Syphon: Guardians of the Fractured Realms (28 page)

“I had to. It’s for your own good.”

Samuel started to scream as he staggered backward, a luminescent fog forming on his chest.

“Thank you Raguel.”

The miniature dragon looked up at the woman.

“You’re very welcome, lady Sybil. I hope this works.”

Sybil barely got her sword up in time to deflect the blade that suddenly flew at her face. As she ducked away, Cora looked back at Samuel again. She watched as he collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. She stumbled backward as the dragon on his right arm animated as well.

“How could you betray him like that!”

Cora saw the blue dragon duck his head as if the red one had physically struck him.

“You’ll understand in a few minutes, you have to trust us.”

“I trust nobody at this point,” she hissed before expanding in size, her wings wrapping protectively around Samuel. Cora saw the sword blades change into something similar to a barbed whip or rope ladder. Instead of wooden rungs, however, one had glowing, jagged metal teeth and the other had what looked like shards of blue glass. They slowly started to undulate and wave in the air around him, poking out through a gap in the red dragon’s protective embrace.

“LOOK OUT!”

Cora didn’t even have time to turn before Sybil barreled into her, picking her up like a rag doll and sprinting away from Samuel. She had a good view over Sybil’s shoulder as the blades suddenly started whipping around, shredding and destroying everything around him. Cora watched in horror as the sphere of destruction started rapidly expanding, leaving nothing intact. One of the blades whipped out and effortlessly slashed through a support, causing part of the roof to collapse. Before it had gotten within ten feet of him, it had been turned into chunks no larger than gravel.

“What’s happening!” she yelled, trying to catch her breath as her ribs kept bouncing on the other woman’s shoulder.

“He’s healing,” the other woman huffed, finally reaching the farthest point she could carry them in the enclosed space.

“I just doused him in enough aether to heal an ancient dragon. It should let him heal completely if it doesn’t kill him first from overdosing. Unfortunately, it feels like being covered in acid.”

Cora started to open her mouth but the other woman interrupted her.

“Shit,” she said, whipping her blade up to deflect a couple blade strikes, “how the hell is he getting his blades to do that?”

Sybil reached out and pulled her into a tight embrace. Before Cora could say anything, Sybil swung her arm up as the dragon on her arm started moving. It kicked at the sleeve until it’s wings were uncovered. Ballooning out, the wings wrapped around the two women the same way Samuel’s had wrapped around him. Just as the wings fully engulfed them, Cora could hear the blades hit, first slowly, then picking up speed. She heard Sybil’s dragon grunt in pain as the impacts continued.

“I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to hold off this barrage,” the dragon said in a masculine voice.

“Hold on for as long as you can then.”

Cora could hear the concern and worry in the other woman’s voice as they felt the wings continue to shudder from the sword impacts. Cora flinched as the dragon cried out in agony as a small rent appeared near her face. As the onslaught continued, more and more cuts appeared. As the sound of the dragon’s cries of pain started to get weaker, Cora realized that the assault was slowing down. As the dragon’s wings started to droop and unfurled, Cora got her first look at the carnage. The warehouse looked like a large bomb had gone off with Samuel standing at ground zero. Most of the roof was missing along with a significant number of support pillars. All the debris was piled around Samuel, making it look like he was crouched in the center of an impact crater.

Looking back, she stared as the dragon lost its grip and slipped off Sybil’s arm as she searched for something in her pocket. She saw tears streaking Sybil’s face as she sprinkled her dragon with what appeared to be the same stuff she’d splashed on Samuel. As she watched, she saw the wings of the dragon relax. The physical damage he’d sustained was slowly starting to close up as his wings shrunk back down to normal size. Sybil sniffled as she gently helped the little dragon fold his wings up correctly. After a few seconds, it slowly latched back on to her arm, shuttered, and went still, looking like an intricate piece of jewelry again.

As the two women looked around, Cora noticed the wings slowly starting to unfurl around Samuel. She noticed Samuel starting to turn his head toward them. As their eyes met, Cora almost took a step back away from the intensity of the glowing electric blue eyes staring back at her.

“I remember everything!”

§§§§§§§§§§§§

How could he betray me…

That was the last coherent thought Samuel had as he tumbled backward. The burning pain quickly spread across his body. It felt like someone had poured lava on him. As the spreading agony reached his head, an explosion went off behind his eyes. He actually felt the movement in his head as his brain healed, causing an avalanche of memories to overwhelm his senses. At the same time, he could feel his body getting heavier, his muscles bulking up and getting denser.

Without warning, the memory of who he was slammed into him, taking his breathe away again. Gasping for air, he felt the weight of millennia wash over his mind, confusingly at first, but rapidly resolving into something that made sense. As he became whole, he realized there were still large gaps in his memory, some that might never be repaired. As the pain slowly died down, he mentally commanded Amitiel to unfurl her wings.

“Are you sure?”

Samuel mentally smiled at her.

>Yes my friend. I’m fine. I’ve been made mostly whole again.<

>What was that stuff, anyway?<

>It’s something I came up with some time after I was forced to leave you behind. It’s condensed Aether. It’s like bathing in the waters of Aerth, except significantly more potent. I’m surprised it didn’t kill me, actually. But yes, it’s safe to let me out. Sybil’s a friend.<

>Okay…<

Samuel could feel the hesitation as she started opening her wings. Glancing down at Raguel, he smiled.

>Next time, a little warning?<

>I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of any other way to get your memory back. It was a split-second decision.<

>I understand, friend. You did what you needed to do to help me. It just hurt like hell is all. I’ve missed you.<

>Missed you too.<

As Amitiel unfurled, Samuel glanced around.

Gee, that was some party we had. That’s one memory I’d actually LIKE to forget.

Samuel felt Raguel’s mental chuckle. After a few seconds, he spotted the two women at the far side of the building.

He watched as they started to cautiously approach, still too sore to move from the massive dose of Aether he’d just been given.

“I remember everything!” he managed to hiss out, his throat raspy from the rapid healing process. As he struggled to stand on shaky legs, he sheathed Hoarfrost and Brimstone.

“Samuel?”

“Yes Sybil, it’s me.”

“Are you —”

Samuel suddenly remembered why he had been in the warehouse when he’d been shot. There was one more location they had to activate. Now he knew why it seemed familiar at the time.

“Oh, no… Blythe,” he whispered.

He swung his right arm over his shoulder, soreness and fatigue instantly forgotten.

>Amitiel, we need to fly. Now!<

>On it.<

The red dragon quickly slithered off his arm, tearing his shirt and jacket off as she repositioning herself on his back like a backpack. Expanding in size, her wings unfurled to generate a nearly twenty foot wingspan. Her head and neck extended up until it rested on top of his head, looking forward. At the same time, her tail extended out several feet as well. Giving a few tentative flaps that lifted him off the ground a couple feet before gently dropping him back down. He glanced back over at the women and noticed the mixture of awe and fear on their faces as they stumbled backward from the wind buffeting them from the red dragon’s wings.

Squatting down, he tensed his legs before springing upward, wings trailing behind him. As he cleared the roof-line, Amitiel’s powerful wings launched him further into the air, heading toward the LARP group’s meeting place.

Please don’t let me be too late.

§§§§§§§§§§§§

Cora watched in disbelief as Samuel launched himself skyward, easily clearing the thirty foot vertical distance before the dragon’s wings spread out, causing Samuel’s form to shrink rapidly into the distance. She turned back to Sybil to ask a question when she noticed the look of dread on the other woman’s face.

“Uh… What’s wrong? Samuel finally got his memories back…”

The hairs on Cora’s neck lifted as the other woman looked back at her.

“I think I just made a horrible mistake…”

Cora tried catching up to Sybil as she stormed up the library steps. She’d tried unsuccessfully to get Sybil to tell her what horrible mistake she was talking about on the ride back but the only thing she’d been able to get out of Sybil was her mumbling, “how could I have been so stupid?”

Reaching the top of the steps, Sybil slammed the doors open before storming through. As Cora followed inside, she saw Sybil heading back toward a door behind the main desk. Jogging to catch up, she caught the door Sybil had swept through before it closed. Without warning, Cora got stuck as the door frame squeezed in from the sides to pin her. In the distance, she could hear Sybil yelling.

“Where’s the Archivist? I need him, now!”

Cora started to panic slightly as she looked around the library over her shoulder. She noticed that most of the patrons glanced at her before going back to what they were doing. Squirming to try and free herself, she watched as the librarian moved from behind the desk and approached her.

“Miss Renault, isn’t it? How the hell do I get this door frame to let go?”

The librarian smiled as she touched Cora and the door frame at the same time, Cora noticed a slight shimmer form in the other woman’s eyes before going normal again. At the same time, the door frame relaxed, letting her go.

“You better hurry and catch up to her detective. I’ve never seen her this upset before.”

Nodding at the other woman, Cora turned and ran down the stairs. She caught up to Sybil just as she yelled again.

“Where’s the damn Archivist!”

“You bellowed for me?”

“I need answers, and I need them fast. I just fought against Samuel, and he had a pair of peltae’s with matching peleus. How’s that possible?”

Cora watched as the man stroked his chest-length beard before replying.

“Oh dear, that doesn’t sound very promising. Can you describe what the other dragon looked like?”

“Yeah, it was a freaking red dragon. Samuel placed his arm on his back and the damn thing crawled off his arm and attached itself to his backside. Then they flew off.”

The archivist’s eyes widened slightly at the description before he turned around and hurried back through the door. Looking over his shoulder, he motioned for them to follow.

“You need to see something before I’ll be able to give you the answers you seek.”

§§§§§§§§§§§§

Cora looked around the large room. The shelves were jammed with thousands of books in various states of decay and disrepair. As the Archivist lead them across the large chamber, she ran her fingers over the spines of some of the books. One of them looked vaguely familiar, causing her to stop and pull it off the shelf. Flipping it open, she realized she’d seen something like this on a science show several months ago. As she stared at the pages, she kept catching movement out of the corner of her eye. When she focused on that part of the page, it appeared to be like any other normal page.

“The Voynich Manuscript?”

The Archivist turned back toward her with a twinkle in his eye.

“Yes, that’s one of the originals. There were three original volumes. It was somewhat comparable to an encyclopedia, but for Aerth. That’s why nobody can decipher it. Without mystical energy running through your veins, the text won’t animate and flow into a readable script.”

Cora shuddered slightly before replacing the book on the shelf. She didn’t want to think about why she’d thought she’d seen movement on the pages.

“Come along now.”

She glanced back up and saw the archivist pulling down a massive book and laying it down on a nearby table. Hurrying over, she glanced down at the ancient-looking tome. The book looked like it was made out of some type of leather cover with grayish-tan looking pages. As the Archivist opened the book, she reached out to touch one of the pages. She suddenly realized it was some form of animal skin instead of paper. Stroking her fingers across it, she looked up questioning toward the archivist.

“It’s a very old tome, written on vellum. This one was a copy of a copy I’m afraid, so some of the information from the original was lost along the way. Thankfully, I believe the important bits are still readable.”

Cora watched as he flipped gently through the pages. She glanced over at Sybil and noticed she had her arms crossed and was impatiently tapping her foot.

“How much longer?”

“It’s in here somewhere Sybil, you just need to learn patience like I keep telling you.”

“Archivist, we almost died because I didn’t know anyone beside Genevieve ever had two peltae bonded to them. And the things he was getting peleus to do… He got them to change into some type of chain-sword form that I’ve never heard of. I’ve got a sinking feeling that the set that’s strapped to his arm is the same one she used to nearly destroy the realms nearly seventy-five millennia ago.”

“Ah, here we are,” he said as he finally flipped to the right page, “is this the set you saw?”

Cora glanced down at the page. The gilded artwork was beautiful, but what caught her eye was the image of a statuesque platinum blond-haired woman with a flaming sword in her hand, along with a dragon attached to her back just like Samuel had. Another image below it showed the two engulfed in flames.