Uncertain Allies

37

I stumbled to my knees, gasping as pain sliced through my mind. White light blinded me, pure essence searing the air. The marbled floor pressed hard and cool against my palms as I fought the urge to throw up. The dark mass jumped and shifted in my mind with no discernible purpose, like a trapped animal struggling to escape. I shook my head, trying to clear it, trying to see around me. Several feet away, Briallen crouched, holding macGoren by the shoulders as he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

The light from the floor intensified and rose in a ball of brilliant white. A spot like a deep blue star burned in its midst, smoldering with power. The essence dimmed, coalescing into a piece of triangular blue crystal, its edges flickering with a deep forest green. The white aura diminished as my eyes adjusted, the spot resolving into a stone hanging in the air.

Donor Elfenkonig stared at the stone, cold satisfaction on his face. Vize stood to one side, clutching his blackened arm against his waist. If the pain in my head was any indication, Vize was fighting to keep his own darkness from escaping. Donor reached out and closed his hand around the stone, incandescent light bleeding out between his fingers. The essence flickered and vanished.

A deep moan rattled through the air. The floor trembled beneath my feet, my vision blotched by the sudden absence of the essence light. Donor turned in confusion as cracks spiraled from the shattered floor medallion. The walls twisted on their moorings, shattering the long ranks of windows. I stumbled, ducking to avoid shards of glass. Winds blew from every direction as the hall was exposed to the outside. An electric static ran through the air.

“The shield dome’s down!” someone shouted.

It wasn’t true. I forced myself to stand. I sensed that the dome had weakened, but it remained. The release of the faith stone had damaged it somehow. A ripple ran through the floor, and a fissure opened as I struggled to Briallen’s side.

“MacGoren’s blinded. We have to get him out of here,” she shouted above the howling of the wind. Briallen hardened her body shield around her and macGoren. With a screech, the sky bridge separated from its moorings, splitting open to the outside. The floor canted down, and I grabbed Briallen as she lost her footing. We struggled to hold macGoren, pulling up as the floor sloped away from the main part of the building. With a gut-wrenching lurch, the floor gave way. I sailed through the air and landed hard on a fractured ledge outside the building.

Above me, the sky bridge remained attached to the opposite tower by thin cabling, but moved in a slow swing away from the main portion of the Guildhouse. On the tower side of the gap, Briallen struggled to hold an unconscious macGoren from sliding off the bridge. She secured him against a fallen column.

“Don’t move. I’ll come get you,” she shouted down to me.

A cloud of essence blossomed around her as she rose in the air. Another shudder ran through the building, and macGoren slipped from the column toward the broken edge of the bridge. Briallen hesitated, then settled back to pull him to safety. The thick tower in front of me swayed. “Get macGoren out of here. I’ll be fine.”

We’re thirty floors up, she sent.

“I don’t care about macGoren. You do. Get him out of here. I’m going after them,” I shouted against the wind.

Briallen stared toward the sky. Guild agents whirled in confusion around the damaged bridge. Another chunk crumbled, plunging through a roof below, which collapsed inward and pulled a section of turrets with it. The center of the hall bridge fell away, smashing into the main building. “You can’t stand up to the Elven King,” Briallen said.

The dark mass pressed against the inside of my skull, and I relaxed against it. It pierced my eye with searing pain. I coaxed it into dark ribbons that coiled around me, a trick I’d picked up when I touched Vize in the Tangle. “Watch me.”

The tower shuddered. Briallen stared at me, fear and uncertainty on her face. You can control it, she sent. It wasn’t quite true. I could push it in certain directions, but “control” was an overstatement.

“Stop delaying,” I yelled, and started climbing. The damage gave me plenty of handholds as I pulled myself toward the remains of the Receiving Hall. Black-clad Dananns swooped in overhead. They tumbled back into the sky as emerald essence flashed out from the ledge, a blast of elf-shot more powerful than any I had ever sensed.

I pulled myself over the remains of the overhang. Behind the Guildmaster’s chair, still glamoured as Aldred Core, huddled Donor, with the stone clutched to his chest. His body shield was warping and flashing around him. Vize stood a few feet away, dark shadows slicing the air as they stabbed at the remaining Guild agents.

I could use some help, Grey, Brokke’s voice reverberated in my head.

I craned my neck, searching the debris.

Down here, he sent. I leaned back over the ledge. A dozen feet down, Brokke dangled from a section of broken floor. He had fused his fingers into the stone. The building shook again, and the stone shifted farther down the side.

“Fuse the slab to the building,” I shouted.

Brokke bowed his head against the stone. Been trying. Too much stone.

“Hold on. I’ll get a Danann,” I said.

I scrambled back from the edge. The Receiving Hall was a haze of essence as agents exchanged fire with Donor and Vize. A steady vibration built beneath my feet, and I stumbled again. A burst of essence flashed from the end of the hall. I slipped, rolling back toward the edge.

Listen to Bastian, but trust Eagan, Grey, Brokke sent.

Brokke’s slab had levered out into space. He pulled a hand free and pressed it into the stone farther up. With painstaking slowness, he dragged himself toward the building. The wall shuddered, and the slab slid. I thrust out my hands, opened my mind to tap into my abilities to extend ribbons of essence and grab Brokke. I screamed as the black mass spiked like claws and shut me down. I fell forward, clutching the edge of the floor.

I watched in horror as the slab broke free. In silence, it tumbled end over end, with Brokke clinging to it. He vanished in an explosion of dust a hundred feet below.

Angry, I knelt back against my feet. The black mass burned with sharp intensity. I held my breath, calming myself. It didn’t help. The mass trembled with spikes, piercing my mind again and again. My body essence retreated before it, crumbling under the strain.

White essence jolted through me like a stroke of lightning. A sharp white line appeared in my mind, pulsing with power. I recognized that essence. The spear had reestablished its bond with me. Dizzy, I retreated from the edge and faced the remains of the Receiving Hall. The spear whirled in Vize’s hand as he fended off Guild agents. Sliding his grip to its base, he swept the spear around him, scattering more agents. With a pivot, he brought the spear to a stop, point ready for the next opponent, when he saw me.

Planting the spear on the floor of the cleared space, he wrapped his arm around Donor’s. When I had touched Vize with the darkness, he had touched me, too. A primal understanding had passed through our connection. I had learned how to control the darkness like he did. He had learned how to use the spear to teleport like I did. Through my bond with the spear, an echo of Vize’s destination opened in my mind, like a tunnel of vibrant, spiraling essence. He was going to teleport away and take Donor with him.

I wasn’t going to let him. I stretched out my hand.

“Ithbar,” I shouted.