Message Bearer (The Auran Chronicles Book 1) (33 page)

‘I truly hope so.’

***

‘Where are you
taking me?’ Sylph had remained in silence for almost the entire journey as Cade
led her away from the commune. As they stepped off the last damp step that led
out into the Drain she could hold herself no longer.

‘Somewhere safe.’

‘I’m not afraid.’

‘No shit. It’s not for
your safety I’m putting you here,’ Cade smiled as he waved at the open chamber.
Sylph sauntered in, taking in her new surroundings with a disdainful sniff.

‘Come on, surely this is
better than Haven?’

Sylph ran her finger
across the table, raising an eyebrow at the accumulated dust on the tip.

‘Seb lives down here?’

Cade nodded. ‘He prefers
it here. Plus, he’s not alone.’

‘What?’

‘Caleb’s here, too. His mentor.’

‘The guy who nearly died?’

‘That’s the one. He’ll
take care of you.’

‘Bu-’

‘I’ll be back,’ Cade
strode towards the stone staircase, vanishing into the shadows before Sylph
could get out another word.

‘Great.’ Sylph turned and
dropped into a leather armchair. She winced as something dug into her back,
shuffling to the side into a position of least discomfort.

She felt it before she
saw it. A tingling at the edge of her senses, a shimmer in the mind. Without
thinking she was out of the chair and on her feet. Her hand shot to her side,
mentally cursing at the empty sheath there.

‘Who are you? Show
yourself!’

The man known as Caleb
shuffled out of the dark. Hunched over, white, skeletal hands gripping a staff,
Caleb came forwards, head low, breath wheezing.

‘Stop there.’ Sylph took
a step back, palm raised. He looked human, but the
wrongness
just oozed
out of him like an ichor, pooling with the shadow that seemed to follow him from
the alcove.

Caleb stopped. His head
rose in slow, juddering steps. His eyes met hers. Cold. Grey. Lifeless.

‘Ah, you must be, Sylph,’
Caleb said, his voice coming out as barely a breeze. ‘I have heard a lot about
you.’

He came forwards again.
Sylph stepped back. Her back struck the table behind her. On instinct her hands
dropped to the furniture, fingers furtively searching for something, anything.
Her eyes told her that this was simply an old man, not far from the Veil, but
her innate senses told her much more.

This was no human.

‘You’re possessed.’

Caleb stopped. His head cocked
to one side. ‘I’m sorry? My dear, I think you’ve -’

‘Don’t bullshit me. I’m
not one of these magi. I don’t know how you’re hiding it from them but I can
tell. You reek of it. Show yourself.’ Her right hand alighted on something
cold, smooth. She lifted it, noting the weight.

The illusion vanished in
an instant. Caleb blinked. Grey eyes vanished, replaced by orbs of black. He
rose suddenly, the stick clattering to the floor. Bones cracked. Muscle
stretched. He grinned at her, pale lips stretching taut across a mouth
displaying teeth designed for shredding.

‘What are you, little
whelp? You’re not a mage, not really. You don’t have the smell. Yet I can tell
you’re imbued. Tell me your story, before I rip the throat from your pretty
little neck.’

Sylph didn’t feel fear.
At least, not as a conscious emotion. She recognised the release of adrenalin,
the light feeling in her stomach, the pounding of her heart. She’d seen enough
possessed to know they could range in danger from the merely deranged to those
hosting daemons of unimaginable power. She couldn’t read this one, but she had
a feeling that it wasn’t the former.

The Caleb-fiend leapt
forwards, outstretched talons reaching for her throat. It was fast, inhumanly
fast, the image of where he’d been standing merging with one of him right in
front her, the distance between them closed in a heartbeat.

She brought the object up
and across from her side. Ideally she would’ve brought it down in an overhead
strike, cleaving the sheol’s skull, but the sudden speed of the attack
prevented that. The weapon, a cobweb-covered candlestick, complete with
almost-extinct candle, caught the Caleb-fiend under the jaw, deflecting his
charge just enough to send him barrelling past her, but not before a stray hand
raked across her midriff, sending a searing pain through her core.

‘My, you are something different
aren’t you?’ The Caleb-fiend rose, turning back to face her as she edged
backwards, clutching the candlestick with one hand, the other clasped over the
open wound in her side. Already a dull fire was spreading in ever growing waves
from the wound.

Poison.

Caleb gripped the table
and casually flung it to one side, the object smashing into smithereens under
the impact. He advanced forwards, forked tongue dancing between razor teeth.

Sylph scanned the room.
As far as she could tell there was only one way out, the stairs that loomed
behind Caleb, taunting her from afar. Not that it mattered though, she knew
that even if she managed to get past this daemon that the door was no doubt
barred from the other side. But maybe there were guards there? Someone she
could alert? She didn’t have the time to figure out how this fiend had managed
to fool all of the magi but she had no doubt that its presence here, now, at
the time of the opening, was no mere coincidence. She had to warn them. She
made to move but her legs were failing her, energy sapped by the lethal poison.
The room blurred as her knees hit the floor.

‘Where’s the fight? I was
hoping for much more sport than this?’

Caleb-fiend crept
forwards, fingers splayed, talons primed to end her life there and then.

Bong
.

The noise reverberated
throughout the building, the sound echoing and amplifying within the Drain.

For a moment, Caleb and
Sylph stared at each other. Sylph, mind numbed by poison, recognised nothing
more than the fact a painful noise rattled her ears. Caleb-fiend though, knew
more, much more.

Bong
.

The ceremony.

Caleb-fiend snarled and
spun, bounding across to the stairs in one gravity defying leap. He melded into
the shadows, a black arrow vanishing into the ether.

***

Seb swallowed, the
dryness in his throat making the action difficult, almost painful.

He dared one last look
round before closing his eyes. He felt the combined power of the gathered magi.
They were unified now, their energies combined, their power focused on him. The
energy pulsed through him, his limbs alive, senses tingling. With one last
glance at the Magister, her eyes now glowing a fierce gold, he closed his own.
The sound of the side door to the hall opening barely registered with him.

***

Cade saw Caleb enter. He smiled as the old
man shuffled forwards, head bowed, clutching that staff as if his life depended
on it. Stubborn old goat. Something stirred in Cade’s chest. After all this old
man had been through, how close to death he had been, he still forced himself
out of the Drain to see his pupil finally shed the burden that had plagued him
for the past few months. He moved through the crowd towards Caleb, seeking the
companionship of a fellow outsider amongst the silence of the magi.

‘Nice of you to join us,’
Cade drew alongside the older man. He couldn’t help but feel dismay at the
sight of the old mage, a shell of his former self.

He turned to look back
towards the ceremony. The Magister was in full swing now, her words rising in
pitch and fervour, the air tingling with a growing pervasion of Weave energy.
Something pulled Cade back, something he noticed as he took his gaze away from
Caleb.

‘What happened to you?’
Cade took the old man’s hand in his own. The back of it was nearly black with
bruising. Dried blood was caked along his knuckles.

‘Huh? This?’ Caleb flexed
his knuckles, the bones nearly visible underneath waxen skin. ‘That friend of
yours. She made a break for it thinking I was nothing but a harmless old fool.’
He waved the staff under Cade’s eyes, his grey eyes twinkling, ‘I taught her
the error of her ways.’

‘You shouldn’t have
risked yourself. You’re too weak. Here, let me take you back to the infirmary.’

‘I’m fine!’ Caleb
snatched his arm away from the offered hand. He noted Cade’s shocked expression
and the anger melted away. ‘I’m sorry, I did not mean to snap. I just don’t
like being taken for an invalid. Now I must go, I must be close to Seb to give
my support.’

Caleb pushed his way
forwards and away from Cade, leaving the warrior frozen in shock. Cade blinked
and shook the experience away, watching as the old man clumsily made his way to
the front of the circle. As he stood he felt his thoughts drifting. Something
didn’t sit right. He’d placed two warriors at the Drain and yet still Sylph had
managed to launch an attack. When he left her the last thing she’d seemed focused
on was starting another fight. According to Seb she’d risked her life to bring
him back safely, why jeopardise that now? And why hadn’t his guard contacted
him about the assault?

He cast one last look at
the room, his eyes lingering on Caleb. His gut screamed at him. Something was
wrong. He turned and marched out of the chamber.

***

The corridor was quiet. Too quiet. By the
time Cade turned onto the last corridor that led to the Drain he was almost at
a run. His limited sense screamed at him, not because of what he could
sense
,
but what he couldn’t.

Shit!

Two eviscerated bodies -
his warriors - lay strewn in various parts across the corridor. The walls were
coated in blood and matter. Cade noted the weapons still in their holsters,
safety’s still on. Whatever happened had taken them by surprise, the looks of
shock on their dead faces confirming that thought. He stepped over the lake of
blood, weapon in hand, and ventured downstairs. He
sensed
a presence
there. A faint, lingering aura clinging to life.

‘Sylph? Sylph!’ He ran
across to the woman on the floor and dropped to a crouch next to her. Her skin
was the colour of wax, her lips blue and cold. He reached his hand under her
neck, wincing at the coldness of her touch. The pulse there was weak but
steady. This one did not give in easily.

‘Sylph? What happened?’ A
nearby table had been flipped and thrown against a wall. Shards of wood
littered the floor. Near one of Sylph’s outstretched hands a candlestick lay,
one end wet with blood.

Black blood.

‘Shit.’

He had to get back. Caleb
- whatever he was - needed to be stopped. But Cade couldn’t leave her like
this. Whatever she’d done before, she’d fought too hard to get this far, and
without her Seb wouldn’t be here at all. But what could he do? Come on, think.
He’d seen it once. He lowered her down and raced to the shelves at the far
wall, where potions of various colour were lined up. He normally had his own
antidote but his had been used when his men found him in his father’s office.
Thankfully, he found a similar potion, a small bottle with a circular base. A
thick, black liquid slopped inside. He snatched it from the shelf and ran back.
Without pause he tipped back her head and poured the entire contents of the
bottle down her throat. She bucked and thrashed as reflex forced her to
swallow. He held her close, waiting until the worst of the shudders had passed.
When her spasms had ceased and her breathing had returned to something that
resembled normality, he lowered her back down and raced back out of the
chamber.

***

Seb didn’t know what he was expecting to
happen, but in the end, when it did, it was relatively low key.
At
least initially.

A perimeter of golden
light surrounded him, obscuring the magi behind a glowing haze. In front of him
the locked box simply materialised into existence, floating in the air right
under his nose. It rolled and twisted, seemingly responding to his own mind.

He’d seen Caleb before,
standing near the inside of the circle. The sight of the old man, clearly frail
but determined to not leave his sole pupil to face this challenge on his own
made Seb’s spirits rise. Caleb was gone now, perhaps sitting. It didn’t matter.
He was there, and that was enough.

The box had stopped
rotating now, the cracked underside now facing him, a fierce gold energy
emanating from the fissure. Without thinking, he lifted his hands, palms facing
the crack. He knew the thought wasn’t his own, for he was a puppet now,
controlled by the greater powers and wisdom of the combined magi.

The crack seemed to
spread, sprouting several smaller cracks that grew outwards, quickly enveloping
the box until nothing remained of its former structure, just a glowing cuboid
of light.

‘It opens!’ The Magister’s
voice echoed in his mind.

The box rippled, then something
else happened. Strange runes began to rise from the inside. The language he
knew was Runic Script, some of the symbols even made sense, hours of reading
finally paying off.