Aetherial Annihilation (15 page)

"Yeah, but Victus Edison is too busy running for Arcanus Primus to give us time of day," Boris complained.

"Is Victus the Science Academy dean?" I asked.

Tasha looked at Pixie. Pixie shrugged.

Boris answered. "He's acting Chancellor, and also sits on the Deans' Council for Science Academy."

"Victus is gonna be in control of a lot if he's elected primus," Shelton muttered. "The Chancellor of Science Academy is the leader of the scientific community. If he's also the acting dean of the academy, that puts him in control of the curriculum there as well."

"Holy trifecta," I said. "So if he's elected primus, he'll control the Arcanes and the scientists."

"You got it." Shelton savagely tore into a piece of bread. "Man, this food is good."

"I'll put in a good word for instituting the Skywraiths in an official capacity," I assured Tasha. "Maybe Headmaster Galfandor will listen to me about a boomstick training course."

"That would be the most amazeballs things ever in the history of humanity," Tasha said. "Thanks, Justin!"

"Yeah, thanks," Pixie said.

Boris held up a fist. "Skywraiths, form up!" He chuckled. "I've always wanted to say that."

I grinned. "Hey, I know the feeling."

We polished off the food and leaned back in our chairs to enjoy a moment or two of rest before resuming our duties.

"Any luck out there?" Viola asked.

"We know a little more than before." Shelton told them what he'd learned.

"These things will keep growing?" Pixie asked.

"Yep." Shelton grabbed a slice of bread and began buttering it. "Things ain't looking too good."

"Golly sakes," Ann said. "Isn't there a way to cut off their power?"

"That's what we can't figure out," I said. "They're tapped deep into the earth and drawing magic straight from the source."

"Gee, sounds like a tree or something," she said. "I'd bet if you could dry up the roots that would do the trick."

"The biggest problem is reaching the roots," Shelton said. "They're dug in pretty deep."

"Breaking a root might also set off an explosion," I added. I wished there was some way I could contact Altash, or any of the ley worms to see if they could assist in digging up the crystoids. We'd have to resort to desperate measures before much longer.

"If these things are growing, it sounds like they're alive." Ann got up from the table and went toward the kitchen. "Maybe some kind of poison would do the trick."

I looked at Shelton. "I hadn't thought of it that way. Maybe these things are part organic."

He shrugged. "Could be, but what kind of poison would work on something that eats aether?"

"Certainly not malaether," Elyssa said. "That might cause a crystoid to explode."

I tapped my chin. "Yeah, you're probably right."

Ann walked from the kitchen with a big cake. "Anyone want dessert?"

Shelton whooped.

After dessert, Shelton and Bella went back to the crater. Elyssa and I sat on a hill with our trio of new best friends, Boris, Pixie, and Tasha recounting war stories of the boomstick racing variety.

"I cut around the outside corner and he cast a wind spell on me," Boris said, using his hands to illustrate the position of the brooms. "I knew it was coming and barrel-looped right over it, then hit him with a flash-blind spell." He zoomed one hand out in front of the other. "From then on out, winning was a breeze."

"They allow you to cast spells on each other during the race?" Elyssa asked.

Pixie nodded. "But only in the Arcane circuit. In the general racers' circuit, it's all about pure boomstick riding skill." She nodded at Tasha. "You're sitting next to a two-time champion."

"Congrats," I told the other woman.

She giggled. "Thanks. I've been broom riding since I was little. My biggest dream was to be a racer like my older brother."

"Does he still race?" I asked.

She looked down. "He died in the war."

My mood plummeted. "I'm so sorry, Tasha."

"Greg served with the Blue Cloaks." She put on a brave smile. "He was such a strong caster. Captain Takei promoted him to lieutenant just before the final battle."

Pixie teared up. "I lost a lot of good friends in the Battle of El Dorado."

"Brutal, just brutal," Boris added.

The conversation put me in a maudlin mood. "I thought we'd finally found peace after the battle." I looked glumly toward the crystoid. "Someone had other ideas."

"God, I really killed the mood, didn't I?" Tasha said. She stood up. "We need to check our equipment."

"What equipment?" I asked.

Boris got up. "We're measuring the aether drain in the surrounding area so we can determine the rate of absorption." He held out a hand for Pixie and pulled her upright. "I don't know how useful our studies will be, but hopefully it's not a waste of time."

"Thanks for spending time with us, Justin and Elyssa," Pixie said.

Boris nodded. "Yeah, you guys are legit cool."

Adam called around mid-afternoon to tell us they'd arrived back in Atlanta. "We'll swing by the house and then head to the Grotto," he said. "If traffic isn't bad, we'll see you guys in an hour."

After ending the call, I tried to think of something useful to do in the meantime. I called out to Shelton. "Anything new?"

"That's the third time you've asked." He waved a finger in a circle. "Why don't you go take a nice long walk?"

"What about the ASE?" Elyssa said. "It should've been back by now."

Shelton shrugged. "It's probably a long way to the sky portal. Just give it more time."

I didn't want to take another walk. I had to find something to do. I turned to Elyssa. "Let's go back through the portal to the Grotto."

She didn't object, so we climbed the platform and slipped back through the gateway.

The arch operator had moved his chair closer to the omniarch with the open portal. He seemed ecstatic to see us. "I don't know how you did it, but there's enough aether here for me to cast spells again."

Elyssa and I exchanged confused looks and glanced back at the omniarch. Apparently, the silver band around it allowed aether to filter through once it hit a high enough concentration. I switched to demon vision and had to shield my eyes from the brilliant currents floating through the air. Aether poured through the open portal, gathered in the circle, and traveled up the magical container like an invisible smokestack where it poured into the air near the ceiling of the immense room.

"It's a temporary measure," I told him, but it had given me an idea.

I used a neighboring omniarch and willed it to open at El Dorado. With so much aether available, it quickly opened a gateway into a control room nearly identical to the Grotto, except for a towering Alabaster Arch veined with black and white.

The excess aether allowed me to open a portal to the El Dorado control room. "Let's talk to Altash and Lulu."

Elyssa's eyes brightened. "Maybe they can help."

"I hope so." We jogged out of the control room and into the massive area beyond. Red scales glittered on the massive snakelike form of Altash coiled in the center of the cavern. Lulu's purple scales gleamed in the yellowish light suffusing the immense space. The two dragons had once been the guardians of reborn Seraphim, but their former wards had long since grown old enough to fend for themselves. Most, if not all had joined the Darkling army and gone back to Seraphina to wrest control of Pjurna, the Darkling nation, back from Cephus where he'd entrenched himself in the capital city of Tarissa.

"Hello?" I shouted as we approached the coiled dragons. "You probably know this already, but we have a problem."

The dragons didn't even twitch. Though Altash rarely spoke to me, he usually at least opened an eye to let me know he'd heard whatever I'd said and promptly decided to ignore it. The dragon's girth towered over Elyssa and me. I figured Altash could swallow a jumbo jet without much of an issue.

Elyssa pointed to the dragon's long lean muzzle resting on the floor. "There's his head."

We picked up the pace and ran to his closed eye.

"Altash?" I pressed a hand to the dragon's chin and nudged him. His scales felt hard as diamonds. I figured a nudge wouldn't be enough and gave him a good shove. I might as well have pushed against a mountain for all the effect it had. "Hello?" I knocked on his head, but the dragon did nothing.

The magic fails
, said a female voice weakly in my head.

Elyssa's eyes widened. "Did you hear that?"

We ran around Altash's head to find Lulu likewise slumbering on the other side. Her eyelid slit open a fraction to reveal the lower third of a parietal eye.

We die with the magic.
Her voice was but a whisper in my head. Atlash's voice was usually like thunder. I imagined hers was probably like that on a good day.

This was not a good day.

"We're trying to fix the magic problem," I told the dragon, but she didn't respond. I shook my head. "This isn't good at all."

Elyssa touched Lulu. "They're dying, Justin."

I realized just how bad it would be if they didn't survive. "The dragons maintain the magical ley lines in the earth." I looked at the tunnels bored into the walls of the cavern. "If they die before we remove the crystoids Eden might never recover."

Her eyes tightened. "No more magic ever?"

I shook my head slowly. "I don't know, and I don't want to find out."

We returned to the Grotto and were going to deliver the grim news to Shelton when I saw Adam and Meghan enter the control room.

"Justin!" Adam jogged over, a broad grin on his face. He bumped knuckles with me, then went in for a bro-hug. "Man, it's good to see you again." He turned to Elyssa and gave her a good squeeze.

"Hello, Justin." Meghan offered a hand, but I violated the introverted woman with a hearty hug.

"I'm glad you guys are here," I said.

Meghan stiffened and awkwardly patted me on the back until I released her from the hug. She took a deep breath to regain her composure and reached into a bag. Her hand withdrew what looked like a giant, shriveled bull testicle. "This is a chalice."

Meghan was always one to skip the small talk and get straight to business. In this instance, I didn't mind one bit. I took it in one hand and hefted it. Though the squirrel hide was oiled, it had stiffened over time. Whatever was inside it felt hard and pointy.

"Do you think it's safe to cut open?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I believe so, but perhaps we should do it in a secure environment."

"Agreed." Elyssa took it from me. "Let's take it to a gauntlet room back at Queens Gate."

"Where did you guys just come from?" Adam asked.

I told them about the dying dragons. "What happens if we don't have the earth dragons to maintain the ley lines?"

Adam and Meghan looked at each other. Adam spoke first. "The dragons are the magical equivalent of earthworms. Without them working on the aether lines, the magic might just stay balled up inside the earth, or worse, it might turn into malaether."

Meghan grimaced. "The ley worms aren't the only creatures who maintain magic. For example, the minders in the Gloom harvest our dreams and convert it into magical energy. There are millions of microorganisms that survive on magical energy and feed off it. Each one contributes something beneficial to the health of the aether." She tapped a finger on her chin. "If the free flow of aether isn't restored, the magical biology of Eden could be permanently destroyed."

"Eden would be the sole domain of noms," Adam said in a haunted voice. "We'd lose the ability to traverse the realms."

My stomach lurched at the thought. "Well, if that doesn't light a fire under our asses, I don't know what will."

"I'm motivated!" Adam said. "Let's get to work."

With the extra aether flooding the room from the portal to North Dakota, I was able to easily open a portal to the gauntlet room near the underground mansion in Queens Gate. The atmosphere within the pocket dimension felt normal compared to the static rush of magical energy flooding from the crystoid and into the Grotto.

Meghan closed her eyes and breathed in relief when she stepped through. "I feel human again."

"It's good stuff," Adam said with a smile.

Elyssa marched the chalice to a shielded pedestal and placed it there. Adam pulled out a wand, but she shook her head. "Let's open this up the old fashioned way." She pulled a practice golem from a wall rack and activated it. "Take this knife and cut open that bag." Elyssa pointed to the chalice.

The golem took the knife and walked over to the target.

I braced myself for an explosion and threw up a shield of Murk to keep us protected. The golem slashed open the leather. For a moment, nothing happened, then the leather swelled and broke open.

We gasped as a crystoid burst from within and began to grow.

Chapter 13

"Son of a bitch!" I raced across the room to the newly hatched menace. "We've got to get this thing out of here." I almost touched it before remembering the dire consequences, namely turning into a malaether zombie.

Meghan calmly walked over and plucked the squirrel hide off the crystoid. She looked inside. "Ah, that's how they did it."

Elyssa grimaced. "Please don't tell me we're going to have to go on a squirrel-killing rampage to contain these things."

Meghan turned the leather inside out to reveal the inside. "Here's your silver lining." The interior shimmered with a sterling gray substance. She tentatively touched it. "Actually, I don't know if this is silver."

"Silver wouldn't allow the chalice to charge without an opening," Adam said.

Meghan pursed her lips. "You're right."

"If it's not silver, what is it?" Elyssa asked.

"I might be able to break down a sample and analyze it." Meghan retrieved a scalpel from the satchel at her side and scraped at it. "It's extremely hard."

Adam took out his wand and traced it back and forth over the spot until the leather peeled free from a section. Meghan plucked a sample with a pair of tweezers.