.
The huge figure screamed as he fell. Hot coals burned him from below, and the wraiths blasted jets of burning fire after him into the pit.
There was a moment of silence and then his cruel, cold voice echoed in Jack’s mind.
“Curse you!” the voice hissed. “By the blood of the King, you’ve made me fail in my mission!”
His mission… that was interesting.
There was a sudden flash of blinding white light. A massive burst of power from the Devourer rocked the aether, flinging Jack backward from where he stood like a tidal wave. He landed hard, saved from injury by his stone armor. He rolled and jumped up, looking for his enemy.
The Devourer was gone. And then, Melinda screamed in his mind.
“Behind you!”
Jack dropped and rolled to the side, and at exactly that moment the huge black club smashed into the ground with the power of an earthquake, sending soil flying up in every direction. It hit the ground just where Jack’s head would have been a moment before.
Somehow, the Devourer was right behind him. Had Jack been transported? He glanced around. No, the pit trap was off to the left, downhill. The Devourer had transported himself away from the pit and the attacking wraiths, right behind Jack.
What did he mean about ruining his mission then?
There was no time to ponder. Already the Devourer was pulling his club from the ground. Then, suddenly, he seemed to abandon that idea—instead, without warning, he lunged at Jack.
Jack, who had sprung to his feet and was readying his spear, was caught unawares. The armored hand of his enemy glowed with cold gray light as it closed around his right arm, and immediately, the horrible draining sensation took him.
For a moment, his mind went blank. He was frozen, like a mouse being hypnotized by a snake. In the physical realm, the Devourer leaned toward him, the fanged metal mouth of his helmet open and ready to plunge into Jack. In the aethereal realm where Jack’s magical awareness dwelt, he felt the evil presence of his enemy gloating over him.
Then, from nowhere, something welled up in the aether around them. It was his dungeon! The part of Jack that was the dungeon, and was connected with all the awakened dungeons of the world!
Like a great crowd all shouting at once, all the dungeons he was connected to leaped into his awareness, crowding into the aethereal space between him and the Devourer. It happened at the speed of thought, and in that instant the massed power of all the dungeons was suddenly at Jack’s disposal.
“Death to the dungeon killer!” they shouted. “Rally to the Aetherborn!”
The Devourer’s mask leaned in, but then the power of thirty-nine dungeons roared through Jack. He let it flow, and it smashed into the Devourer with all the sheer brute force of a lightning strike. The armored figure’s head snapped backward on his neck, and his grip on Jack’s arm was broken.
The Devourer stumbled away two steps and then fell and landed on his back with a crash, his head hitting the ground with a sickening bounce.
Jack shook his head, trying to process what had happened, but the dungeon part of him was in charge. It pushed him forward, and before he knew what was happening, he had leaped forward and raised his spear.
The dungeons poured their power to him, and he took it and transferred it into a fire spell. The flames focused into the tip of Jack’s spear, until he felt that he wielded a weapon that was pure flame, fire distilled into a deadly, conscious point.
“Death to the Devourer!” the dungeons roared. “Down with the dungeon killer!”
Jack placed his boot on the felled Devourer’s chest and raised the spear. He looked down, focusing all his attention on the narrow eye slit of the hideous mask. He aimed, knowing in his heart that the spell raised by the combined power of the dungeons, if slammed through the eye slit, would kill this monster for sure.
In the split-second before he smashed the spear home, there was a sudden rolling boom that echoed through the aether. The Devourer’s armored form was suddenly consumed with white light, and Jack toppled forward before he was able to bring his spear home.
“We shall meet again, Aetherborn,” hissed the evil voice in his mind.
The Devourer was gone.
Chapter 14
“Where in the world…?” Jack said out loud. He looked around wildly, surfacing from his absorption in the dungeons as their magic retreated. He felt their power flow away from him, back down the connections and away from the part of him that was the dungeon.
He blinked, then whirled as he heard a cracking sound behind him.
Lower down the hill, the gray-white covering of stone that had trapped Spark and Melinda was dropping from them in chunks, leaving them dusty but unharmed.
“Did you kill him?” Melinda asked breathlessly as she ran up.
“He vanished,” Jack said. “Just before I could finish him, he just vanished into thin air. He’s gone, and I can’t feel his presence anywhere anymore.”
“You need to access the aethereal place where you became aware of him at first,” Melinda said with certainty. “The place inside your mind—you need to go there, right now. Spark and I will keep watch.”
Jack nodded, and took a deep breath. He’d been asleep when he’d reached that place before, and had gone there spontaneously, without any awareness of how exactly he’d done it. But now he reached for the dungeon in him, and felt himself slipping into his magical awareness easily.
This overview of the world was just a part of his magical awareness. He let his physical body slip to the ground, while his aethereal body rose rapidly up and away. His vision of the world expanded.
There, he thought. There he is.
He saw the Devourer fleeing.
The Devourer had transformed from a behemoth of metal into an aethereal spirit, and was blasting across the land at an immense speed. In this form, Jack could see him and even follow him, moving at speeds that would never have been possible in a physical body.
“I’m getting the hang of this,” Jack said to himself as he arrowed toward the Devourer, pursuing him across the lands. His enemy was aware of him, but did not try to turn and face him. Jack guessed that fighting in this reality was not something either of them would be able to do.
Power radiated from the Devourer’s spirit as he fled, but it was nothing like as strong as it had been before.
He’s used the power he gained from devouring the dungeon to fight me, and to do this fast travel, Jack thought. That must have been what he meant when he said that I’d caused him to fail in his mission. His mission must have been to consume a dungeon and bring the power back to Nightvale. But for what?
He remembered when Hannah Dwimmer had first told them her story—ages ago, it seemed. She said that the King of Nightvale had a great crystal full of power in his castle. The mages of Nightvale used that power to work wonders, building cities and infrastructure for the people of the kingdom.
This must be the Devourer’s mission, then. He takes the power of the consumed dungeons and brings it back to Nightvale to deposit in the King’s crystal. But for what? What could require that kind of power?
The thought was disquieting. Jack considered the kind of power that he had access to just from his mana pool alone. The power that the Devourer had drawn off from the dungeon was frighteningly big, and the idea that a spell could be powered with that much magic…
What can they be doing with it?
Below him, the land abruptly ended. On his right, he saw the city of Yillin flying past, all bright lights and crowded wooden homes with a busy, rowdy port area filled with sailors on their night off. The docks were packed with a forest of masts, many large trading vessels whose job was to ply their way up and down the coast.
But none, of course, went out to the west. And that was exactly where the Devourer was going.
Jack chased his enemy at incredible speed through the darkness, the dark land changing to churning sea capped with white froth as he left the Noonlands behind.
It’s an interesting sensation, he thought. I know it’s cold, but I can’t feel it. How big the sea looks!
He was only very dimly aware of his physical body now, his whole focus being on the Devourer and the hectic pursuit. Jack followed his enemy relentlessly across the black ocean, until they had left all sight of the land behind them.
Then he saw it—up ahead, there was a small rocky outcrop, no more than a jagged pinnacle of rock that jutted up out of the waves. The Devourer was headed straight for it.
As Jack approached, he saw the unmistakable glow of a Grand portal. It burned red, a huge circle of burning light that illuminated the water below it and the rocks above. It was not on top of the rocky outcrop as one might have expected—rather, it hung as if fixed to the side of the cliff just above the crashing waves.
Of course! Jack thought. It’s there so that a ship on the water could pass through!
Countless pieces of the puzzle snapped into place. This was, of course, where the ships from Yillin had come, transporting the blue sand for the King of Nightvale’s nefarious purposes. This must be where the Devourer had come from too, the way he’d got through into the Noonlands. He must have come through in this spirit form, and materialized when he’d reached land.
Who else had come through this portal? How long had it been open?
The thought was chilling.
Jack pulled up short as he approached the portal, but the Devourer dived straight through. As soon as the aethereal form of the Devourer hit the crackling red light inside the portal, the whole thing shimmered brightly then shone out with a light like a sudden explosion.
Jack felt a wrenching in the aether as the portal activated, sucking the Devourer through. Jack stopped a hundred yards away, feeling the drag of the portal on him, but resisting. He had no desire to be pulled through into Nightvale all alone and in this vulnerable spirit form.
The water around the bottom of the portal hissed and steamed as if heated by the massive blast of energy. Then the light faded again, and Jack saw that the Devourer was gone.
Until next time, my friend, he thought grimly. Until next time.
He turned away and headed back, finding his awareness of his physical body growing stronger as he got closer to it.
“Jack?” Melinda’s voice said as he opened his eyes. “Can you hear me?”
She was holding his hand in both of hers, and gazing down into his face with concern. A lock of her golden hair had come undone and hung down past her face, brushing his cheek.
“I hear you,” he said quietly, smiling.
* * *
Dawn was lightening the sky as Melinda built up the fire and handed him an earthenware mug with a warm, hearty soup in it. He sipped at it, tasting meat broth and vegetables. As Jack ate, Melinda busied herself with flour, water, and a small cooking pan. Soon, there was a savory smell. She had baked a salty, unleavened bread to go with the soup.
Jack took half of the bread gladly. It was hot and he burned his fingers. He dipped it in the broth and let out a groan of enjoyment as he took a bite of the hot, fresh bread softened in the salty soup.
“This is just what I needed,” he said with a smile.
She grinned. “I thought so. Do you feel recovered? Are you able to tell me about what happened out there?”
He nodded and began his tale.
Melinda listened in silence as he spoke, moving only to serve him another cup of soup and some more bread halfway through. He ate as he spoke, watching her face as she stared into the fire and took it all in.
“We’ll have to go,” she said firmly when he had come to the end of the story.
“Go? You mean to the portal?”
She nodded. “I want to see it,” she said. “And I want to know if it’s being kept open, despite your having discovered it.”
“They might close it now. I think the Devourer knows he was followed. If so, he’ll inform them that it’s been found out,” Jack said. “It would make sense not to want an open channel in to Nightvale that we could easily use.”
Melinda stood. “Once you’ve finished eating,” she said. “Spark can fly us out there and we can have a look.”
“Very good,” Jack said. “I’m almost done. I feel a new man after that meal, Melinda. Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” she said with a smile. “And once we’ve had a look at the portal, I think it’ll be time to return to the Shadow Tower. I’d dearly like Lachlan’s input.”
“You’re right,” Jack agreed, mopping the last of the broth out of his mug with a chunk of bread. “I’ve been able to speak to him through our mind link, but it’s not quite the same as being able to sit down together.”
“Our mission is complete, anyway,” Melinda said. “We set out to awaken a bunch of dungeons and see what the consequences might be. We’ve succeeded in that, for certain.”
Jack smiled. “It’s true,” he said, consideringly. “We cast ourselves on fate, and this is where it’s led us.” He stood and stretched. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get packed up and go check out this portal.”
A short time later they were ready to go. Spark stretched himself out like a cat, his long tail whipping back and forth and his red armored scales gleaming in the morning sun.
The morning was growing bright and clear as they climbed onto the dragon’s back.
“Ready, Spark?” Jack asked. The dragon nodded his great head once. Then he arched his back and extended his wings. Jack felt the rush of magic as Spark surged into the air. He beat his great wings twice and folded his legs under him, extending his neck and tail out as he climbed up into the dawn.
“This is the way to travel!” Melinda said into Jack’s ear as they got going. The wind whipped past their faces, bringing tears to their eyes and pushing their hair back from their faces.
Jack laughed. “You’ve got that right!” he called over his shoulder to her. “It doesn’t get much better than this!”
Melinda, who was sitting behind Jack, leaned forward. She put her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.
Spark made short work of the journey. The sun was blindingly bright on the sea below them and the dawn sky was a magnificent tapestry of red and gold as Spark the dragon soared through the air toward the nameless rock that held the portal to Nightvale.
“There it is!” Jack said, pointing.
Even in the bright sunlight, the red circle of the Grand portal could be seen. It gleamed with an unnatural radiance, shining on the dark water and lighting up the cliff above it. As they approached, Jack noticed that the many white seabirds that crowded around the island avoided the portal carefully. The rocky island was covered in birds, but the side with the portal was entirely free of them.
They dived until they were close above the surface of the water. Then Jack felt Spark draw on his inner magic to come to a stop and hover gently above the surface of the water. He beat his wings lazily, a couple of times a minute. It was magic that kept the dragon aloft now, not the beating of his wings. They were about a hundred and fifty yards from the portal.
“I can feel it pulling at us even from here,” Melinda said.
“Me too,” Jack agreed. “If we got too close, we might be sucked through it whether we wanted to be or not.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Melinda said, gazing across the water to the glowing red circle of the portal. “Every other time we’ve encountered a portal, it’s been powered by the presence of a dungeon. And yet this one is just here, apparently independent of anything else. How can that be?”
“Perhaps,” Jack said thoughtfully, “the mages of Nightvale have some way of powering Grand portals that doesn’t rely on dungeon magic. I agree, there’s certainly no dungeon over on that island. I don’t doubt for a moment that I would feel it if there was. No, there’s some other magic controlling the portal, and it’s a magic that I’m not able to sense.”
“Let’s have a look around the island anyway,” Melinda suggested. “I want to see if there’s any other sign.”
“Very well,” Jack said. “Spark, take us around, will you? Let’s have a look and see if there’s anything else to see.”
The dragon began to move, taking them off to the left and staying close to the surface of the water. They did a slow circuit of the island, but as Jack had predicted there was little to see except seabirds and the sun shining on the water and on the rugged cliffs.
Then Spark beat his wings and climbed until they were looking down on the island.
“Look there,” Melinda said. “Do you see something?”
“It looks like there’s a ruin of some kind—possibly an old fortification!” Jack replied. “Spark, will you take us down to it?”
The dragon immediately obeyed. A blizzard of white seabirds rose shrieking into the air as they landed on the rocky, steep-sloped tip of the island. Jack and Melinda leaped from Spark’s back while the dragon, wishing to stay airborne for the moment, took off again.
Jack looked at his friend Spark, gleaming in the sun as he soared across the waves. “He’ll come back to us if we need him,” he said. “Come on, let’s explore this ruin.”
There wasn’t much to it. Three walls remained of what must once have been a squat, square tower. Jack and Melinda looked about the inside of the ruin, looking for anything that seemed out of the ordinary, but found nothing. Gulls wheeled above them, scolding the intruders with their high, shrill cries.
