Pawn Of The Planewalker (Book 5) (11 page)

The woman’s name was Pru. She loved words, and music, and poetry. She had been casting those forms of magic since she was a little girl, and could conceive of no other life.

All this Garrick gleaned from her more lucid ramblings as he followed her directions and carried her through Karasacti’s castle, a monstrous construct of crystal, wood, and glass that towered into the purple nighttime sky.

They came to her chambers.

He laid her down on the bed and drained a thin stream of life force over her shoulder that healed her wound. He had no idea how well his ministrations would hold on this plane. The damage had been great, and her body needed time to recuperate, but her life force was strong around the tiny kernel of the child that grew within her.

He took a seat in a recessed window where he could watch her sleep and take in the prismatic colors of nightfall as it crossed Rastella. His body worked to process the foreign life force he had absorbed. It had a similarity to Adruin’s, but felt more caustic. The flow scrubbed his skin from the inside as if fighting to get out.

He looked upon the night.

The sky was purple and midnight blue, streaked with greenish-black clouds that were interlaced with intense pink and lavender. A pair of moons cast arcs of light across the buildings, creating a cross-hatch of shadows that seemed to shift and weave. The wind, which seemed to never stop on this plane, whipped with a strong force.

Dark figures gathered in the streets below, gazing upward and pointing to the suites where he and Pru were now sequestered. They yelled names and curses. They had been horrified as he strode through town with Pru’s limp body in tow. He had seen their kinds of faces before. He had heard the questions they spat at him. Was he a demon? An insane mage? Or was he merely a bloodthirsty monster unleashed through some legendary force of darkness?

They were afraid of him now, but it wouldn’t be long before that fear turned to anger, and that anger turned to action.

How long did they have?

Minutes? Hours? Days?

The chamber they were in was large, and well cared for. The bed was soft and padded. A mirror covered one wall, reflecting Pru’s image as she slept.

Despite her height, she was a slight woman. Her skin was soft and dark, olive with just a hint of purple. All three eyes were closed, and the cut of her jaw line was smooth and relaxed. Her breathing was gentle.

Karasacti’s robe hung on the hook where Garrick had thrown it. He took it to a basin to clean the dirt and grime from its weave. The fabric writhed in his hands. The cuffs of his shackles were still around his wrists and ankles, and they clanked with dull retort as he scrubbed the material.

The robe was how Karasacti controlled the plane.

He knew that, now.

Garrick wanted to wear it.

He felt it whisper to him.

If he put the robe on, it said, he would almost certainly be able to access his link and cast something that would remove the shackles. If he put this robe on, he might understand more about this plane and maybe even learn the magic it took to move through others.

Put it on, he thought. Wear it.

But he had been around Braxidane often enough to be wary of such things and the prices they carry. Actions and consequences, he thought. There was more here than he understood.

Soap lathered as he scrubbed the garment.

Three times he washed, rinsed, and dumped fetid water.

Then he hung the robe to dry, dribbles pooling with a prismatic sheen on the dark floor below it.

He returned to the window beside the bed.

The crowd had grown as the night progressed. It twisted in the darkness like a black whirlpool of madness. Voices rose more firmly now. Oily fire burned from torches, and the people carried weapons that before were simple shovels and rakes. Karasacti was dead. The power on this plane had shifted.

They were coming.

The citizens of Rastella had enough of Karasacti’s brand of magic and they were coming to take back their city.

He had to do something.

He looked at Pru.

Green moonlight flowed over her. A lump grew in his throat. She reminded him so very much of Sunathri. What was her role here? The Lord’s sorceress? His consort? His queen? Would they bother her? She had, after all, been touched by Karasacti’s magic. Would they trust her, or would they burn her like any other thing they saw as Karasacti’s?

He scowled, realizing his selfishness.

Garrick was trying to convince himself to take Pru from her home, to kidnap her while she slept. Merely because she had helped him, and because she reminded him in some strange fashion of a woman he may once have loved.

He should be better than this.

Pru would be fine. This was a plane that understood sorcery. Still, he bent and placed a soft kiss on her forehead, then left her to sleep through the effects of her recovery.

A ceramic explosion came from outside the window, a bowl or decanter crashing against the stone wall. A throaty cheer rose. Another crash came, the sound of baked clay shattering. Then glass. A lower-level window was broken.

Garrick’s life force swelled.

It would prefer to heal at this stage, but he had learned now how to make this power bend to his own needs. He could use it if he had to.

He looked out the window one last time and noticed a place down lower where a battlement rose to within leaping distance. If he could get there, he would be able to escape. But that meant he had to descend the tower. Without second thought, he stepped out of Pru’s bedchamber and ran to the central staircase, chains jangling from his wrists and ankles.

The entire castle was dark now. Paintings hung from the walls like pure black rectangles in a land of shadow that smelled of cloves.

He took the stairs down. His hand trailed over a banister that curled at the end of each flight, doubling back again and again to lead further downward. He slipped once, tumbling to the bottom of a well. Panting, he picked himself up and scrambled downward.

Voices echoed up the stairwell.

Footsteps caused Garrick to lean over the railing and see men coming forward. He took the doorway at the next floor, hoping he had descended far enough.

This room, too, was dark. The stench of sorcery hung here like a drape. Security wards, he thought. He had sensed them before. He ducked and rolled in an instinctive, workmanlike move that was made efficiently and without concern. His chains clattered against the floor as he rolled.

The blow aimed at his head missed.

The beast came from the shadows, black and purple. Eyes ringed its head, glistening with malignancy. It was a remnant of Karasacti’s magic, a spell cast to protect something the mage wanted protected. The beast roared and pressed an attack

Garrick cast a shield of life force over himself.

Black talons met the cone with an explosion that scattered sparks of blue and red into the air. But the beast’s magic penetrated his shield, and a sliver of cold steel froze Garrick’s being.

He drew a breath, sliding himself backward.

He had to get out.

The stairwell was behind him. He slipped toward it, hoping Karasacti’s magical beast was tied to the room rather than free to follow him. Voices boomed from a floor below. Torchlight illuminated the area with yellow-green shadows.

He was trapped.

The beast gave a pained roar as it stopped at the doorway. It was penned to the room—at least that much was in Garrick’s favor.

“Holy Father!” a voice bellowed from below as the man in the front of the column saw the creature.

“The monster is creating more demons!” a woman’s voice called.

Garrick climbed stairs three steps at a time. The gang clamored, a tide pool of their need for vengeance swirling around them. A dagger whirled past, crashing against the wall before clattering to the floor.

He sprinted up the next flight.

“Come on,” he heard a familiar voice above.

Pru stood at the lip of the stairwell. Her hair was disheveled from sleep, and she held her arm at a tender angle.

Garrick ran to her as she spoke words of magic.

Crimson fire flowed from her outstretched hand to form a barrier between Garrick and the people of Rastella. Confused voices filled the stairwell. He grabbed the dagger that lay at the top of the stairs, and came to her side.

“The townspeople’s cries woke me,” she explained, still holding concentration on the spell.

“Thank you.”

“You had best go.”

“They’ll vent their anger on you.”

Pru smiled wearily. “It will be all right. I know the city. They’ll shun me, but I don’t want to be here, anyway.”

Garrick nodded, seeing resolution on her face.

“There’s no way out but down,” he said.

“Use the lord’s robe.”

He hesitated. How could he tell her he didn’t want to risk trifling with such powerful magics? How could he tell her about Braxidane?

A man pressed forward with his torch. Embers flared as the fire touched Pru’s magic. Someone threw a weapon. The shield rebuffed it.

Pru looked at him, eyes glittering in shadow.

“You had best go,” she said. “I can’t hold this for much longer.

“All right,” Garrick replied.

He put a light hand on her shoulder, then raced up the stairs.

The robe was where he left it. He held it for a moment, turning the fabric over with his fingertips. It was still damp, cold in the evening chill.

Voices came from below. Footsteps rumbled on the stairs.

With no time to waste, he slipped it on.

Chapter 18

Garrick found himself in a place of nothingness.

There was no ground beneath his feet. No horizon. No sun, no moon, no wind, no land. There was only color and fragmented space, blobs of green and blue, and red and yellow that formed shifting patterns like the view inside a kaleidoscope. His stomach lurched. He put his hand before his face, and was pleased to gain some small sense of balance.

It seemed comfortable here, alive.

The robe he wore pulsed with color, molding around his skin.

He found the dagger still in one hand. Its plainness in this place of extreme queerness gave Garrick inordinate comfort. He wrapped his hand around its hilt and tried to stand more firmly.

As he focused, passages formed from nowhere, twisting this way and that, growing in hazy outlines at the periphery of his vision. The place was chaos formed of infinite structure—passages and more passages, an arcane maze of tunnels and shafts that shifted in an amorphous mass.

“Garrick,” a voice said. “I didn’t know if I would see you again.”

“Braxidane,” Garrick replied as he turned to face a formless blob of gray material.

“At your service.”

“Unlikely.”

His superior seemed to sit up, his edges folding over themselves as if they moved of their own volition.

“You’ve done well bringing the robe here,” Braxidane said. “The planes are once again open to Rastella.”

“What is this place?”

“It is my home. We call it All of Existence. It’s the place we live, the construct that connects all of the Thousand Worlds.”

More colors churned, making Garrick sick to his stomach. His life force was quiet here, subdued and calm. He was comfortable. Yet, Garrick looked at Braxidane and felt nothing but anger.

“You sent me there because of the child, didn’t you?”

“Perhaps.”

“I’m tired of playing your game,” Garrick said. “Why am I here? When can I go home?”

“You still don’t understand what I’ve given you?”

“You’ve given me nothing.”

“I’ve given you the ability to change the course of the universe.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

Braxidane turned the color of condescension.

“You’ve touched the child on Rastella, haven’t you?” Garrick said. “It will grow up with this same curse I have.”

“Yes, Garrick. Now you’re seeing things like a true mage. The child will grow to be one of my champions, just as you are. Only it will not know any different life. For this woman, being god-touched will be all she ever knows.”

“You’ve sunk to a new low, then.”

“How so?”

“At least I had some form of a choice. The child is having this foisted upon it.”

Braxidane’s form shuddered with something Garrick interpreted as a shrug.

“That is life, Garrick.”

“No it’s not,” Garrick said, feeling his anger rise. “You singled me out because I was young and weak. But I’m tired of it. I’ll not be your lap dog anymore. You can’t just put me someplace, and expect me to jump.”

“Down, boy,” Braxidane said, his color deepening.

“Stop it!”

“Oh, grow up, Garrick.”

Garrick turned away, wanting space between himself and Braxidane, but every path led to more paths and he could not determine the best way out. He picked one at random and strode toward it—or, rather, he flowed toward it.

Movement in All of Existence was different. It was ambulation via thought, more like swimming than the mindless motions of walking. As Garrick moved, the energy around him came to a boil, rushing, racing through him as if trying to crash into his body. The passage sizzled with invisible currents, swirling like storm winds against his skin.