Resurgence of Ancient Darkness (29 page)

“How can you do the impossible?” asked Spectra.

“Master Spectra, it is not impossible as you think. I am merely an alchemist with no special power of my own, but Light gives me certain authority. I can use that authority to do certain things: in this case, free a trapped spirit by unbinding its connection to this world,” said Shea.

“Shea,” started Spectra with tears running down her furry face. “You’re a cleric?”

“Yes, my dear friend, I am,” she said.

Spectra almost fell over, but Shea caught her and set her in a chair. This time it was Shea that crouched down to Spectra’s level. Spectra just stared at Shea with tears flowing.

“What is a … ” I started.

“But how can this be?” burst out Spectra.

“Spectra, my dear friend, I am still me; the same person I always have been,” said Shea in her gentle voice.

“Oh, Shea!” said Spectra, then ran to me and cried profusely into my shoulder.

“What is going on here?” I asked.

“Master, I am a cleric,” said Shea. “You and Master Spectra are Spiritualists. That apparently makes us enemies. I only learned this recently when researching the spirit traps.”

“How can you be my enemy?” I asked.

“Oh, Master, I am not!” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“But what’s this cleric stuff?” I asked.

“Well, Master, a cleric is a religious position where a person swears their life to a deity, in my case, Light. In exchange for that dedication, the deity grants the cleric certain authority to call on the power of the deity. I invoked this power when I freed the spirits by asking Light to unbind them from this world. Being unbound, there was no force here that could hold them, and they traveled on as they should have,” said Shea.

“So why does that make you an enemy?” I asked.

“Because clerics banish people like us!” said Spectra.

I looked at Shea. “Is this true?”

“Master, historically it is true that some clerics have done that, but I have willingly put my life on the line more than once already to save you, and I am not going to turn on either of you now. You are both good people, far better than most I have met in this realm. I would give my life for either of you,” she said.

“Do you really mean that, Shea?” asked Spectra as she turned towards Shea. “Can you really mean that, given what I am and what Dusty is becoming?”

Shea walked over to Spectra and knelt before her. She spread her arms out wide and said, “I know your heart, Spectra, and as long as you are Spectra, I will always be your friend.”

“Truly?” asked Spectra.

“Spectra, you know me as well as anyone could in this realm. Am I the kind to take a sacred vow like this lightly?” asked Shea.

Spectra slowly shook her head. Her tail was wrapped around my leg, painfully tightly. She turned and looked up at me with her tear-filled eyes and asked, “Dusty?”

“Spectra, in the end it’s still Shea,” was all I could manage. I was lost and confused at what was happening, but I could not bear to have them at odds. I needed to help Shea heal the relationship.

Spectra turned back to Shea, fell into her arms, and stayed there a long time, crying. It was a good hard cry, something I had never seen her do before. It seemed like decades of issues had boiled up in this moment and finally broke down her defenses.

After Spectra had settled down and snuggled back into me where she belonged, I asked, “What exactly is going on?”

“Master, in my former realm wizards rarely become Spiritualists, even if they are born with the power. Those that have it rarely train it. They avoid it because historically most S
piritualists become necromancers,” said Shea.

“But surely you don’t think we would?” I asked.

“I think you will be tempted, Masters, and I plan to be here to help you with that temptation. I know you can defeat it,” said Shea.

“But, Shea, we are not the only Spiritualists. What about Kymberly?” asked Spectra.

“The Academy has started to discourage the study of that power, but, yes, there are still a few. I don’t know Kymberly well, but I hope she will be fine. She idolizes you, Master Spectra. You can help her to remain a wizard,” said Shea.

“
Master Dusty, what is our plan?”
asked Darkstone.

We were facing several months of cloaked travel through the vast emptiness of space. It promised to be completely uneventful, which Phoenix felt would be boring. Lythiran felt it would be a good time to get some training done, but Phoenix wanted to have some fun. Now that his powers were on the rise again, he was back to his old, clownish self.

Lythiran had said that when Dark Knights are faced with long down-times like this, they create competitions that are designed to train, while breaking up the monotonous nature of space travel. He suggested that we try one of their capture-and-control drills. The plan was simple: we took the largely unused cargo and maintenance sections of the Shadow Fox and sealed them off. Four teams of three were placed at random locations in the closed-off sections with their objective to capture and control a central room that was designated as “enemy headquarters.”

“
We can expect that Phoenix’s team will be on the offensive. He will hunt other groups down and try to take them out first. Skryth’s team will probably make a straight run right to the objective as fast as they can and dig in. Lythiran is harder to guess. I think he will move with an eye to the target, but with deliberate precision,”
I sent.

“One-minute warning,” came over the comm.

“
So I think we should take the black ops approach. We sneak into the HQ and wait until they have eliminated each other, then use surprise to take out the winner,
” I sent.

“
Master, they all know you well, so they will probably expect that. I suggest that instead we take the assassin’s way
,” sent Darkstone. “
Lythiran’s team will prove to be the most dangerous, so we should leave them till last. It is likely that they will meet up with Phoenix first, so we should focus first on Skryth’s team.”

“Sounds good. Then we can take out the winner, Lythiran or Phoenix, more likely Lythiran,
” I said.

“GO!” came the call over the comm, indicating that the games had begun.

I wrapped our party in shadow, and we slowly moved into the arena. We had been named as the favorites to win, but I suspected that Lythiran and his two Dark Knights would prove to be the deadliest opponent in this exercise. Phoenix would be too cocky, and Skryth did not yet have the experience. Lythiran was neither inexperienced nor cocky.

We moved silently to cut off what we expected to be Skryth’s most likely path. He was a very single-minded type of magus, and we found him doing exactly what we expected: moving fast towards the goal.

“
Spectra, slip behind them with your staff. As soon as they turn to face you, Darkstone will freeze them. I will need to watch to make sure no one else joins in,”
I sent.

Spectra moved out of the shadows directly behind them and said, “Boo!”

They stumbled and tried to turn to face her, whereupon they all froze in place thanks to Darkstone stepping out and casting his freeze spell.

“Team two has been eliminated!” came the call over the comm.

“
Nice trap!
” sent Skryth as he and his team teleported out of the arena.

“Okay, Darkstone and Spectra, let’s see if we can find Phoenix. He should be easy to find, and I suspect we will find Lythiran somewhere near him,
” I sent as I wrapped us back in darkness again.

We moved silently through the corridors. As I turned a corner, I halted my party and sent, “
Phoenix went this way
.”

“
How can you tell?
” asked Spectra.

“
He blocked it with a shield so that no one could follow him
,” I sent. “
The shield is fairly weak. If we charged through it, it would break, but it would also mean he would know we were coming
.”

“L
et’s break it and head a different way,”
sent Darkstone.

“
No, let’s leave it up. The less risk of exposure, the better,”
sent Spectra.

“
I agree. This way,
” I sent and doubled back the way we came.

We caught up with Phoenix’s team as they were moving slowly down a corridor. They moved forward a bit, then stopped to make sure it was clear, and then moved again. The tactic we used against Skryth would not work against them, as Phoenix was dragging a shield wall behind them to protect their rear.

“
Still no sign of Lythiran. I don’t like that,
” I sent.

“
Lythiran knows he is not much of a match for either of our teams head-on, so he may have already moved to take the HQ and plant an ambush nearby,”
sent Darkstone.

“
Phoenix has his front and rear well-guarded. I suggest that Dusty casts his force wall in front of them where we will appear, and Darkstone slips above them with an Ice Storm
,” sent Spectra.

“
I will need a bit of cover to cast that,
” I sent.

“
I’ll toss some spirit bolts, which will cause them to dive for cover,
” sent Spectra.

“
Okay, let’s try that,”
I sent.

Spectra appeared first and started throwing her spirit bolts. Phoenix’s team pulled out their staves to block them, but in that time I was able to cast my force wall.

Phoenix cast his flame wall and pushed it towards us, completely blocking my view of what happened next, but I soon heard over the comm: “Team three has been eliminated!”

“
Take cover,
” I sent and quickly wrapped Spectra and myself in shadow. Darkstone had his own way to hide, so I was not worried about him.

Once the wall of fire dissipated, I could see the corridor was empty. “
Darkstone, I guess the ice storm worked?
”

When I did not get a response, I looked again down the corridor and saw a practice grenade on the floor where Phoenix’s team had been. “
It looks like Lythiran’s team got Phoenix’s team and Darkstone while we were being a distraction. We should clear out before they can work around the force wall.
”

“
Yeah, it looks like they tossed that grenade. Let’s backtrack and approach the HQ from a new direction,
” sent Spectra.

Spectra and I headed back around as she suggested. I was worried that we had never seen Lythiran at all. He was able to move his team, and eliminate an entire team plus Darkstone, and never be noticed.

“
We are the masters of stealth. We do not have to fight until we are ready, so we should go slowly and not move till we are ready,
” sent Spectra.

“
The only problem is that I’m fairly sure Lythiran is thinking exactly the same thing,
” I sent. The Dark Knights earned their reputation through their unprecedented success rate at covert operations. It would be impossible to overestimate them.

“
Head towards the HQ
,” sent Spectra. “
Let’s go back to our ambush plan.”

“
Sure,
” I sent and began to lead us on a circumspect route towards the HQ. Once there I looked at the room and saw right away there was a thin tripwire installed in the doorway. “
That is a decoy; it’s too easy to spot.
”

“
Now what
?” asked Spectra.

“
We slip in and watch for the real trap
,” I sent.

Taking great care with each step, we approached the HQ and stepped over the tripwire. As we turned into the room, we saw the Dark Knights lined up with weapons ready to fire.

“
Break left and I will blind them
,” I said in a panic.

As she did that I realized my oversight, but it was too late. She stepped out of the shadows but the Dark Knights in front of me did not move. Instead, a grenade rolled into the room and flashed briefly.

“Team one has been eliminated! Lythiran wins!” came the voice over the comm as I dropped my cloak.

“Blast! Fooled by mundane holograms like a rank amateur!” I said. Since there was no magical aura around them, I had never suspected the trap.

A hearty laugh behind me drew my attention.

“Well done, Master Dusty. You slipped right past us; not an easy feat!” said Lythiran.

“Yeah, but you still won,” I said.

“Yes, but next time, Master, you won’t fall for this trap. That makes this game a success,” said Lythiran.

“Not to mention you easily took out another team, made it to the objective, and recognized your mistake. You proved yourself quite a worthy opponent today, Master,” said one of the other Knights. “We can’t wait to try your mettle again!”

The weeks passed, and the games continued. My crew really enjoyed them, and it was doing wonders at integrating the Dark Knights more fully into the crew. The Knights spoke highly of the opportunity to train with and against real magi instead of the simulations they normally ran. They won most engagements, but that just seemed to drive my wizards to push harder and adapt. I watched the games because Lythiran repeatedly encouraged me to. He said I needed to know my wizards better so I could use them effectively when the time came.

I was up on the bridge reviewing our course when Rocky said, “Master Dusty, you really should bring your team back into the games.”

“Oh, that would be fun, Dusty! We should,” said Spectra. “
You know it is important to the crew that you participate,
” she sent privately.

“There is an open slot in the next game, Master,” said Rocky. “It will be Phoenix, Lythiran, and Cymeion as your opponents.

“OH! We must! We have to put Lythiran back in his place as second-best,” said Spectra.

“Definitely. Can’t leave those mundanes thinking they are better than us magi,” said Rocky.

I tried to make excuses to get out of it, but they were relentless. “Fine, I know when I’m outmatched. Sign us up.”

That evening found Darkstone, Spectra, and myself back in the mission ready room, preparing once again to attempt to beat the Dark Knights at their own game: capture and control.