Sorcerer Rising (A Virgil McDane Novel) (45 page)

There was so much wrong with that idea that I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. If they had developed a way to partition themselves in the Aether…I couldn’t even make the leap to know what was possible.

“We’re still missing something,” I said. “There has to be a reason, but I don’t see one.”

Dorne pulled his staff from the stand and the gravity righted itself. “They’ve done something, we both know it. Whatever it is, we’ve never seen it before.”

I nodded, not really listening to what he was saying. I was too preoccupied with the room, the key to everything I had sought for so long.

He must have noticed, his words drifted off until we were both silent. “I know this is hard, but you were right, you needed to know.”

“You’re not the only one that’s learned a thing or two about the world,” I said. “Between you and Tiffany…” I still couldn’t think about that, about her. “Thank you.”

I awoke to screaming and Abigail was in my hand immediately, already loaded and ready to go. I stumbled out of my tent to a scene of carnage.

Gulo, battered and bleeding in his bestial form, was tearing a swath through James’s men. The
y were faring better than last time. Most had stayed clear of him, but a few had been torn apart. The rest were pumping everything they had into the creature.

The shots didn’t faze him one bit. I was just getting ready to add my own contribution when he blew past us all. All fours, bat out of hell style, he stormed away from us and toward the beach.

At the last moment he dove into the water. He swam past our landing craft, past the ship itself, until he was out of sight completely.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“He broke out of his chains,” James said. “Hadn’t heard a peep out of him this whole time, then suddenly he went nuts!”

“Gentlemen!” I heard behind me. For some reason, I even turned around. Lambros was in the communications tent, waving us over. “We’re getting communications from the Coleman expedition.”

We entered the tent.

Lambros jerked the headset out of the machine, letting the speakers play.

“Mayday!” the person on the other end hollered. “We are under attack! Something-” static played over the speakers, followed by screaming. “Help!” Then silence.

Virgil!
Al shouted in my ear. Actually, it was in my head.

“What?” I asked.

I’ve cracked the robot’s code,
he said.

It took a moment for that to register. I had forgotten all about Arne’s damn code and all the suspicions that came with it. “Well?”

It goes like this. On course. Sorcerer providing to be better asset that expected. Doctor dead. One further contact with Kira Nui. Plan will commence as expected.

“I wonder what that is about?” I asked to myself.

An arrow exploded from Dorne’s shoulder. He dropped to the ground, his face a mask of pain.

I looked up.
Dozens of the blue octopus creatures were swarming out of the jungle, armed with bows and spears, unnatural magics playing about their fingertips. They were raining projectiles down on the party. Armed with spears and nets they were gathering us up, killing or capturing anyone they saw.

Bullets fired from normal guns impacted against flashes of light, deflecting harmlessly away from the abominations.
One had a net wrapped around a man, a wicked, barbed trident in the other hand. The trident was slick with blood, but not from the man he was standing over.

I raised the shotgun and whistled. The creature spun and I fired a shell, shredding its shoulder. It fell to the ground and I freed the man.

Dorne was trading blow for blow with several of the creatures. They were throwing bolts of blue energy at him, globules of light that splashed like water but burnt the ground where they landed. The Wizard had manifested the rapier in one hand, and I could see from the corpse at his feet that he had already used it once. His staff was planted in the ground beside him and I could feel it channeling the earth beneath us. His left arm was useless, the arrow still protruding from his shoulder.

Stone hands began to climb from the earth, constructs and elementals made from stone, sand, and metal.

Suddenly, a dart struck Dorne in his sword arm. He stumbled, a look of confusion on his face. The blade slipped from his fingers, dissolving as he lost his concentration. He fell to one knee, reaching for his staff, the constructs crumbling.

They were surrounding him now.

I pressed my fingers in my mouth and whistled shrilly. They all spun around.

I po
inted the gun at the creature. “Everyone calm down! Anyone moves and I’ll be serving up calamari!”

Either they didn’t understand the reference or didn’t believe me. Maybe it was both, either way I pulled the trigger and seafood splattered across the sand.

I pointed the barrel at the next guy in line. “Conrad? You still with me?”

He was trying to get to his feet and doing a bad job. He was nodding, but I wasn’t too certain he
’d heard the question.

“Alright, this is what we’re going to do,” I said, ignoring the rising sun over the dragon humpback blue…Wait…What? Everything was blue and swirly and the world was upside down.

There was a dart lodged in my chest. I laughed in pig Latin. Then I snorted and that made me laugh even harder.

Then I was sinking, sinking, sinking…

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

When I awoke
, I was floating, and it wasn’t because of the drugs.

I spun in the air, unsure what was happening. I was in a dark cave, the only light coming from…fish? They floated around me, flitting to and fro through the air. I reached out to touch one and it nibbled the end of my finger.

“It’s water,” Dorne said. He was sitting with his back against the cave wall. His shirt was torn and tattered, and he looked like he had a hell of a hangover, but his shoulder had been bandaged and the arrow removed.

I tried to right myself but ended up floating upside down. “What?”

“Try to tread water, right yourself and let your feet fall down.”

I did as he said and, now right side up, I floated down to the ground. “Water?”

“Yeah,” he said, swirling his finger through the air. “Took me a moment to figure it out, but this is matter in between air and water. It seems that in this world, water and air are the same thing. Quite amazing really.”

I took a deep breath, the air was heavier, like water, but without the distinct feel of liquid. It tasted of salt and sea and was refreshing. It was thick enough to chew but light enough to float in.

“Just don’t rub it in,” Dorne said. I frowned at him and he continued. “These are the islanders, what’s left of them anyway. They became what they worshipped.”

“That makes a sick kind of sense,” I said. “Where are the others?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Diana was hit with one of those darts first. Arne was there, but as soon as the attack started he just locked up and fell over. I didn’t see James or the Sorcerer.”

“So why’d they put us together?” I asked.

“Maybe to isolate us,” he said. “Whatever they did, I can’t cast anything.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

He pressed his hand against the stone. Taking a deep breath, he began to concentrate. The stone rumbled and shifted slightly, forming an imprint around his hand. Then, like a bowl of jello, it snapped back into place.

“They’re doing something, I can feel it,” he said. “Whatever it is, my magic is muzzled.”

That wasn’t good. There were several things that could be done to hamper a Wizard’s magic, all of them bad. And in a situation like this, all of them lethal.

Approaching footsteps interrupted us. A guard walked up to the portcullis and waved his hand across the bars. They melted away, dissolving in the strange ethereal water.

He was one of the islanders, blue skin stretched over a strong frame. He was dressed in a simple leather outfit made from some unknown skin. He glared at the two of us with yellow eyes. Then he stepped back to let someone else in.

This one was dressed in a long robe, made from some type of plant material. Seaweed maybe? He was taller than the guard but lacked the weight of muscle. As he watched us, his skin rippled and shimmered, changing color and texture to that of the cave, then back to its natural tone. He had a whole beard of tentacles that coiled and writhed across his chest and the crown of his head stretched into a pointed cone with fins.

Like a squid or kraken.

The thing that really made me shudder though, were his eyes. They glowed with a powerful blue light, unlike the burning yellow of his brethren.

It was the same light I had seen possess so many before.

“We finally meet, Wizard,” he said, sitting down across from us. His English was better than the others I had met, his accent fainter. His tone was jovial, kind even. “Please, sit.”

“I think I’d rather stand,” I said.

“Sit down,” Dorne said, resigned.

Reluctantly, I did so. The islander smiled, relaxing a bit. “I wanted to come and greet you myself. I am called Ectan and I am the leader of our kingdom.”

“What is this?” I asked.

“We are the Kira Nui,” he said. “We saw you in the temple, examining our history. Surely you pieced together at least an idea of our ascension?”

“Yeah,” I said, “But he told me not to rub it in.” Dorne rolled his eyes. “Is that what you did? You ascended?”

Ectan nodded. “We embraced the mist and its bounty.”

“You speak our language well, Ectan,” Dorne said. “How exactly is that?”

“We have watched the outside world for some time,” the islander said. “Our bridge has allowed us to visit any destination we wish. We have studied your history, your magic, your science.”

“Shit…” Dorne said.

“So the Arcus
is
a bridge,” I said. “Somehow you’ve figured out how to bend the Aether into a transporter.”

“That’s impossible,” Dorne said. “All this is impossible.”

Ectan smiled. “Is it? We have learned much of your Wizard’s Guild. Much of your techniques. You are amateurish in our eyes. We know more of the mist than you could possibly dream.”

I let that sink in. Then I laughed. “You sound just like them!”

Ectan frowned. “What?”

“The Guild,” I said. “No offense Dorne.”

“None taken,” he said, dejected.

“They’ve been saying that for a thousand years,” I said. “And they’ve got their thumb on the world. I’ll admit, you have done something amazing. There is no reason we need fight, well other than you losing my ring, but that’s another matter. Either way, based on what I’ve seen there are whole fields of study that you are ignorant on.”

Ectan frowned at me. I think, it was hard to tell. “You put too much stock in your sect, Wizard.”

“Not mine,” I said with a smile. “Not for a long time. But I know, and I mean no offense by this, but I know that the Guild doesn’t play around with their secrets. And God knows they make a big deal out of them. T
hey have kept the Elder Vampires at bay, intimidated the Wyrm Lords, foiled the Fay. There isn’t a man alive who would call the Guild amateurish.” I pointed at Dorne. “Pompous, arrogant, foolish, childish, insecure, pricks, leeches, tyrants, monsters, liars.” I shrugged. “Sure. But amateurs? I don’t think so.”

“Thanks,” Dorne said.

“Not a problem,” I replied. “They fought a war to beat down a nation that thought they knew better than the Guild. If you keep making enemies like this, they’ll burn your island so bright there will be a second sunrise.”

Ectan took in my words. “We have conquered the mist, have united our people as one. We control a power no man has ever known. We are pure! And we are not afraid of your Guild.”

It was Dorne’s turn to laugh. “Ander thought the same thing. I was there. I saw the flash that wiped the city off the map.”

“Really?” he asked. Then he waved his hand and the cave…disappeared.

The world dissolved around us, melting into Aether, leaving only Ectan, Dorne, and myself. My stomach lurched and for a moment we were floating again. With a sudden drop, the world reformed and we were on open ground. Sun shone down through wavering watery air, as if we were at the bottom of the sea and the sun were just above the surface.

But other than that, we were in the Walter Cloud.

Ectan stood. “This is our power, mageling. You were here when we took this world. This is what we are capable of.”

He swirled his hand again and once more the world dissolved and reformed. We were in front of a temple much like the one in the village, only it was made all of pink and red coral and its size dwarfed the other.  Strange, anemones and plants, or maybe both, I couldn’t tell, covered everything and a wavy, seaweed grass grew up from the sandy soil.

Free, both me and Dorne stood. “What the hell did you just do?” I asked.

“The…impossible,” Ectan said with a strange smile. “We too were bound by the mist as you were. That was before.” He held up his hand, the world dissolving through his
fingers, playing about in blue sea foam. “Now we bind it. We are its masters.”