Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles (68 page)

But she hadn’t been specific enough. Gabril had transported her within fifteen feet of him and Mester Vincen.

Mester Vincen turned on her, and before she could react, the world became muffled.

Something slammed into her back.

Kaitlyn reached forward and scraped her hands on something hard mere inches in front of her.

She was inside some sort of box or crate, and she was on her back.

This isn’t real. This is just one of his dreams.

She wasn’t sure how he had done it. She was told chimeramancers needed to be asleep to work their magic, but Mester Vincen had been wide awake, and Gabril was under her control.

Gabril!

Kaitlyn focused on the region of her mind that overlapped Gabril’s. She formed an image of the box vanishing and wrapping around Mester Vincen instead.

Once again, gray clouds hung above her, and the sound of the cannons grew loud.

A wooden crate, about the size of a tall refrigerator, had taken Mester Vincen’s place in front of the map table. Wrapped
around
him, to be precise.

“Gabril, no!” Mester Vincen yelled. His voice was muffled. “Control this, or I will!

The fear emanating from Gabril’s mind was tangible.

As another cannon volley exploded, the ships Kaitlyn had transported away reappeared.

The giant skeleton in the bay, holding two ships over his head, collapsed into the water in fragments of bone. The ships he held didn’t fare much better.

“Gabril!” Mester Vincen yelled. “The swarm is coming!”

A portion of Kaitlyn’s mind was still fused with Gabril’s, but something was pushing against it. Stretching it. And the more it stretched, the thinner its structure became.

Gabril’s mind tore, and the portion fused with Kaitlyn’s faded away.

The standing crate vanished, and Mester Vincen faced Gabril, intense concentration on his face.

If Kaitlyn could touch Mester Vincen’s robe with her hand, she could
imbue
it with an alternate reality. One in which those Barathosian warships
had
to return home. Mester Vincen would do all the work for her, and she’d be free to find Nicolas and get out of here.

Now was her chance, while he was preoccupied with Gabril.

Kaitlyn projected her mind forward, toward Mester Vincen.

The boundary of his mind was defenseless, so focused was he on Gabril.

When Kaitlyn’s mind entered Mester Vincen’s, it struck something solid. Painful. It was like driving head first into oncoming traffic and slamming into a truck.

He hadn’t been defenseless at all. He’d been luring her in, and she’d fallen for it.

Mester Vincen pushed back, and excruciating pain exploded in her mind.

She grabbed her head as her vision swam.

I have to fight this! I have to find a way to…

Realization struck.

I’m so stupid! It doesn’t matter if my mind enters his, or his enters mine. I just need them to overlap!

Kaitlyn relaxed and let go of her control. She allowed her mind to become pliable, welcoming, accepting.

When Mester Vincen pushed back once more, the outer barrier of his mind crossed hers, and she fused the two together.

Mester Vincen was hers.

She dug through his thoughts and memories until she found images of the one person Mester Vincen cared most about.

Mester Vincen’s eyes widened, and he smiled. He reached out toward her and stepped forward.

“Father,” Mester Vincen said. “I’ve missed you.”

“Come closer, my son,” Kaitlyn said.

The bay grew silent as the cannon fire ceased. But something was changing around the command ship. A black cloud rose from openings at its base. At first, the cloud drifted straight up and spread out. But in a span of moments, it condensed into a column, turned, and began stretching toward the shore.

Kaitlyn had seen this once before. It was a swarm of the creatures the Barathosians sent into Caspardis to slaughter the survivors.

Kaitlyn wove a new reality to imbue Mester Vincen’s robes. An urgent call. The entire fleet must return to Barathosia at once. An unknown invader. Massive casualties in their capital city.

He was close now. No more than three steps away. But she was way too dizzy to stand. She couldn’t afford losing control of him now.

The flock of creatures was three hundred yards off shore and closing quickly.

Mester Vincen and Gabril vanished from the boardwalk, along with the tent and table.

The recoil from Mester Vincen’s mind being pulled that far away that quickly was like the wrong side of a stretched rubber band being released; the boundary of her mind slammed into her, knocking her backward. Her vision went black.

She covered her ears as the horrible sound of tearing metal vibrated the boardwalk.

The screeching of the flying creatures grew louder. As the ravenous creatures drew closer, she imagined Nicolas finding her body shredded and bloody, face no longer recognizable, and she trembled from the anticipated pain.

The only thing she saw, as the sounds around her grew muffled and distant, was Nicolas’s face. She held on to that image as long as she could, through the terror, through the trembling, remembering all they’d dreamed of. All they’d wished for. All their plans and aspirations.

A marriage that would never be. A family that would never be.

And when silence came, Kaitlyn let go.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

In the year 957 BCE, Ahmed Mukhtaar stepped over the threshold, becoming Ahmed Lord Mukhtaar. Lord Ahmed’s reign began in tragedy. A group of unknown men abducted his only child, a daughter named Sadira. Sadira was never found, though Lord Mukhtaar searched the length and breadth of the Three Kingdoms tirelessly. His travels resulted in the largest growth of Clan Mukhtaar in recorded history, with more than one hundred covens attributed to his name.

Burdened by sorrow and guilt over the loss of Sadira, Lord Mukhtaar never allowed his grief to come before others.

- Coteon of the Steppes, “The Mukhtaar Chronicles: Coteonic Commentaries” (circa 680 BCE)

Lord Ahmed isn’t mentioned often, but he should be. Clan Mukhtaar may never have risen to prominence were it not for his indefatigable quest to find Sadira Mukhtaar. What became of her is a mystery I would give much to solve someday. If for no other reason than to help him rest more peacefully than he already does.

- Mujahid Mukhtaar, Private Commentaries, 35 CE

Mujahid entered the sanctuary at a full run, only stopping when he saw Nuuan, who was standing between the panoramic window and the Great Orb of Arin.

“Dar Rodon is under attack,” Nuuan said. “I’m sorry, brother. I thought I was viewing the future, but it was the
present
!”

“I agree this is bad news, but I don’t understand your urgency,” Mujahid said.

“Nicolas and Kaitlyn are in Dar Rodon.”

Mujahid’s face went cold. “How bad is it?”

Nuuan shook his head.

“Do they live?” Mujahid yelled.

“They were alive when I merged my consciousness. But they won’t stay that way for long.”

“I’ll open an Abaddonian portal,” Mujahid said. “I used one to travel to Caspardis. I can grab both Kaitlyn and Nicolas before it’s too late.”

Mujahid hated that place, with its soot-filled clouds and…buildings constructed from the souls of the damned. But it was the only way.

Nuuan shook his head once more, but this time it was different.

“Won’t work,” Nuuan said.

“Why not? I can take two people to the sixth hell with ease.”

“Yes, but only a Mukhtaar Lord or hellwraith can
leave
again.”

The hells were unlike what most envisioned. They were places, true, and Mujahid had visited each. The sixth hell, however, was something else as well. It was a
substrate
, winding its way through all of reality. An underpinning that a Mukhtaar Lord could use to travel, if he knew the destination well enough.

But the sixth hell had its own master. A jealous master.

“You take Kaitlyn and Nicolas to the sixth hell without an
arrangement
, and you’ll seal their eternity,” Nuuan said.

“I can still travel to Dar Rodon and help them escape the city.”

“No. I like your
first
idea better.”

“You just told me it wouldn’t work!”

“I told you we needed an
arrangement
. Go to Dar Rodon. I’ll go to the sixth hell and have a chat with
His Unholy Arseholeness
myself. When you have them in hand, bring them there.”

“He’s going to
want
something, brother. Something he knows you consider too valuable to give.”

“You let
me
worry about that,” Nuuan said.

“You’ll never get into the Iblisian palace.”

“Lilith owes me a favor.”

Mujahid scowled. That demon woman was dangerous beyond reckoning. The last time he’d dealt with her, she’d managed to release a plague in the city of Hiboran. Two thousand people died before Mujahid had convinced her father to put a stop to it. There was a reason she was confined to the sixth hell.

Nuuan spread his hands. “Well?
Time
is not on our side.”

“Be careful,” Mujahid said.

Mujahid reached out to the shadows in the sanctuary, calling them from the tiniest corners and crevasses. When they cloaked him, his body contorted as he took his spectral form—the form of a Lord of Hell.

A tear in the atmosphere opened before him.

“Be careful, brother,” Mujahid repeated as he flung himself into the Abaddonian portal.

Nicolas ran.

Kaitlyn was less than two hundred yards away, and Mester Vincen was walking toward her.

As the cannon fire ceased, a chilling sound swept in from the bay.

Screeching mini-shrillers. The same kind the Barathosians had used in Caspardis.

If he could get Kaitlyn into one of those buildings, the shrillers would have a hard time reaching them.

Beneath the cloud of mini-shrillers, Barathosian warships began to reappear. Whatever magic Kaitlyn had been working was failing. The armada was coming back.

A patch of air, fifty yards ahead, shimmered like a heat mirage in the desert. A tear formed in the shimmer, creaking and groaning like two great sheets of metal being ripped in half. A wave of heat engulfed Nicolas, but the nauseating stench of decay, human waste, and burning flesh was far worse. Two writhing tongues of flame shot through the rip in the atmosphere as it widened into a swirling, black vortex, twice the height of a man.

A shrouded being emerged from the portal, its bony hands pushing against the rim of the vortex. It had flames for eyes, a cloak of shadow, and no lower body. A crown of flame ringed its head, dripping liquid fire down the sides and back of the cloak. And when it had freed itself from the portal, two giant, skeletal wings spread open to its sides. The wings arced high above the being’s head, and swept down to the ground, well below its floating, shadowy torso.

Nicolas stepped back.