Message Bearer (The Auran Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

Sylph waited until it was almost dawn
before she made her move. Most of the sheol that came back from the Nexus -
those that had survived at least - had retired to recuperate. Some of them
wouldn’t make it, the Brotherhood inflicting wounds that wouldn’t facilitate a
full recovery. Most though would return, their parasites revived, ready to
inflict more damage on this suffering world.

They weren’t Baloran. Of
that much she was certain. It had come to her slowly, but had finally
solidified the previous evening. Listening to the Master talking to the
prisoner, the mageling, she’d realised then this was no Priest of Balor, no
Chosen one. He was a daemon in human form. The enemy.

And he must be stopped.

Unfortunately it wasn’t
going to be as easy as it would’ve been even the week before. Marek no longer
trusted her, doubting her loyalty to their cause. He tried to hide it but it
was obvious; he would no longer consult with her, and she’d been exempt from
all but the least important missions in recent months. Even the foray into the
Nexus, one that surely demanded the most elite they could muster, had been one
that she’d been told to stay away from. She was an outcast now, and strangely
it didn’t feel so bad. In fact it felt like a weight had been lifted. Even
though she knew what it meant for her. How it would end.

They would make their own
move tonight. With the prisoner secured, it was only a matter of time before
they acted. They were cutting loose ends, readying for the final move.

They came moments later.
Four of them, armed, making no attempt at stealth. Why would they? Why would
they think that Marek’s most loyal servant would suspect something was awry, or
instead did they assume she’d just follow blindly, straight into the abyss?

Let them find out.

She stood stock still, arms
behind her back. The sheol stopped outside her door. They didn’t knock, which
would’ve been their normal behaviour. Instead a skeleton key, courtesy of Marek
no doubt, rattled in the lock. The bolt slipped back, and the door creaked
open.

‘It’s rude to just open
someone’s door without knocking you know.’

The four sheol, three men
and one woman, stepped into the room. They exchanged uncertain glances as they
fanned out, two of them taking a point on either side of her. One of them, the
leader judging by his demeanour, not visibly cowed by the presence of their
prey stood waiting for them, stopped directly in front of her, making no
attempt to hide the cudgel that he clutched in his right hand.

‘Sylph, Marek would like
to see you.’

She smiled and tilted her
head. So this was how they were going to play it? Bring her out under the
pretext of a special meeting with their leader. How did they intend to do it?
She wondered. Would they simply bludgeon her to death when she turned away, or
would they bring her to heel, possess her, casting her soul to the Void?

‘At this time?’ she
cooed, ‘What would be so important that I’m required in the middle of the
night? Does our illustrious leader not require some rest?’ She turned to the
leader, ‘After all the sheol he’s been creating?’

The sheol opened his
mouth to speak. No words came out. His eyes dropped down to her side.

To the runed dagger in
her hand.

‘Sylph -’

The words died in his
throat as the dagger struck out, slicing a clean red line across his neck. As
he crumpled, choking on his own blood, Sylph slashed out on either side, faster
than her opponents could even comprehend. The woman smashed into the wall,
skull cracking under the impact. The other was dead before he hit the ground,
the dagger’s handle sticking out sideways from his ribs.

The last sheol staggered
back, black eyes wide and unblinking. The climbing axe that they’d held hidden
behind their backs clattered as it dropped to the ground.

‘It’s funny isn’t it,’
Sylph said, advancing on her stricken foe. ‘I thought the sheol were fearless,
pure evil, but I was wrong wasn’t I? Without your masters, without someone to
tell you what to do, you’re cowards, all of you.’

‘Please, I don’t want to
die!’ the sheol babbled. He backed away, tripped over his fallen leader,
collapsing on the floor, scrabbling backwards into the corridor.

‘Die? Die!’ Sylph said,
anger swelling in her now. She picked up the axe from the floor. ‘You died when
you sold your soul!’ The axe fell. The man fell silent.

Sylph stepped out into the
corridor and set off for the altar.

Seb
didn’t know how long he stood chained to the post at the altar. The candles
before him flickered and burned low, but every time he closed his eyes they
seemed replenished once again. Was time passing? Was he losing consciousness,
missing the sheol as they replaced the candles? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was
that his mouth was as dry as sand, and his stomach rumbled so much he was sure
he could see the skin move.

At some point someone entered the room. He
squinted into the gloom. A shadow moved towards him. As it got near the shadow
took the form of a woman. She was pale, her hair black and short. Her eyes
though, they weren’t black, and she moved normally, like a human.  She moved
quickly to the altar and leapt up so that she was standing before him.  It was
then that he saw the bloodied dagger in her hand.

‘If you’re going to do it, just do it.’

He wasn’t scared anymore. He’d given up
any hope of escape. The next best option was that he was killed, so at least
the message the Master sought so much died with him.

‘You’re a mage.’ the woman said.

‘Of sorts. You’re not a sheol.’

‘No.’ The woman shifted on her feet. She
frowned and touched a hand to her head. ‘Your kind. You hunt the sheol?’

‘Some of us do, yes. They are our enemy,
if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘The message you carry. That they seek. It
will serve Marek and the sheol in some way?’

‘That’s my understanding. Why?’

The woman took a step closer. ‘What are
your thoughts on Balor?’

‘What? What does he -’ the dagger at his
throat silenced him instantly.

‘Just answer me, mageling.’

‘Balor was the brother of Danu. Together
they discovered the Weave. In the One War, Balor was lost, unable to live with
how the sheol had tricked him. It was Danu who sent us here, so that we might
live.’

Seb recounted the abridged version of the
betrayal as best he could remember. Was this some kind of test? Whatever it
was, his words didn’t seem to sit well with the woman. Her brow furrowed and
her eyes narrowed. He kept himself frozen in place, the cold iron of the dagger
resting on his skin.

‘It appears I was misled,’ the woman said
after what seemed an age.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You won’t.’

‘Who are you?’

The woman stared at him a moment longer,
her face a picture of indecision. Something clicked in her mind, a choice made.
She slid the dagger back into its sheath.

‘Sylph. My name is Sylph.’

‘You’re the one that Cade saw. The warrior.’

‘I suspect so.’

‘But you know the Weave too?’

‘Marek taught me personally.’

‘Wow. Tough break.’

The door to the vestibule opened. A score
of sheol scurried in, splitting into two groups on either side of the nave.
Marek swept in behind them.

‘Seb, Sylph, it is good to see the two of
you getting acquainted. It saves me on the introductions!’ Marek glided
inwards, a mock grin on his face.

‘Release me! Now!’ Seb hissed into Sylph’s
ear.

Sylph turned her back to Marek and raised
her hand to somewhere behind his neck. Marek stopped and tipped his head to one
side.

‘Sylph, please tell me my eyes deceive me.
You are betraying me? Your own father?’

‘You are not my father!’ Sylph shouted,
not turning back. Tears streamed down her face and her hands shook as she
fumbled with something on the Void Ring.

‘Ignore him. Just focus.’

Sylph leaned closer still,
both hands now working on detaching the ring. Seb winced, an involuntary
reaction, but then he heard a click, and the universe opened up to him.

Years later, he would
describe that single moment as if he’d been given sight when all before he’d been
blind. When he’d first awoken to the Weave, he didn’t really appreciate it. He
didn’t understand the gift he’d been given. This time though, after the
enforced absence of the past few hours, the unseen force that bound all reality
washed through him, a torrent of energy that illuminated every neuron and
filled his body with a tingling energy. At once he was linked to everything,
tied to the universe in a way only a mage would know.

He did not intend to let
it go again.

‘Apprehend them.’ Marek
said.

The sheol surged forward,
the first barrelling onto the altar. Sylph ducked a clumsy swipe then
dispatched it with her dagger. Another came, and another. Soon, they were
swarming round her, the warrior barely keeping pace with the onslaught. Seb
tried to move, then realised that he was still bound to the post. He
channelled, sending strength to his arms. Power swelled and then waned. The
Wave was with him again, but it was erratic, like flexing a muscle that had lay
asleep for hours.  He focussed, trying to slow his racing heart, the power
imbuing his limbs in piecemeal bursts.

One of the possessed
landed before him then. Its jaw half hung from its face, a clean slice from
Sylph just falling short of severing its head clean from its shoulders. It
drooled blood, not feeling the pain, and then lunged forward with taloned
hands.

Seb threw everything he
had into his muscles. Raw strength surged, his arms feeling like they would
burst. He pulled with all his might and the bindings around his wrist snapped.
His hands flew round and up, catching the sheol by its wrists as it lunged for
him. Without thinking, he drove his forehead into the creature’s nose, bone and
cartilage crumbling under the imbued strike. It dropped to the ground, dazed.
Another sheol leapt at him before he had chance to finish his opponent off. It swung
at him, but the Weave flowed now, the movement seeming as if in slow motion to
his enhanced senses. He ducked under the attack before driving a focussed jab
into the creature’s ribs, breaking bones. The sheol tumbled off the dais,
crashing into the stone flags, its head cracking against the floor with a
sickening thud.

‘Mage, help!’

He spun round. Sylph was
back peddling. Several of the sheol lay dead at her feet, a trail of
destruction following her to where she now stood, back against a wall,
desperately fending off attack after attack.

He had to move quickly.
Two of the possessed climbed onto the dais. He snapped forwards in an instant, smashing
his elbow into an exposed nose. He turned on the other without pause, his
previous opponent already collapsing to the floor. He spun and brought up his
arm as a staff lashed towards his head. He caught the weapon with one hand,
just above where the possessed gripped it and shoved his shoulder into the man’s
side as he twisted. The staff came free, the sheol flipping over onto the
floor. Seb twisted the grip, took the staff in both hands, and brought it down
on the man’s head. He didn’t move any further.

Seb leapt down and raced
towards Sylph. The Weave sung within him, every step seemed so sure, the world
in focus, every detail being absorbed, every possible permutation already
calculated. Two more came at him, recognising the new threat. They fell within
a second of each other, one unconscious, one howling, clutching a shattered
elbow.

Sylph, sensing the shift
in battle, went back on the offensive. She finished off her last opponent, a
human male who was halfway through a total transformation. Black blood pumped over
black scales, the floor growing shiny as the ichor pooled beneath them. Seb
caught her eyes then, and there was no mistaking the relief she saw at his
presence. They met in the middle of the melee just as the door to the hall
exploded open, shards of wood flying everywhere like lethal lances as they dove
to the floor. Several sheol were impaled by fragments, falling to the floor and
howling at their failing bodies. Marek simply stood, the shards bouncing off the
invisible field that protected him.

The Weave warped and
wailed as a familiar presence entered. Tentacle-like probes scanned the room,
and Seb silently cursed himself for being so careless. He slammed up his mental
shield just as the searching fingers found him. They crashed against his mind,
his will holding, but only just. There wouldn’t be a second time.

‘Mageling! You will not
escape a second time!’

‘Who’s that?’ Sylph
whispered as they lay flat on the floor amidst a pile of rubble.

Seb opened one eye. The
horned fiend had been compressed and forced into a loosely human form, but it
was still grotesquely large. Black scales and skin intertwined under a ragged
smock that barely contained the beast underneath. One red eye glared at him,
the other half of its face still charred from Cian’s magic.

‘He’s a daemon, a
powerful one.’ Seb said. He sent out ripples, hoping to distort the fiend’s
searching gaze. Other entities were coming now too, more possessed, but also
other fiends like this one, their corrupted auras burning his mind.

‘We need to get out of
here, now,’ he said.

Sylph nodded towards the
shadowy alcove at the side. ‘That way. A passage leads out of here. I barred
the other access points to it.’

Seb nodded. ‘Good. Now how
the hell do we get past these?’

Sylph shoved something
across to him. His spirit lifted slightly at the sight of Mik’s satchel.

‘They brought it back
from the Nexus. I managed to persuade it’s keeper to let it go.’

‘Yeah? I can imagine that
you’re quite good at that when required.’

She smiled. ‘I can hold
my own. Anything useful there?’

He rummaged in the
satchel, hands alighting on the familiar handle of the flare gun. He whipped it
out, checking it was loaded. It was. He looked back at her.

‘Close your eyes.’

Sylph scrunched her eyes
shut as Seb stood and pivoted. For a moment his fear nearly overwhelmed him.
The room was flooded with sheol from wall to wall. Amongst their number stood
several more daemons that had managed to squeeze through the growing cracks
between worlds, the Consensus only half forcing them into a more human shape.
In the midst of them, stood in the centre, Marek loomed, much smaller than the
fiends but yet towering above them in power.

‘Ah, our messenger seems
intent on causing himself a little mischief before he’s despatched,’ Marek
said, his gaze then moving to the side and lower, ‘And Sylph, my loyal Baloran,
how could you have betrayed your kin like this?’

There was a time for
talking, and there was a time for action. This was the latter. Seb pulled the
trigger, aiming it squarely at Marek’s face. The mage smiled and the air
shimmered in front of him, but the rest of the possessed could only howl as
they recognised the weapon that they feared above all others. Their screams
died as the phosphorous projectile exploded, white fire filling the room.

‘Go, now!’

Seb pulled Sylph up and
they ran for the door. The howls of more possessed filled the air, and he cast
one last look back before he followed Sylph into the corridor. Marek still
stood, the invisible shield he’d erected crackling as residue melted back down
to the earth.

Shit.

They edged into a narrow
corridor barely wide enough for one person. Seb tried to turn and pull the
other door to but he simply couldn’t turn in the confined space. Hopefully any
following daemons would suffer the same constriction and he left it, following
Sylph as she raced off into the shadows.

‘Where does this lead?’

‘To an old storage
cellar. There’s a hatch on the outside of the building that opens up in the
grounds.’

Seb smiled. She was smart
this one. The thought of what Cian would do with a former apprentice of Marek
dampened his thoughts. He shrugged them aside. He had the message; at least he
thought he did. Without Sylph that wouldn’t have happened.

Surely that counted for
something?

***

Most of the
possessed that had not been killed outright by the mage’s weapon were either
badly burned, blinded, or both. Either way they were as useful as fodder now. Marek
sent out a faint jolt to all of them, shocking their minds into instant death.
He stepped over the charcoaled bodies at the front that had taken the worst of
the blast, casually eyeing the narrow passage that the mage and his former
apprentice had fled through.

‘They escaped.’ Farouk
growled. He turned his good eye to Marek.

‘They did indeed. It
appears that our little bird had an abrupt change of allegiance.’ Marek ran one
delicate finger over the inside of the narrow passageway. The two were far away
now, escaping by the hatch at the back of the church. He sensed the sheol
nearby, out of sight. He sent a final command to their leader.

Remember. Let them go. Do
not interfere.

The reply came instantly.
As you wish, My lord.

‘Did it work?’ Farouk
said.

Marek paused,
sensing
again. A moment later he turned and nodded.