The Weaving of Wells (Osric's Wand, Book Four) (50 page)

Elidin turned a corner, and they startled a group of five men running toward them. Dredek’s soldiers recovered quickly, but they hesitated when they saw how many people followed Elidin and Machai around the corner. The five heavily armed soldiers paused, raised their swords, then their eyes went wide and they spun around to run the direction they had come from. Likely, there were more men back that way, and Macha threw out his hand before they could get far. A wall of flames sprung up, blocking their escape, and they barely had time to spin around before the Aranthians cut them down. Machai waved his hand to quench the flames, and the column of troops continued down the tunnel with Elidin in the lead.

“Let’s go find their reinforcements, shall we?” Elidin asked.

“Aye. Where be the tunnel we be needing for the well?”

“Just ahead, we will send half our force down a side passage. Juri here will lead them, as she knows that section of tunnels better than any of us. This tunnel will dead-end at the intersection of the passage we want, and she will bring the rest around to the other end. It’s a main tunnel between the armory and the chamber we found you in, so it’s likely to be full of Dredek’s men headed up with fresh weapons to relieve the others. We will have to sandwich them in and clear it out in order to get to the only tunnel we know of that will lead where you want to go. Their troops are getting pretty good at fighting in these close quarters, so I doubt we could overtake them without making them fight on both fronts. Let’s just hope we brought enough men and their ranks are thin.”

“Aye, let’s be hoping,” Machai said.

* * *

Dredek watched as the last of the flesh grew on the caldereth. All of the months of experimenting on recently deceased animals had culminated in the picture-perfect forms that lay before him. Though he had been successful in reviving the dead once, with a deer in the forests of the Elven Realm, the upcoming spell to reattach gifts and life strands was the one thing he hadn’t yet perfected.

He had, however, had decades of experience to tell him how to proceed and what would yield the results he sought. It was the lack of power that had kept him from establishing the connections needed in all previous attempts.

His people lay naked on the bare stone floor inside The Well of Strands. Dredek looked down and could feel the surge in the flow that would bring him the power he needed. He had located his mate, Aeya, while her flesh was still growing. Now, he looked at her as tears began to fall. She was lifeless where she lay on the lower portion of ramp that led out of the well to his right, but soon she would be breathing again.

He couldn’t help but stare at her where she lay. It wasn’t the lack of life that kept him from tearing his eyes away; it was that this was the first time he had laid his eyes on her since gathering her bones. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn she was asleep.

Her long black hair splayed out softly against the stone below her head. Her bare, pale flesh looked damp in the light of the well. Dredek longed to reach out, take her hand, and whisper the words he had held for so long. He rejoiced at seeing her body whole again. Seeing her broken and covered in dirt and blood was a memory that he would be happy to part with. Soon he would have the chance to bid farewell to all of the bad things that the last hundreds of years had forced upon him. Whatever cost the vast use of magic and the unspeakable crimes he was forced to perform to bring about this day would demand of him, Dredek was prepared to shoulder the burden so long as Aeya and the caldereth would live again.

A chill ran up Dredek’s spine as he prepared himself to channel the power necessary to revive the caldereth scattered throughout the Well of Strands. He stilled himself for the task and the fatigue that would come from it, even though he was so close to the source that surged around him.

Gooseflesh covered his body and his senses heightened. As his pupils constricted, he could feel portent pull him in the direction of the well’s opening far above. Even through his limited experience with the gift, he knew something bad was coming. He could hear fighting coming from the halls outside the well. How had they known to attack now?

Dredek wished he had the ability to close the door to the well, but the irua girl was locked safely in her cell. He had no time to go and get her, to force her to lock them in and let him complete his task. It had come down to a race against the intruders, but as he looked down he knew they had come too late. The power of the well was increasing, ever so slightly, but it indicated that the time for his success was almost upon him. The surge in power that would allow him to bring back the caldereth was moments away. They could have him once he completed his task, but haste was a necessity now more than ever.

* * *

Osric stood thigh deep in a pool of magic, strands rushing around him like writhing snakes seeking an exit. The strands twisted and coiled around each other and around Osric’s legs, climbing up every surface they came in contact with. The walls of the well were alive with brightly colored strands, and Osric felt the magic lending him strength and feeding his power. It was exhilarating, and a bit terrifying, as he wasn’t sure he could control his abilities with so much source magic feeding them. Every part of his body was tingling, and he could feel his dozens of gifts all on the verge of activating due to the density of the strands around him. Rather than having to exert effort to use his abilities, it was as if he had to strain to keep them idle.

Still, some of his abilities were too well developed and too passive for him to restrain. Osric could feel every emotion of his three companions assaulting him, and he struggled to dampen the Empath ability so he could focus on his own thoughts and feelings. His Portentist ability was in full flare, heightening his senses and drawing his attention toward the Irua Realm and to the streams of strands flowing into the well, but Osric was so familiar with his birth ability that he was able to ignore its urgings once he acknowledged them. Heatless flames sprang up along his fingers even as water condensed and dripped from the ceiling, slipping through the intangible strands and splashing up from the floor. The stone beneath Osric’s feet transmitted a mild vibration, and Osric put more effort into shutting down the Earth Elementalist ability until he needed it, fearing that if he couldn’t keep it under control the whole structure might crumble around them. Bridgett’s hair swirled around her face as air currents washed out from Osric’s position in the center of the well, and he could still sense her emotions like they were his own: fear that he would be harmed, pride that he was trying to save so many lives, awe at his power and the incredible display of magic before her, overwhelming love and desire for him, and many others.

In addition to the distraction of Bridgett’s intense feelings, Osric could also feel Gus and Aridis’s emotions so strongly that it was as if he could read their thoughts. The prairie dog’s excitement at seeing the well and watching as Osric’s gifts fluctuated and pulsed with the power of the strands was palpable, and Osric wasn’t surprised to see Gus’s ears twitching so fast he might have taken flight if they were bigger. Aridis was also awed by what he was witnessing, but his anxiety was not for Osric’s safety. The old Obcasior was worried what altering the terrain of Archana might do for magic use in the long run, as all magic required drawing on the strands that flow from the ground. Osric hadn’t allowed himself to worry much about the eventual side effects of his plan, other than his constant attempt to do as little damage to Archana as possible while still accomplishing the feat of weaving the wells, and now he tried to keep Aridis’s anxiety from feeding his own. Osric reasserted his focus on his gifts, striving to shut down the Empath ability, and he turned his attention outward to the overwhelmingly difficult task ahead.

From the strong urging of his Portentist ability, Osric knew he only had moments to use the power of the well to interrupt Dredek’s spell at the Well of Strands. He had been formulating a plan for days, training and honing his various gifts in order to find a way to stop the caldereth wizard, but he had no idea if he would be able to pull it off. Bridgett and Gus had asked him a dozen times what he was planning, but he had deflected their questions for fear that they would try to stop him. What he was planning to do was risky at best, downright stupid at worst, and it would probably kill him. But he couldn’t think of any other way.

He had actually come up with the idea before he orchestrated the reorganization of the flow of strands beneath Archana’s surface, inspired by the way he had separated Pendres from his Aranthian hostage, but he had let them think he was still trying to think of the best plan of attack. He had told them he had a few spells in mind, but he would need to test them on a smaller scale. In reality, he only had one idea, and in a way the reforming of the stone veins had been the small-scale test. Now, he had to do something similar, but he had to do it much faster, and much more forcefully, and from a much greater distance. His hands were trembling and the flames flickered out as he finally gained control over his Elementalist abilities.

Osric had been working hard to master the use of the Stone-Sight and Earth Elementalist abilities. He downplayed his role in the reconstruction project because he didn’t want Bridgett and Gus fretting over the amount of magic he had been using over the past few days. Really, he had done a great deal of the work himself trying to perfect his aim and his control of the gifts. Though the Enduro ability kept him from fatiguing quickly, and his vast amount of abilities made each use of magic tax him less than it would a normal man, he was still feeling the toll of everything he had done recently. His head pounded slightly, his stomach wouldn’t settle, and he couldn’t quite get his hands to stop shaking. Osric brushed his palms against his pants to dry the sweat and still the tremble, and then he cast out his gaze with the Stone-Sight in the direction of Angmar.

Gus and Bridgett both gasped softly as they watched the strands react to Osric’s magical intent. Neither had ever seen anything like it, and Gus had been studying strands for his entire long life. They saw Osric’s eyes narrow and his brow furrow, but his expression was unreadable.

Osric had been able to peer much further into the stone than any of the most skilled Stone-Sights in the world due to his multitude of gifts and their associated power linked to his life strand. Still, he had been terrified that he would not be able to amplify that power enough, even with the altered well, to be able to see as far as he must. As he pushed his sight further—across the span of water where the Darib Sea spilled out between the Irua and Elven Realms in treacherous currents, under the humid swamps near Catrain, and even further under the burning sands of the desert surrounding Angmar—Osric felt the strands from the pool surge toward him in response to his demand for more magic.

The strands flowed into him, absorbed into his body through his skin and flowing through the various gifts that riddled his anatomy, an endless supply of magic to feed his abilities. The rush of adrenaline that coursed through him in response to the influx of magic was incredible, and Osric had to consciously slow his breathing and his heart rate to keep himself from overheating and passing out. His mind felt both euphoric from the experience and strained from the demand as he tried to compartmentalize his thoughts to control the Stone-Sight gift while reining in all of the others. He already felt that he was testing the limits of his body’s tolerance to such intense magic, and he was only beginning his task. He still had a great deal more to demand of himself, of his gifts, and of his magic source. He hoped that the pool of strands would be sufficient and that he would be able to keep his body intact for long enough to accomplish his goal.

Osric’s vision swam through the stone beneath the surface of the Irua Realm, delving through sandstone and underground rivers, seeking the dense rock that he knew must feed the Well of Strands. Most of the terrain was loose sand, soft stone, and small stretches of hard rock. Nothing that was as large or as dense as what a flow of strands the size of the one in Angmar would need. Osric’s heart beat faster as he began to worry that he would not be able to find the stone in time, but he kept looking anyway. In a moment of clarity, he realized that the reason the strands spray up inside the well as Bridgett had described was likely that the vein of rock was nearly vertical as it approached the well. He directed his vision deeper into the ground, seeking the stone that he still believed must be there.

Osric felt that time was rushing by him faster than the current of the strands surrounding him. He knew that he must hurry, and the pressure of Dredek’s impending spell was distracting him from calmly searching for the vein of strand-carrying stone. He took the briefest moment to assess his body, consciously slowing his breathing and heart rate until he was able to regain control and block out the noise of his mind that kept telling him he was taking too long. Osric refocused his attention on the Stone-Sight ability and continued seeking his target. Finally, after what seemed like far too long but had actually only taken the span of a dozen breaths, Osric caught sight of a vertical column of incredibly dense stone. The vein was so wide and so compacted that it didn’t resemble any natural stone Osric had seen under the surface of Archana. The wizards who had created the Well of Strands must have altered the stone vein that feeds it.

Osric gazed in awe at the immense flow of strands running up the column of dense stone. It had to be nearly as big around as the entire tower they were standing in. If he weren’t aware of just how large the network of stone was that they had built by altering the course of the veins underground, Osric would have felt that his plan was hopeless. He couldn’t believe how much power the Well of Strands supplied, and he felt a wave of icy fear wash over him when he considered what Dredek could accomplish with such a source of magic. He had to remind himself that it was likely that they had networked three times that much power, and now he just had to hope that they had successfully molded the stone veins so that Osric could draw on it all at once. The pool of strands he was standing in was large, but it was only a portion of what was available if the network of strands stayed intact when he began drawing on its full potential of power.