Relentless (21 page)

39. FLOATING

THINK
, LEESA TOLD HERSELF AGAIN.

She could imagine any number of different ways this dark void inside the table might be separated from the outside world—energy walls, solid matter of some sort, even magical barriers could do the trick. Abstract possibilities were of no use to her, however. She needed something she could visualize clearly enough to cast her telekinesis at.

Only one kind of boundary came to mind that fit her needs—the smooth black material the table had been fashioned out of.

She felt her heartbeat quicken at the thought. The marble-like stuff was not only a logical choice to make up the boundaries of this place, but it was also one she could visualize in clear detail, having seen it up close just a short while before.

She forced herself to calm down, centering herself once again. Excitement here could only get in her way. When she felt ready, she opened her eyes.

One direction was as good as another, so she stared off into the blackness in the direction she was already facing. Focusing hard, she visualized a wall of the black material hidden in the darkness far off in the distance. When the image became firm and clear in her mind, she tried to pull the wall toward her.

A tingling inside her body let her know that her power had been activated, but she couldn’t tell if it was accomplishing anything. In the blackness, there was nothing to mark any motion. The only time she had sensed any movement in here at all was when she closed her eyes and felt herself being drawn downward. Her brow furrowed in thought—perhaps that was the answer.

She closed her eyes again. Instead of feeling as if she were moving downward like before, she now had a strong sense of slowly floating sideways. Hoping it wasn’t just wishful thinking, she opened her eyes. A smile curved her lips. Thankfully, the sensation persisted. She couldn’t be absolutely certain, but she was pretty sure she had begun moving in a horizontal direction, drawn by her telekinesis.

She continued calling upon her power. Her assumption of sideways motion was soon confirmed by the glowing eyes, which were now steadily growing larger. Since her magic wasn’t aimed at a wide enough area to be pulling all the eyes toward her, she had to be moving nearer to them.

A few moments later, she began passing through the mass of eyeballs. Any eyes directly in her path drifted out of her way before she could come in contact with them, allowing her to cross through the entire field without touching even one. She wasn’t sure what might happen if she bumped into one, and she didn’t want to find out. Once again, she could sense the forlorn hopelessness in the eyes as she floated past them.

Until now, she hadn’t realized just how many eyes had been trapped inside the table. She passed scores of them, at least, before she emerged into the blackness on the other side. She was happy to leave the depressing things behind her.

How long she drifted through this seemingly endless void was hard to tell. It might have been merely five or ten minutes, or it could have been twice or even three times that. Judging the passage of time here was difficult; judging distance without landmarks by which to mark speed or progress was impossible.

However much time had passed so far didn’t really matter, as long as it wasn’t enough to endanger Ralin. She figured she had at least ten hours before his arm would grow bad enough that Rave would have to consider amputating it. She felt certain she been here less than an hour, but in the back of her mind the fear grew that time might pass very differently in a magical place like this.  If that were the case, then every minute here counted. Still, there was nothing she could think of to do that she wasn’t already doing. That knowledge did little to help her growing impatience.

As she continued to float through the blackness, she began to sense a gradual change in her surroundings. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or not, but the darkness seemed to be lightening just a bit. With nothing to see it was difficult to tell for certain, so she extended her arm out in front of her to check. Sure enough, she could see her hand more clearly than before.

The slight lessening of the gloomy darkness lifted her spirits. Any change here was welcome, and this one was more welcome than most. Now if she could just find something to look at besides her fingers.

Her wish was granted a few moments later. Off in the distance, she saw a shadow begin to take shape that was several degrees blacker than the darkness surrounding it. For better or worse, her present path was taking her right towards it.

As she drew nearer, she began to see that the thing was vaguely human in shape. If it really was a person, he or she was gigantic—almost twice Leesa’s size, it seemed. A vaguely familiar fear pricked at the back of her brain. She strained to make out any details before she got too close, but the darkness made it difficult. She eased back on her power, continuing to draw nearer but at a slower, more cautious pace. She could tell that whoever or whatever it was had its back to her, but that was about all she could determine so far.

Finally, she recognized the rotund torso and the back of the bald, bulbous head from her visions and their one real-life meeting. She silently cursed her bad luck. Somehow, in this seemingly endless void, her power had drawn her straight to the Necromancer!

Leesa immediately shut down her telekinesis, hoping she could somehow avoid the deadly mage before he became aware of her presence. She stopped moving, but less than twenty feet of darkness now separated the two of them. Worse, he seemed to be spinning slowly around toward her. He was a creature of the dark—she knew he would have no trouble spotting her even in the dimness.

She looked around desperately, but in this place of nothingness there was nowhere to hide. In a moment he would see her, exposed and helpless before him here in his dark domain. Trying to escape via her telekinesis would be useless—there was no way she could pull herself far enough away in the scant seconds left to her.

Even if this place had not weakened her power, she would have been no match for the Necromancer, especially here, in the depths of his stronghold where his deadly black magic was amplified by the power of scores of vanquished waziri. She wished she had the ability to make herself invisible, but that was not among her powers. There would be no hiding for her, no escape. She gathered her magic as best she could, bracing herself for the unequal contest about to erupt.

She extended her arm, ready to unleash as powerful a blast of magic as she could muster. She doubted it would be enough, but she was not going down without a fight. She would battle until her last breath—and beyond, if possible.

The Necromancer completed his turn. Now his black eyes bored into hers; his full lips were twisted into what could have been a leer or a grimace—in the darkness, Leesa couldn’t tell which.

An instant before she let loose her desperate blast, something stopped her. She stared at her foe, confused. Something was definitely amiss here. The black mage’s immense form looked even more bloated than she remembered, and he had made no move even to begin an attack. She studied him more closely. His thick arms and legs hung limply in the air, making him look more like a giant, floating ragdoll than a deadly enemy. His eyes, which had first had seemed to bore into hers, now seemed vacant and lifeless under closer scrutiny.

A sigh of relief escaped Leesa’s throat as she realized the Necromancer was dead. Dominic must have succeeded in that part of his mission, at least. She saw no marks on the dark mage’s body or upon his black clothes, but magic did not always leave marks behind. No one but Dominic could have done this to the Necromancer inside his own table.

Now, if she could just find Dominic and figure out a way for the two of them to leave this terrible place before it was too late.

40. FLIPPING COINS

LEESA HAD NO MORE TIME
to spend on the bloated corpse of the Necromancer. The dead wizard was a thing of the past—her concerns lay in the immediate future, with doing everything she could do to save her son.

Invigorated by the knowledge that Dominic had emerged victorious over their hated foe and thus was probably still alive somewhere in this god-forsaken place, Leesa cast her telekinesis out into the darkness once again. For the first time since she entered the world inside the table, real hope flared in her breast. Her optimism was further buoyed by the thought that if Dominic had indeed destroyed the Necromancer, he might not be too far away.

As she drifted past the Necromancer’s body, Leesa realized she needed a way to make sure she was moving in the right direction. The last thing she wanted to do was to head off at an angle that might carry her farther away from Dominic.

Reaching into her pocket, she took out her ring. What she saw surprised her. She couldn’t be sure whether it was a trick of the gradually thinning darkness or something about the jewel itself, but the red stone seemed to have grown a bit brighter since she had shoved it into her pants.

She shut down her telekinesis and stared down at the jewel, wondering if there some way she could use it to help her locate Dominic. It was worth a shot—she had no other options to try.

Extending the ring out to her left, she swung it in a slow arc in front of her body, keeping a careful eye on the ruby for any change in brightness or color. The darkness had now become a benefit, potentially making any change in the jewel’s glow easier to detect.

She had moved the ring about two-thirds of the way through her intended arc when she thought she saw something—the barest flicker in the depths of the red stone, gone almost before she could be sure she had actually seen it. Very carefully, she inched the ring back through the same space. This time she was certain. The jewel flickered to life in the same spot, at an angle slightly less than forty-five degrees to her right.

She held the ring still and the faint glow inside the ruby remained the same. As soon as she moved it more than an inch or two in either direction, the light within the gemstone vanished. Just to be certain, Leesa took the ring through a complete circle around her. When she finished, she smiled—the only place the stone lit up was when it returned to the original location. If the light inside the ring was telling her what she hoped it was, then Dominic had to be somewhere off in the darkness in that direction.

She immediately reactivated her telekinesis, casting it in the direction indicated by the ruby. As she began floating through the blackness once more, she kept the ring close in front of her, using it as a guide to prevent her from straying off course, which she knew would be all too easy to do with no landmarks to fix her path on.

Every minute or so, she moved the ring to one side or the other, letting the jewel dim to make sure her eyes didn’t become overly accustomed to one level of brightness. Each time, she was able to see clearly that she was still on track. She even thought the glow inside the ruby might be slowly brightening, which she took as a sign that she was getting nearer to Dominic. She would feel even better if the darn thing would begin shining brightly to indicate she was really close—in this cursed darkness, she might need to be nearly on top of him before she spotted him. She considered calling out his name, but she didn’t know what dangers might still be lurking unseen in the blackness. Shouting might do more harm than good, so she resisted the impulse. She needed to trust that the ring was taking her where she needed to go.

And suddenly, there he was, not more than twenty-five feet in front of her. Impossibly, he seemed to be waiting in a sitting position, though she saw nothing in the dimness that he could be sitting on. She had to draw a bit closer before she could make out the details of his face. Instead of the welcoming smile she expected to find, his features bore a stern expression.

She let herself float to a stop a few feet in front of him. He straightened up, seeming to push off something with his hand to get to his feet, though she still couldn’t see anything beneath him other than the darkness that surrounded them.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You should not have come.”

Leesa wasn’t going to allow his serious demeanor to dampen her elation at having found him at last.

“It’s nice to see you, too,” she replied, smiling.

Dominic’s stern visage melted into a smile. He held out his arms, and Leesa pulled herself into his embrace. They hugged for several moments before Leesa realized that for the first time since she had entered this place, she felt something solid under her feet.

Glancing down, she saw nothing but the familiar blackness. Whatever they were standing on was either invisible or the exact same color as the darkness. She took a step back and felt herself floating again. The sensation of first standing and then not—with no apparent change in what was beneath her feet—felt strange, but now she knew how Dominic had appeared to be sitting a few moments earlier. He had been sitting at the very edge of some unseen ledge, his legs dangling over the side.

“How did you get in here?” he asked her before she could question him about it. “More importantly, WHY did you come here?”

Leesa pushed aside the mystery of what Dominic was standing on. Floating or standing didn’t much matter right now. She had far more important matters on her mind.

“The how is easy. Your book taught me how to dematerialize. It must have known that I was going to need to come find you. Why is much more complicated. To make a long story short, Rave and I have a son, and he needs your help.”

Even in the dimness, Leesa could see the surprise on Dominic’s face.

“You have a son?” he asked after a few moments. “That’s wonderful! How old is he? Just how long have I been in here, anyway? It doesn’t seem long enough for you to have had a child already.”

“Believe me, it’s been plenty long enough. You’ve been here more than two years. Our son is eighteen months old, but he’s very big for his age. It’s the volkaane in him. His name is Ralin.”

“Ralin,” Dominic said softly, as if testing the name on his tongue. “I like it.” He drew in a deep breath, thinking. This was uncharted territory. There had never been a female waziri before Leesa, so of course no waziri had ever given birth. A child born of a waziri was a new thing entirely. “Does Ralin have magic?” he asked finally.

Leesa nodded. “Yes. It seems to be a combination of volkaane and wizard magic. That’s why I had to come find you. ‘Ralin’s magic is beyond his control and has become dangerous.” She quickly explained Ralin’s latest predicament. “I tried to heal his hand, but all I could manage to do was to fix it temporarily. You’re our last chance. You’re the only one who might be able to help him.”

Dominic thought for a moment, stroking his pointy beard as he did so. “Perhaps I could. But that assumes we can get out of this place. I don’t suppose your book taught you a way to accomplish that, did it?”

“No, it didn’t,” Leesa admitted. “I was kind of hoping you and I would be able to figure a way out together.”

  Dominic shook his head slowly, a wry smile playing upon his lips. “If I could escape this place, don’t you think I would have done it long ago? My magic has grown weak. Something about this place seems to absorb it. The more you use, the less you have left. I had to employ quite a bit to destroy the Necromancer, but it was a necessary sacrifice.”

The last thing Leesa wanted to hear was how weak Dominic’s magic had become. She watched as he sat down again, his legs dangling over the invisible edge the way they had when she first came upon him.

“What’s that you’re sitting on, anyway?”

Dominic shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’ve never been able to see it.” He slid his palm across the unseen surface. “It’s smooth to the touch, but that’s all I can tell. I’ve been walking on it forever, hoping it might lead me to a way out, but it hasn’t. Either this place is far bigger than I imagined, or I’ve been walking in circles. Who knows, maybe it’s even like a treadmill—walk all you want and go nowhere. In this dark void, it’s impossible to tell.”

Leesa used her telekinesis to propel herself forward a few feet, then sat down beside her mentor.

“So, if we can’t walk out of here, what else can we try?”

Dominic’s fingers strayed to his beard once again. “Maybe there’s a way, if you have enough magic left to reinforce mine,” he said finally.

For the first time since Leesa had jumped inside the table, she felt real hope.

“I’ve only used a bit of telekinesis. I don’t think my power has been drained too much, though magic doesn’t seem to work very well in here.”

“Not our kind of magic, anyhow,” Dominic replied. “Black magic works just fine, though. In fact, I’m counting on that. The dark magic just might be our salvation.”

Leesa frowned. “I don’t understand. You’re going to use black magic? I didn’t know you could.”

“You’re right. I can’t use it. Not in the sense you mean. I’m pretty sure I can MAKE some use of it, though.”

Leesa wasn’t certain she understood the difference, but she didn’t care. It was enough for her that Dominic had a plan—a plan that might get them out of this dark dungeon and back to Ralin and Rave. Movement glimpsed from the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned her head away from Dominic and drew in a deep breath. A mass of floating eyes was drifting straight toward them.

“Uh, oh. What are they doing here?”

Dominic followed Leesa’s gaze. “Don’t worry. They’re here because I summoned them. If this is going to work, we’re going to need to pull on some of their dark magic.” He held his hand out to Leesa, palm up. “Give me your hand.”

Leesa pushed aside any worries about the disembodied eyes and placed her hand in Dominic’s.

“Turn on your magic,” Dominic instructed. “Any kind will do. Don’t try to make it strong—weak is fine. Better than fine, actually.”

Leesa thought for a moment and then used her telekinesis to ruffle Dominic’s hair, as if a strong breeze had suddenly blown through the blackness.

Dominic smiled. “Perfect. That’s all I needed.”

Leesa still didn’t comprehend what was going on. “Do you mind telling me what that was all about?”

Dominic let go of Leesa’s hand. “I was measuring your magic, making sure you have enough left for what I have in mind. The good news is that you do.”

Leesa’s heartbeat quickened at the good news. She jumped up to her feet.

“That’s great. So what are we waiting for? Let’s get out of this damn place.”

Dominic stood up beside her. “Not so fast. We’re only going to get one chance at this. If we fail, we’ll both be trapped in here forever.”

Leesa refused to be discouraged. “Then we won’t fail, okay?”

Dominic managed a half-smile. “I like your confidence. There’s one catch, though. When I activate our magic to try to get us out, we have to know which way is up. That’s the only direction we can escape.”

“So? What’s the problem?” Leesa raised her hand above her head and pointed. “That’s up.”

Dominic’s expression grew thoughtful. “Is it? Are you sure? Put your hand down and close your eyes.”

Leesa didn’t get what Dominic was going for, but she did as she was bid. As soon as she shut her eyes, the familiar feeling of being drawn downwards headfirst returned.

“Now point up again,” Dominic instructed.

Still feeling like she was being pulled downward upside down, Leesa instinctively pointed toward her feet.

“Now open your eyes,” Dominic said.

Leesa opened her eyes. To her dismay, she saw her finger was pointing downward. She had been so sure she had been pointing up.

“Do you see the problem?” Dominic asked.

Leesa frowned. “Yeah, now I do. So what are we going to do?”

“We have to decide whether to trust what our eyes are telling us, or to trust what our brains tell us when our eyes are closed.”

“How are we supposed to decide which way to choose?”

Dominic shrugged. “We’ll have to guess, I think. Or maybe we should flip a coin. I’ve got plenty in my wallet.”

Leesa remembered all the gold coins and jewels Dominic carried in his magic wallet. She didn’t like the idea of trusting their fate—and Ralin’s—to a coin flip.

“Isn’t there some other way?”

“Not that I know of. And believe me, I’ve had a long time to ponder the problem. I’ve never been able to figure it out.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, which immediately doubled in size. Opening it, he took out a gold coin. “Watch this.”

He tossed the coin up into the air with an underhand flip. Instead of going upward a few feet and then coming back down, the coin continued upward, where it was soon lost in the darkness. Leesa waited for it to reappear, but it never did.

Dominic took out a second coin. This one he tossed down toward their feet, just outside the edge of the invisible ledge on which they stood. The coin kept going in that direction until it, too, disappeared.

“There’s no way to tell which coin was actually falling and which was being drawn upward by the power we sense when our eyes are closed. Up might be down and down might be up. We can’t be sure.”