Mythborn: Rise of the Adepts (40 page)

Scythe blinked twice, his attention coming back to the captured master. “Yes, but what blocked your entire Isle? You disappear for over two score years then suddenly appear like a distant fire in the night. It explains the attack, for your brethren now sparkle like a shining star in the middle of the Shattered Sea. But why now?”

A cool breeze drifted in through the tent flaps, jingling hanging bells and swirling loose pieces of debris. The scent of jasmine wafted through, filling Silbane with a sense of peace and relaxation.

“Even more curious; how do you hide a dragon’s aura, which should outshine yours like a bonfire next to a candle flame?”

Something was wrong. Silbane could barely touch it, his dazed mind trying, then it hit him with a start.

Scythe had said “attack.” Did he mean someone had attacked the Isle? A part of Silbane’s mind reacted to the knowledge with alarm, but before he could do anything, a gentle coaxing set in, a reminder that all was safe and he should not worry.

Silbane found himself preoccupied with the passing time measured by his heartbeat. It seemed so natural, so soothing. A question formed in his mind and his voice uttered it almost automatically, “How long have I been here?”

Scythe rose and let out a deep breath he had been holding. “The better part of a day, not counting time at your camp. You were in sorry shape. My scouts were a bit too... enthusiastic.” He gestured to the other side of the tent absentmindedly and Silbane saw two men hung on hooks. Actually, they weren’t men, but the
skins
of men, he realized through his fogged mind.

“I had them staked out in the sun and then skinned alive. Discipline must be maintained, no?” Scythe said seriously. “I had to do quite a bit of healing to fix you.”

Silbane worked his jaw, which painfully clicked in protest. “Could have done better.”

Scythe laughed. “You are quite a man, and dangerously accomplished for one who knows so little of the Way. You brush off my Talent as an afterthought, then jump directly back into it like a fish for water. It is as if you harness the Way differently than most. Perhaps a side effect of your training?

“Still...” The red-robed man came closer and sat down. His tone became serious, almost menacing. “I have planned too long for the Gate’s appearance. Now you show up with a dragon and a mission to close this very same Gate. I cannot let that happen.”

The man gestured and Silbane found he could use his right arm. He realized the man had held his arms immobile with magic, an overt use of power that surprised him. The Way he knew was mostly internal and rarely manifested itself as direct control over another. Even illusion happened by fooling a person’s senses, rarely forcing any
real
change to something.

Scythe leaned forward and handed the water skin to the captured master, then leaned back and began to speak. “For all our advances in magic, few have achieved what you monks have with regards to our bodies. In fact, I am not surprised by the sheer ingenuity of Dreys’s family. Unfortunately, my chance to tell Themun just how much I respect him will have to wait.”

To Silbane’s puzzled look Scythe replied, “Lore Father Themun Dreys has passed on to the next world. I felt it happen. The moment your people became visible, forces took direct and unfortunately, lethal action.” He looked down, genuine regret in his voice. “Now, it is too late.”

The red-robed mage leaned back on his small stool and sighed, then met Silbane’s eyes and said, “Did you know I saw him once, when he was much younger? He did not know this, though even then he was strong in the Way, and cunning. He saved a girl who had been captured by the king’s men. Her name was Thera.”

Silbane knew how the lore father and Thera had met, but nothing came out. He was stunned by what the man had just said. The Isle had been attacked?

“She, too, has passed, as if their journey in this world was meant to both start and end together.” Scythe sat there for a moment, reliving another distant memory. His head shook then, an involuntary gesture, as if he struggled with himself on an unspoken level to remain in the here and now. When he spoke next, he did not meet Silbane’s gaze and whispered, “Have you ever lost someone? Someone important to you?”

Silbane watched him, the fog momentarily clearing. His first thought was Arek, but instead he simply said, “No.”

Scythe did not move, but his eyes closed. “You cannot understand then, what it’s like.” His voice grew stronger and he stood and faced the captured master. “You are a very small part of the story of this world, and your chapter is ending.”

Silbane sat, looking up at Scythe in silence. The lore father
and
Thera, dead? That was impossible. He would have felt it, wouldn’t he? Could Arek somehow have blocked his senses? What of Scythe, could he be responsible?

Silbane mentally berated himself, nothing could kill them that easily, and they had the Vault. Tempest was only one of many items of power that could save them should anyone be seriously injured. Scythe sought to throw him off balance and Silbane refused to let himself be baited.

Scythe cocked his head, as if listening, then said, “Your memories of the Vault are most interesting. Many of the artifacts I thought lost are there. They are wasted with you and will be put to better use. But I digress.”

Scythe motioned to the water skin, which Silbane held in shocked silence.
He reads my thoughts, even now?
Then a gentle caress eased his shock and worry, and he struggled to remember what had upset him so much a few moments ago as the fog once again wrapped him in its warm embrace. They were talking about someone and the history of the world, were they not?

Scythe grabbed the water skin from Silbane’s nerveless fingers and took a swig, clearing his throat. “Have you noticed something?”

When the mage did not answer, Scythe continued, “The rifts between our plane and Lilyth’s are getting more numerous and unpredictable. Things aren’t getting better.”

Silbane still did not respond, his mind in a fugue of memories and thoughts, as if someone were rifling through them at high speed.

“We’ve managed to stop the larger ones,” Scythe continued, “but dozens appear each year, and who are the casualties?”

“Children,” croaked Silbane. “Always, the children.”

Scythe nodded. “Always, and usually those strongest in the Way. They disappear as if they never existed. Have you asked yourself, where do they go?”

“They’re killed by the demons that emerge from the rifts. Families speak of it, of their loss.” This came out as a mumble, but there was still strong emotion behind it. Much of the council’s efforts had been to recover children born of Talent before they fell to the king’s Magehunters, and now these demons.

Scythe cocked his head, a puzzled look on his face. “Killed? Nothing really dies. You know that.”

It was Silbane’s turn to look confused as his fog again lifted and he found he could answer with perfect clarity. “What are you talking about? Things die all the time. Your men over there, the dragon, the people of EvenSea!” He spat these out, laying each death at Scythe’s feet.

The red-robed mage smiled and caught Silbane’s gaze and held it, a feverish glint showing in his eyes. “Nothing
really
dies. I will answer to them still, for my part in their passing. Then that glint receded and Scythe’s demeanor became normal, almost conversational again.

“Are you comfortable? I mean, I cannot let you go, but I can allow you to adjust your position.”

Silbane thought about it and was happy the conversation stayed away from Arek. His apprentice’s ability to mask magic was clearly important to this man, and it made sense for him to keep Scythe talking. The longer he did so, the farther from the truth they went. When the chance presented itself, he would use his Finder and escape this location to wherever his apprentice was. Then they would make their way back to the Isle and warn the others of Scythe and everything else he had learned.

Silbane said, “Yes, some water, and please, continue...”

“There’s not much more to say. These rifts are passageways to Lilyth’s plane, a fact you already know or you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be trying to destroy my life’s work.”

Silbane shook his head. “You can’t let that Gate reopen. It would mean—”

“Silence!” roared Scythe. He kicked Silbane in the chest. The suddenness and violence of the move caught the master by surprise as the air whooshed from his lungs.

Silbane looked up through pain-dazed eyes and came face to face with a lunatic, nose inches from his own. His captor’s eyes were wide, the whites showing. His mouth stretched over teeth into a grin that looked like a feral animal’s.

In that moment of clarity, Silbane realized that Scythe was unpredictable and violent. His life hung on the edge of a blade balanced on the tip of this lunatic’s finger. He froze, knowing the slightest movement could overturn this man’s carefully crafted semblance of sanity.

At first, he didn’t think he would survive. His captor seemed to be watching a different scene, his eyes jerking back and forth, looking through and past Silbane. Then the lids drooped slightly, a breath escaped, nostrils flared as another breath was taken, and Scythe leaned back. His eyes closed and his head tilted back as he sat on his haunches.

He raised his hands together in front of his face, palm to palm, and spoke through them, “Nothing really dies, Silbane. You need to understand this. Tell me about Arek. If he has the power to interfere, I
must
know.”

Silbane closed his eyes and shook his head. He would not give up one more piece of information that would lead Scythe anywhere near his apprentice.

“Look at me.”

At first Silbane considered ignoring him, but after witnessing Scythe’s mercurial violence firsthand, he realized the inherent danger of such an infantile gesture. Staying alive was their best hope so he opened his eyes and found himself across from a man who was calm and composed. The transformation was unnerving and hinted at a deep psychosis, with triggers to extreme violence at any given word. Silbane kept his mouth shut, watching with the same care and utter stillness he would exhibit had Scythe pressed a real blade to his throat.

“You see this as a nomad’s tent, with all the expected trappings and furnishings. However...” The red-robed mage snapped his fingers and the entire room darkened, changed, cleared, then solidified.

It was basically the same tent, but now the acrid stench of waste filtered in, mixed with the cloying sweet smell of
hazish
. Behind Scythe stood a gargantuan Altan warrior, clearly pleased with something. Elsewhere in the tent, Silbane could see moving forms that hinted at bare flesh and oil. “Not everything is as it seems.”

Silbane dropped his head to his chest, knowing now he had been part of a grand illusion, an exhibition of power far beyond anything he could accomplish easily. He coughed once and spit blood, then said, “I am not giving you Arek.”

Something Scythe must have read in Silbane’s mind showed him the futility of pursuing this line of questioning. He backed away, staring at the master and thinking. Then he motioned to the warrior and said, “U’Zar, I am not finished with him.”

He looked at Silbane and said in a conspiratorial voice, “No escapes.” The smile that followed was bright and clean, free of anger or worry, a far cry from the man who looked about to kill him a moment earlier. To Silbane, it was like looking at a door that sat unevenly on its hinge when open, yet where no defect could be seen when closed.

Scythe moved closer and Silbane felt his right arm go numb again. “I also know about Themun’s Finder.” Scythe reached in and in one motion ripped the charm from around Silbane’s neck. “If you won’t help me find Arek, this will.”

Silbane sat stunned, his mind dazed again. It was clear to him now that with the torc on he felt nothing, no connection to the Way. Without that, he was effectively blind. Everyone on the Isle
could
be dead. Then he found himself thinking about beautiful summer days, where the sun set with its warm, orange glow. Something whispered in his mind,
you need to rest.

“What will you do with that?” asked the giant, referring to the charm.

Scythe looped it around a nail above Silbane’s head. “I will create a portal web on this side, should the boy be foolish enough to use it to get to his master. Post additional guards outside this tent. If we are lucky, we won’t have to do anything. He’ll join us on his own and open a door for me into Bara’cor.”

The nomad shook his head and grumbled, “You have made it clear that Bara’cor’s dwarven stone is proof against your magic, so we throw our men at her walls. Why not use this charm to enter?”

“We will, in due time,” Scythe answered, his eyes resting on Silbane. “Once the Finder is used, the portal opening cannot be moved. We do not know the whereabouts of his apprentice. What if he has been captured by Bara’cor’s forces? What if the other end opens to an iron and granite cell?”

Scythe turned to the leader of the nomads and said, “Let us both be patient for a day and see what transpires. You want the fortress and I want to achieve the Gate within. Our interests are still aligned, but we must be sure no one can stop us.” He looked back at the dazed master. “I suspect his apprentice will come to us at his first opportunity.”

Then he put a hand on the u’zar’s massive forearm and added, “Prepare an assault team to enter Bara’cor. It is a good suggestion.”

Silbane shook his head, and his eyes flamed in anger. “Lies! I would have felt the death of Themun.” The words tore from his mouth.

Scythe moved over and sat back down across from Silbane. He grabbed the water skin from the ground and took a long swig, then said, “I would consider sparing
you,
though. Losing any practitioners of the Way is tragic, and as I said before, you are a good man.”

Silbane looked at Scythe, hatred smoldering in his eyes. He did not believe anyone on the Isle was dead. The thought was inconceivable, and he knew they were the land’s last hope.

Scythe looked at Silbane, his head cocked to one side. “The land’s last hope? You still don’t understand, do you?”