Message Bearer (The Auran Chronicles Book 1) (27 page)

‘Come back! Come back,
dammit!’ Seb said.

Mik scrabbled to his feet
just as the giant daemon turned its attention towards him. He clutched the
satchel under both arms as he dashed away back into the shrinking sphere.

Come on. I…can’t…hold it!
 Cian
pulsed.

Mik had a good few feet
on the shield’s edge when the daemon saw him, and the item he carried. Seb felt
the sudden change in its demeanour.

No! They cannot escape!

Mindlessly, the sheol
dove against the barrier. Scores burned in an instant. The shield flickered,
fell, and then reformed. Seb shot a look at Cian. The giant had dropped to both
knees. His arms hung by his sides and his jaw dangled listlessly.

Mik was halfway back. The
daemon howled in fury, frustration boiling over. It swept a handful of sheol
out of the way, and then, with its red eyes focussed on the fleeing mage,
smashed its blade two-handed down onto the shield.

It was as if the world
had screamed.

The shield exploded in a
searing flash of light. The nearest row of sheol were vaporised at the speed of
thought.

The daemon staggered back
but did not fall. A dense, acrid smoke wrapped round its body. All the scales
on its left side had been charred. One eye had melted, leaving a smoking
socket, and yet still it did not fall. It took one step forward and encountered
no resistance. Its scorched lips curled into a wicked grin. It took a step
forward, towards the motionless Mik, who lay on the floor, smoke seeping from
his tunic.

‘Cian!’ Seb yelled.

The giant warrior was
spent. He slumped to the floor, Don only catching him before his head cracked
against the stone. The mage looked up at Seb through eyes dead with fatigue.

‘Shit! What now! This
wasn’t supposed to happen!’

Reuben screamed and shot
back into the chamber, his surviving guards following with him. Cade shuffled
over, cradling his wounded arm.

‘Any ideas?’

‘No,’ Seb lied. He knew
what he had to do. There was no time for discussion now. Cade simply nodded and
slipped a blood-soaked sword into his free hand.

‘Then we fight to the
end.’

‘Indeed.’

Seb didn’t hesitate any
further. He channelled, rich energy flooding his limbs. His legs felt on fire,
and he leapt forwards, barely touching the ground as he closed the distance to Mik
in seconds, Cade’s shouts of protest a distant echo. He skidded to a halt,
ignoring the encroaching sheol and tumbling over the broken body of a fiend,
landing next to the backpack.
There
! The green stone glittered on the
floor, specks of light twinkling in the shadows. He didn’t look at Mik. The
smell of scorched flesh told him all he needed to know about the mage’s
sacrifice.

Something growled from
nearby. He shot a look over his shoulder. The sheol were yards away, some of
them coming to their senses after the explosion. A handful turned towards him
and howled. Shit! He had to act fast. He grabbed the stone and stumbled
upright. The majority of the stunned sheol were recovering now and were moving
towards him, a terrifying mass of teeth and claw.

A chill thought struck
him. They weren’t going to make it. The others were yards away, immobile due to
the unconscious Cian. If he ran back with the stone then there wouldn’t be any
time.

There was only one option.

The growls came again,
nearer this time. He spun about. The sheol were circling him, closing ranks,
cutting him off. Strangely though they didn’t attack. They simply surrounded
him, preventing his escape.

Seb didn’t think about his
next action. The thought came to him, unbidden, and he acted upon it. He took
the stone and held it high above his head. He and Cade caught each other’s
eyes. The thought, Seb’s intention, flashed between them in that instant.

No!

Seb hurled the stone,
guided by his own Avatari, it smashed into the ground five feet from the group.
The portal exploded into a fiery, white brilliance.

‘Seb!’ Cade shouted,
ducking and then impaling a sheol that crossed his path as he rushed out
towards him.

‘Go!’

The daemons converged on
him, the mass obscuring all light. He heard the portal flash - they’d made it!

A surge of relief washed
through him as he closed his eyes. He willed a shield that wouldn’t come, and
waited for the end.

His smell was the first of his senses to
wake up. A sickening stench of burned flesh filled his nostrils. He sat up, retching
onto a damp stone floor.

He blinked once. Twice.
Darkness. Total darkness. His heart raced, something akin to panic pricked his
mind.

He felt one hand with
another. Great, at least he was still in once piece. His muscles ached. His
back felt like he’d been pummelled by a cricket bat, but he was alive, and thankfully,
relatively uninjured.

 A small flicker, barely
a pinprick of light, caught his gaze.

His
gaze.

He could see. But see
what? He dropped to his knees, scurrying over to the light. He realised now
that he wasn’t blind, but the room was almost impossibly black. The light, he
saw, was coming from a crack underneath a door. He could just about make it out
now, an iron structure covered in bolts and bars. A square panel was about head
height on the door, some kind of peephole no doubt. He stood, regretting it
instantly, his calves aching.

He
sensed
.

Nothing.

No, not nothing. He didn’t
sense
, there was nothing there.

Now he panicked.

He tried again,
straining, clawing at the Weave, but his efforts were futile, grasping nothing
but the void.

He’d been disconnected.

Calm down
.
He moved away from the door, only stopping when his back met resistance in the
form of a rough, stone wall that dug into his spine.

Movement. From outside
the door.

Seb took a fighting
stance, what Cade called the
receiver
, and stood ready. Yet without a
weapon and the comfort of the Weave he suddenly felt very vulnerable, the
growing confidence of recent months washed away in a blink.

Two sets of footsteps
stopped outside the door. Fingers fumbled. A panel slid back. A square of light
illuminated the room and Seb was forced to raise his hand to protect himself
from the glare.

Two men stepped in, their
eyes the oil-colour of the possessed. They grinned, bearing needle-thin teeth.

‘We’ve been waiting for
you for a long time,’ one of them said, the one on the left. His friend didn’t
respond, he simply chuckled and danced from one foot to another.

‘Where am I?’ He tried to
put something akin to authority into his voice but the effect fell on deaf
ears.

‘Hey, it’s got some guts
this one, hasn’t it?’ the sheol said again, his companion practically giddy
with excitement now. ‘Perhaps we should just rip its throat out here and now,
to shut its endless bleating? What do you say?’

For a moment Seb thought
that the other possessed was about to lunge at him. He probably would’ve if it
wasn’t for the voice that spoke then, stilling the two of them in an instant.

‘You will do no such
thing.’

The man, taller than the
possessed, swept in through the doorway, ducking as he came in. He towered
about all of them, nearly matching Cian in height. He gazed down at Seb, a mix
of curiosity and amusement crossing his face.

‘You’re not possessed,’
Seb said, noticing the absence of blackness in the man’s eyes.

The man laughed, ‘Possessed?
Is that what you call it?’ He nodded to himself as if musing on some internal monologue.
‘I suppose that’s a fair assessment. But yes, you are correct, I am not, as you
say,
possessed.
’

It hit him like a
sledgehammer.

‘Marek.’ It wasn’t a
question.

Marek smiled. ‘I see my
reputation precedes me. I should be flattered.’

‘Why have you brought me
here? Why am I not dead in the Nexus?’

‘Would you rather be?’ Marek
said, head dipping and white eyes suddenly wide. ‘It can be arranged, and no
doubt will occur. Unfortunately we need you, or rather, your head.’

‘I won’t give it to you.’

Even as he said the words
he realised how futile they sounded. Marek knew it too, the knowing smile on
his face letting Seb know exactly how serious he took that statement. Seb was
lost, Weaveless. God knew where he was. For the first time in months, he felt
like crying.

‘Ah, there, there, little
mageling,’ Marek said, reading his thoughts, ‘No need for tears. I promise you
that when the time comes your death will be quick, if not totally painless.’ Marek
turned to the sheol, who had until that point remained to the side, eyes focused
on something interesting on the floor. ‘Bring him. We need to get this started.’

‘Get what started?’ Seb
said as the possessed took a painful grip of each arm.

Marek smiled, the
expression alien and terrifying at once. ‘Why, we’re going to rip out your mind
of course.’

They dragged Seb into a narrow corridor
that was too slim for the three of them to walk side by side. One took the
rear, the other stood next to him, holding his arm. They moved forwards, the
light from the oil-lanterns easing his eyes back into usefulness. The orbs that
had pocked his eyes when the panel was slid back had almost vanished
,
his vision nearly back to normal.

As he walked, he tried to
focus on himself, not drawing on the Weave, but the mindfulness exercises he’d
been taught at Skelwith. He wrapped layers around his fear, slowing his heart, suppressing
the adrenalin that pumped through his veins. He turned his attention outside,
sight, sound and scent. He needed to learn as much about his environment as
possible. There was no opportunity now, but he was sure one would come. To do what,
he didn’t know, but come it would.

Low grumbles drifted down
from somewhere above in regular patterns. The rumbles grew in pitch before
tailing off quickly as something passed overhead.

A road. A busy road.

A puddle loomed ahead,
water dripping into it from the ceiling. He looked up and saw the grille there,
the rain seeping through. As he watched someone walked over it. Then another.

‘Enough staring!’ The sheol
behind him clipped him hard round the ear, fire exploding on the right side of
his face.

The corridor widened and
curved hard to the left. It ended at another set of doors. These were wooden,
not iron, like the one from the cell. The first sheol took a key from his
pocket and unlocked the door. It creaked open, revealing a further corridor
that belonged to an entirely different building altogether.

They stepped out from the
damp stone onto a thick red carpet, Seb’s feet sinking into the pile as he
walked. The corridor was immaculate, what he’d imagined Skelwith to have been
like in its heyday. Sparkling chandeliers hung from the ceiling, gold-painted
wood panelling lined the walls, interspersed with paintings of people and
places Seb didn’t recognise.

They moved on down the
corridor, the possessed now flanking him on either side. He risked a
sense
again but found nothing. He felt it then, something cold, metallic, very thin, and
it was wrapped around his neck.

‘A Void Ring.’ Marek
said, once again reading his thoughts like he’d spoken aloud. ‘It’s used to suppress
Weave-abilities.’

‘Am I that much of a
threat?’

‘Don’t deceive yourself,
yours is a candle to a star, insignificant. But at the same time we cannot risk
you attempting to contact your friends, those who so eagerly abandoned you at
the Nexus.’

Another door loomed, this
one flanked with human vassals dressed in suits and holding automatic weapons.

Marek pushed past him and
walked through the double doors, the barrier seemingly opening in his wake. Seb
shook his head and followed, encouraged by jabs to his ribs from his escort.

They emerged into a
separate hall, this now much vaster than the corridors they’d just left. The
interior resembled some kind of church. Braziers burned in the shadows, casting
a dim glow to the room. The air smelled of charcoal and something else,
something unpleasant that he couldn’t remember, or his mind wouldn’t let him.

He followed Marek to an
altar at the far side of the hall, the platform raised above the pews. The
stone floor was darker here than elsewhere, some kind of liquid dried onto the
surface.

‘Kneel,’ something struck
the back of his knee and he crumpled. He cracked the back of his head against
the floor and the world began to swim. He bit his tongue during the fall and
blood filled his mouth.

‘My lord, we have him, we
have the message-bearer.’ Marek’s voice echoed throughout the chamber.

Seb rolled himself onto
his side and pushed himself upright. The world span and white splodges peppered
his vision. He held his position, focusing on a brazier nearest the altar. The
room steadied, the light faded. From somewhere, a voice spoke.

‘Marek, I was beginning
to fear you had failed me.’

Seb twisted his head,
fear trying to stay his eyes but something compelling him. Marek stood before him,
covered in robes of red and black. His slender, almost skeletal hands were raised
high above his head, the sleeves sliding down to his elbows. Beyond Marek the
air shimmered, a form coalescing from swirls of energy inside a large oval
portal. The figure that formed was opaque, humanoid in shape but lacking in
detail.

‘My apologies, my Master,
it took us longer to lure the cowards out of their hole than we thought.’

‘And, were you
successful? Do you have it?’ the figure that Marek referred to as Master said, its
voice drawn out as if being called across a chasm.

Marek turned to Seb then,
his white eyes twinkling with barely disguised glee. He waved a fragile hand in
Seb’s direction, it taking immense willpower on Seb’s part to resist snapping
it at the wrist in that instant.

‘Behold, the message-bearer.’

The Master stooped,
coming closer into the portal. Wide, oval eyes, ash-grey in colour, peered out
at Seb. Icy tendrils touched his mind, the chill sending a ripple of nausea
that shook his gut. He tried to will something, anything, but he was hopelessly
exposed. His vision exploded into a myriad of images and thoughts, the Master
tearing through his mind with ease. He tried to think of other things, throwing
his own thoughts in the Master’s way, trying to hide the locked message that
lurked inside.

‘
Do not resist, it
will only increase your pain,’
the voice was seductive, almost alluring. He
drifted for a moment, his mind slipping. The icy fingers jabbed again, smashing
through his flailing defences. The pain seared the backs of his eyes, sending
him rolling backwards, clawing at his skin, screaming as the invisible tendrils
bubbled through his nerves.

A box appeared in his
mind’s eye. Golden runes danced across its surface. On some instinctive level
he knew this contained the message Sarah had so carefully hidden inside him.

‘No,’ he croaked. He
raised a hand, but his energy was spent, the limb dropping to the floor, a
knuckle scraping on stone.

‘I have it. It is there.’

The fingers probed again.
Seb could only whimper in response. His conscious mind had retreated somewhere
else, somewhere safe. He cowered there, hiding in the dark.

The box shook and spun in
his mind, invisible hands twisting and turning it. The runes enlarged, becoming
clearer, but still no more understandable. The box rattled. Something hit it,
but it didn’t yield.

‘The magic is strong, too
strong for me to unlock at this distance.’

‘What can we do, Master?’
Marek said.

‘I require a commune, we
must combine our strengths.’

Marek nodded. ‘As you
wish, my Master.’

The portal flickered then
vanished. Nothing remaining of its presence besides a thin vertical slit of
light that faded within seconds. Seb opened his eyes further as Marek suddenly
squatted before him.

‘You’re going to wish you’d
lost your marbles just then, boy.’

From his mental retreat,
Seb didn’t doubt those words. But as he was hoisted up, his wrists being tied
to a wooden pole that had been fixed into the ground, his mind, the part of him
that resisted, clung to one thought.

He had seen it. The
Master hadn’t but he had. In his last desperate attempt on the box the Master
had smashed it with all his might and then retreated. As he’d left Seb’s mind
the box continued to rotate, momentum carrying it around. That was when he saw
it.

A crack. A crack of golden
light on the surface.