Bridgebreaker (The Echo Worlds Book 2) (13 page)

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At exactly two pm, Cendan, Heather and Gardener Xid met at the practice field.  It had only been a few days since Cendan had been there last, but it seemed like a near eternity.  He had learned so much, seen more of the power of magic than he had even imagined.  Even in the few hours since he’d seen the other two, he’d figured out a new pattern in the stored ones in the Key, one that would allow him to mirror another pattern!  As long as it was cast within minutes of that pattern.

He’d had fun with that, creating mirrors of mirrors with the lights he’d summoned in his little room in the workshop.  The mirrors didn’t last long; unlike a normal pattern these fell apart on their own fairly fast, but still, it was fun to play with.  He’d also spent a few minutes before coming over finding an appropriate anchor for his plan.  Bridges, permanent ones at least, needed to be anchored, according to Xid.  He’d chosen a fairly heavy stone block.  It wouldn’t get blown away in the wind, or easily washed away; that was the hope at least.  And if it did, well, the Elves’ Bridge would open up into the ocean, and still he would fulfill his bargain.

He’d found a small atoll in the South Pacific Ocean.  Small, uninhabited, not even a tree on it.  A spit of sand and small brush.  At least the nearly decade old book, an actual old school encyclopedia, had described it as such.  At first he’d found the book amusing, but quickly realized this was needed in places like this.  Magic didn’t seem to mix super well with modern technology, or at least no one had tried, so things like actual encyclopedias were useful.

Heather stood off to one side, but uncharacteristically, looked somewhat concerned.  Her eyes never left Xid, watching every move she made.  Xid didn’t notice though Cendan noticed the occasional twitch in her hands as she began to gather the surrounding magic.

“This isn’t an easy pattern, Cendan.  Please don’t attempt this on your own,” Xid remarked.  She was right, Cendan could see.  The points of magic were flowing around her, folding in on themselves and her in a mind bending way.

“A tube?” Cendan asked out loud though he wasn’t sure whom he was talking to.

“Sort of.  In the most basic terms, the pattern folds the space between us and the destination in a very small localized area, and forms a tube for us to travel through,” Xid answered through her teeth.  The strain was obvious as sweat formed on her brow, even despite the cool air of Rivenwood.  “Quickly, the destination.”

Cendan nodded.  “I have a set of coordinates…”

Xid cut him off.  “Useless.  Form the destination in your mind and grab my arm.  But be clear in your thoughts!”

Cendan felt a thrill of fear race up his spine, but squelched it.  Forming a picture of the atoll he’d found, he grabbed Xid’s arm.  The feeling of travel was very unlike the transitions he’d felt when going to the Echo World, or when he’d entered or left the Bridgefinders lair.  This was on the edge of extreme pain, and it lasted far longer than the other transitions.  He alternately felt like his skin was going to get worn off, or his hair would get ripped out.  The wind that blew through the tunnel with them was more than intense and pushing against it forced him into some unusual contortions.

Just as suddenly as it started, however, it ended.  Bright warm light enveloped them as Cendan blinked a few times.  The salt air greeted his sense of smell, just as the waves greeted his ears.  They had, in all appearances, made it.  Taking a moment to take it all in, Cendan could understand why that method of travel was rarely used.  It was one of the more unpleasant things he’d ever done.  Parts of his skin, the exposed parts at least, were still aching from the battering they’d received; and they still had to go back!  Xid didn’t seem to be much better; her eyes were still closed as she breathed in and out slowly.

“Xid?  You ok?” Cendan asked.  He’d liked to think they were becoming friends.  She had taught him a lot, and while not warm per se, she was highly competent.  A trait that, to Cendan, was far too underrated.

“Yes, just hadn’t done that in quite some time.  I had forgotten how intense that pattern can be,” Xid answered.  Her eyes cracked open a bit as she shaded her view with her hand.  “Well it appears you held the image well.  Nice place you picked,” Xid said, as she looked around.

“Thanks.  It’s out in the middle of nowhere in the ocean.  It’s not even visited by research ships.  The closest landmass is nearly a thousand miles from here.  The Elves can come here and make sand castles for all I care.  I will have fulfilled my end of the bargain, at any rate.”  Cendan took the heavy square stone out of his pocket.  It wasn’t especially large, the size of a small box, but it was far heavier than it looked.

“Next time, ask before you take something from the workshop, Cendan.”  Xid pointed at the stone.  “I don’t have a lot of that left.  You can use it, but… next time ask.”

Cendan nodded in assent and walked toward what was roughly the middle of this tiny sand island.  No real animal life, other than feathers from birds, and what appeared to be a long dead sea-turtle shell.  As he had hoped, pretty empty and barren.  He made a small mound of sand and placed the soon to be anchor stone on top.

“Ok, so I’ll connect the Bridge from here to the Elven village in the Echo.  I assume they will know something is up, so they may head this way.  I expect that they won’t be terribly happy with this resolution, so we will need to leave fast.  Are you ready to travel back?  I mean, are you too tired?  Do you need me to wait?”

“No.  I’m fine.  The way back is easier anyway, and before you ask, no I don’t know why.  It just is.”

Cendan nodded and smiled at her response.  Since he’d met her, he must have asked her why about thirty times a day on anything and everything she had taught him.

“Ok then, let’s get this done,” Cendan said squaring his shoulders.  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  This was, arguably, going to be the toughest pattern he’d ever attempted.  He knew he could do it; he had to do it.  There was no room for doubt here.

Opening himself up to the sight, the specks and points of light around him showed the magic overlaying everything.  Less than in Rivenwood for sure, but enough for what he needed to do here.  Reaching out, he started gathering the magic slowly and carefully.  Specks became points, which became blobs of magic, rainbow colored and flashing in his magic sight.

“Good; careful and slow,” Xid commented from beside him, watching him work.  Finally, after far more time than he thought it should take, he felt like he had enough to work the pattern.

Reaching out, he began to form the pattern for the Bridge, open ended for now, but still the pattern.  As more and more points fell into it, the spiral of the Bridge formed in the air, slowly rotating.  Satisfied with the Bridge itself, Cendan knew that the hard part came now.  He had to split his concentration, one part keeping the pattern in place for the Bridge, and one to charge block of stone he had brought; to tie the Bridge to it.

“You are ready,” Xid whispered, shoring up the tiny ribbon of doubt he had started to feel.

Paying attention to both things at once had been hard to do before in the workroom, and this was just as difficult, if not more so.  Blotting out everything else – the sound of the waves, the feeling of the breeze on his skin, even the sound of his breathing – Cendan reached out to the block as-well.  Slowly feeding magic into the brick, he formed a new smaller pattern that would tie the block to the raw stuff of magic here.  The points of light did not want to go into the block, but they never did.  Finding the right amount of force, but not too much, was just as Xid had said; one of the hardest skills in all of this.  And one that those who were Creators – call them Makers or Gardeners – were uniquely talented for.

With a snap, the magic stopped fighting him, and with a vibration he swore he heard, flew through the block as if they had always been there.

“Nice job.  Now the binding,” Xid whispered, careful not to break his concentration.  Cendan wasn’t listening though; he was wholly bent to the task at hand.  Finding the soft point in the Bridge pattern – the one that if he were to pull it out would cause the pattern to collapse – he would join it to the pattern in the stone.  Once done, the stone would form a powered base for the marching flow of magic here, and the Bridge would last until the magic of this world went out; which Cendan very much hoped was very far into the future.

Moving the soft point was a dance he decided, a dance of exact measurement.  Too hard and the pattern fell; too soft and it would never bind.  Sweating as he worked the magic, Xid looked at him with new respect.  Cendan had no clue just how powerful he was, but Xid knew.  He was the most singularly gifted person born with the creator talent she’d ever met.  What he was doing normally took years of practice and failure, and here he was, three or four days in, and making it work!  Her mouth compressed into a line.  He was still a Bridgefinder though, and the whole reason the world was in danger.  The Elder’s plan would work, and the other Shrouded, who were foolish enough to want to help his kind, would believe it had been an accident.  The Elves were powerful, and what could she do?

The soft point finally fell into place, and just like that, the Bridge was now permanent.  A huge grin broke out on Cendan’s face.  He was nearly done, almost there.  Just to join the Bridge here with the Bridge in the Elven village, and he’d be finished.  Saying it was easy, but doing it, well…  He’d gotten this far.  Normally he’d need something from the other side of the Bridge.  Xid had told him that was because the magic needed a ‘memory’ to find the other end.  That he didn’t have, but he had himself, which apparently was the next best thing.  He’d gone through the Bridge there, and so, he should be able to find it and tie them together.  Should being the operative word.

Through his unbound Bridge, Cendan reached out.  He was physically still standing on that spit of sand, but his mind flew through the Bridge, trying to home into the Bridge in the Elven village.  Thankfully, Xid had been right; it drew him like a beacon.  He could see the threads of the Magic here, on the Echo World, tying things together.  So odd, similar to the points of light on our world, but still, different enough.  He paused, however, when he got a good mental ‘look’ at the Bridge.

He had forgotten.  The Bridge here was banned to Elves.  He was totally aware of it now, some film of woven magic overlaying this end of the connection.  How did he get past that?  He could, as a human, but if the Elves were to be believed, and in this case he was pretty sure they could be, it wouldn’t let them through.  What could he do?  Calm down, he berated himself.  Falling back on old skills, he tried to approach this as a job from his old life.  This was a system.  It used different rules, but it was a system.

The Elves not getting through needed a work around.  The workings of the Slyph had caused a… a bug.  Think of it like a computer bug, Cendan, a bug he couldn’t un-program, but maybe he could bypass.  From his end of the Bridge, he sent a small thread of magic through to the Elven side.  Xid’s breath came sharp.

“What are you doing?  That’s not part of the pattern!”

Cendan ignored her.  He had to keep his concentration; he was juggling multiple patterns across two worlds and trying to explain what was going on was a stretch.

If the magic of the Echo world was laid out in threads, and the threads were woven into magic, which implied a ‘cloth’ of magic.  Maybe, just maybe, he could force a whole through the woven threads, stretch out a large enough hole for the Elves to use the Bridge.  Cendan had no idea if this would work.  Truthfully, he was somewhat surprised he could even keep up with everything he was doing right now.  Pushing aside all the distractions his mind was coming up with, he took a deep breath and pushed at the film with his thread of earth magic.

Nothing he had ever experienced in his life prepared him for the feeling that hit him the moment the probe like thread hit the Slyph’s barrier.  Pain?  Pleasure?  Cold?  Hot? He felt like his chest was about to burst from joy, and in the exact same moment his ears were going to explode from a noise that only he could hear.  He could feel his concentration slipping, the patterns he was balancing flicker and begin to falter.  A low groan escaped Cendan’s lips, and he cleared his mind, clearing up the flickering pattern.  His probe had made it though.  It was through!  Now to stretch it out; the hole needed to be bigger.  Much bigger.

Quickly working the pattern, he formed the thread into a tube and began to make it wider.  The feelings were not nearly as intense though Cendan could very much do without ever feeling that again.  Still, his teeth ground together at how massively uncomfortable he felt.  Larger still, and the feelings started to fade more.

“Larger,” Cendan muttered, forgetting Xid was there at all.  All his concentration was used at this point.  Larger still the hole went, until finally, he felt certain it would work.

He didn’t know if the weaves of that world would return to shape, though, so he had to work fast to combine this tube of his to the Bridge; to keep the way open.  It did not escape a corner of his mind that he was working all this, all this work for a race of magical creatures who only wanted to come here to steal horses and human women.  He’d shake his head at the irony of it if he could have done.

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Xid watched his working with a confused look.  What in the hell was Cendan doing?  This tube he had formed that wasn’t part of the standard Bridge pattern. What was he up to?

She watched as he deftly added this new pattern to the Bridge pattern.  His natural skill when he wasn’t over-thinking things had asserted itself, and this time the new pattern slid into place without any effort.

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Cendan for his part wasn’t even paying attention; he was tired, very tired, and starting to fade.  Finally, everything was in place for the final binding.  He forged a new connection, this time having to draw from the well of magic in his key; the making of the tunnel had exhausted the magic he had gathered at the beginning.  ‘Just a little more’ he told himself, a few more moments.

He could see both ends approaching each other, and then with one final burst of concentration, the connection leapt between the two Bridges.  The end points slid together as if they had always been that way.  The patterns were stable, they held, and no longer needed Cendan’s help.  With a feeling of triumph, he released it all and staggered off to the side.  He had done it.

“Xid.  Let’s... get out of here,” Cendan said, the note of exhaustion clear in his voice.

Xid stood, eyeing his work.

“Yes.  I think that’s a good idea; I should get out of here.”

Cendan looked up and saw her face.  He knew at that moment that she was going to leave him here.

“Xid!  What…”

Ignoring him, Xid worked a pattern quickly, faster than he’d ever seen one go, a dance of light flowing out of her fetish.  With a nod, Xid vanished, transported back to Rivenwood, leaving him here with an active Bridge to the Echo world; one that led to a group of elves that were going to be very unhappy with his solution to their bargain.

Cendan stood there, stunned.  Why had Xid just ... well ... abandoned him?  As he stood there, Rivenwood’s warning came back to him: ‘not all the Shrouded wanted to help the Bridgefinders’.  Gardener Xid must have been one of those, and had simply been waiting, waiting for the right moment to get rid of him.  He had to admit he hadn’t seen it coming.  Xid had never been super-friendly, but she’d not been antagonistic either.  His sight registered a slight fluctuation in the Bridge.  He didn’t have time to sit around and figure out why Xid had left him here.

He had one chance.  Just one.  The copying pattern.  There were two main issues.  One: the pattern Xid had used was far more complex that his simple light pattern he’d tried it on before.  And secondly, but far more importantly, he didn’t even know if it would work.  Before he’d been copying a pattern than he had put in place.  This would be copying a pattern that someone else had used, and that he hadn’t gotten a good look to begin with.  With a shudder, the Bridge started to become active, and Cendan knew he had no time to waste.

He was still bone tired; the Bridge’s creation had taxed him.  The added work needed had even partially drained his focus of its well.  He only hoped the well held enough residual magic to make the copying pattern in the first place.  Closing his eyes, Cendan worked to ignore the Bridge that was now nearly open.  Reaching into his focus, he drew the remaining magic out of the reservoir, and created his new pattern in same general place that Xid had been.  He silently said a prayer, praying that this would work.