Starbreaker: Volume 4, page 5
Almost immediately, they broke through again, more crystal-lined walls, this time illuminated from within by a crackling red lightning. The constructs now seemed less like spiders or machines and more liquid. They slithered around, taking up positions to catch Sylvas in the crossfire of their spells before he once again vanished, heading straight up into the ceiling.
None of the constructs seemed to have a behavior determined for when their prey vanished into the ceiling, and the delay as they tried to work out what the hell had just happened was more than sufficient for Sylvas to get himself entirely clear of the whole mess. Floor by floor, they leapt to attack as he passed through and found no opportunity before he was gone again. One level was entirely flooded, and he passed through it in a swift whirlpool of motion, dumping the rest of the water back down the shaft he’d dug up and washing any constructs foolish enough to give chase up into the higher levels back down into the depths where they belonged. Onward and upward through crystal and stone, graceful carvings, intricate murals, beautiful bastions of history, he shredded them as he passed. The fragmentary stones ripped from the ceiling above embedded in the embellishments as he gave not a single backwards glance.
Through thicker strata of stone, he continued to rise, touching only briefly on what seemed to now be the outer limits of the labyrinth. An alien place compared to the first few floors, all white marble and golden lightning trapped within it. Pillars wrapped in gold circlets of entwined wire shattered and unleashed the storm in his wake as he rose from amongst them, but that same lightning was drawn into the tempest he’d conjured overhead. The lightning leapt, only for the whorl of gravity to snare it and drag it into orbit around the drill. He rose through that trap meant to keep him from digging his way out with as much ease as he had all the previous layers, and as he rose, he just went on gaining speed. The next floor that he hit was more fully occupied than those he’d encountered before, and unlike the animate statuary that he’d faced off with down in the deep basements, these were living, breathing creatures—presumably the creation of someone with a life affinity, given how little the winged reptilian forms seemed to match up with any known animal.
They swept in at him, less coordinated than the automatons but infinitely more vicious and voracious. They had no care for their own survival, just a desperate need to kill him. Unfortunately for them, a little more care for their own survival probably would have served them better. There was a churning lightning storm surrounding Sylvas now, all the discharged power of the floor below, and as the little brightly colored lizards darted in, baring their venomous fangs, they hit that umbrella of electricity and went from delicate greens to blackened husks as they tumbled away. On Sylvas went, still rising, still feeling no need to stop and contend with anything that had been arrayed against him.
As the dried-out blood of the lizards spattered against the walls and floor, that strange sensation returned within Sylvas. Spilled blood seemed to awaken the eidolon that he had bound inside. He ignored it. He tried to force Strife out of his thoughts and out of his awareness, but while he could use his Paradigms to filter it out and pretend it wasn’t there, he realized it was too dangerous a course. Ignoring the enemy within would just give it free rein to do as it pleased.
You didn’t seem to mind giving it a little loose leash when you were doing your little blood puppetry a moment ago.
Sylvas had no time to speak to her. Not when he had the spell to maintain. He didn’t want the eidolon, but if it gave him power, he’d be stupid not to use it. Just until he found a way to excise it from his soul.
Floor by floor, he blasted up through the labyrinth’s endless layers until finally, there were no more floors to break through, just a solid expanse of stone giving away to dirt, then tangled roots, pipes and wires, and concrete foundations. He burst through the surface of the planet like a star falling in reverse. He exploded through the street, sending elves screaming and scattering away from him as he rose. He let the spell fall away, casting a glance around the terrified strangers he’d just emerged amidst. They were running, screaming. Children were being scooped up in their parents’ arms and carried away. He was the monster that would haunt their nightmares, just as the eidolons had plagued his.
He caught only a brief glimpse of it all—the frightened civilians, the opaque and intricate architecture of what was clearly an elven planet with a pale green sky—and then he was swallowed up in a teleportation spell. Delivered back into absolute darkness for just an instant before the floor gave out beneath him, dumping him back into the cell where he’d begun.
The metal grating beneath the entrance was all too familiar at this point. The labyrinth had not been the first of the tests inflicted on him. Kaya hurried forward to help him up, even as Malachai tried to fling himself up into the airlock that had just dropped him. The necromancer was too slow, just as he always was. His outstretched hand scraped over the rusted metal as the only way into the warded cell snapped shut again. He landed by Sylvas’ side, cursing.
Kaya clapped a hand on his back. “Welcome home, stanzbhur.”
Chapter 7
“When captured by any enemy, your first duty is to escape. If the opportunity presents itself to do the enemy material harm during that escape, it is advantageous, but no opportunity should be considered if it poses any degree of risk to that first duty. The second duty, when in the possession of the enemy, is to maintain silence. To give them no assistance in extracting information from you. What you do not say, they cannot hear. What they cannot hear, they cannot know that you know.”
—Duties: A Treatise, Fal’Vaelith
The only one who did not spring into action with his reappearance was Vaelith. She remained on one of the four fold-down bench-beds that they each had available to them, her half-obscured face staring back at him. “That took longer than I expected.”
Finding his feet, Sylvas brought his anger back under control before he faced her. “Elvish planet, old, populous, green sky.”
“Dark green or…”
Sylvas thought about it for a second and then did his best to describe what he’d seen. “Milky green.”
“Alvarhain,” the woman stated, gently swinging her still body to sit upright, very clearly paying heed to the white, plasticine cast that covered the better part of it, including her face, arm, and leg. “We’re on the elvish homeworld. Heart of the Empyrean.”
“What a relief to know that our abductors aren’t foreign then. That would have been so much worse.” Malachai grunted, still clearly bitter about yet another failed escape attempt.
Pressing on, Sylvas continued to feed them the details of his trial. In all of the time that they’d been kept captive, he was the only one that they ever removed from the cell, so his were the only eyes that they had outside of it. “They had me in some sort of big underground maze—”
“If we’re on Alvarhain, then it must be the Trials of Milas,” Vaelith cut in without letting him finish, the half of her face that wasn’t covered by the featureless white mask steadily repairing her eye lifting at the news. “They are to be one of the wonders of the known universe, reserved only for the strongest of mages in the galaxy to attempt.”
Sylvas groaned at the news. “Well, I just tore through it. Please don’t tell me it’s a historical landmark.”
“It’s intended to be… functional. As a week-long test of those mages at the pinnacle of their strength, seeking to push themselves. Admittance requires many months of spiritual purification and…” Vaelith’s one uncovered eye blinked as she finally registered what he’d said. “Wait, you tore through it?”
“I did. It’s going to be out of order until they repair it and drain out the floodwater.”
Malachai’s grim mood gave way to a grin at the thought, but only for a moment, before Vaelith glanced his way, and he plastered on his stern mask of annoyance once more.
“If they tossed him in there, then maybe it means they’ve done all the poking and prodding they could with their other tests,” Kaya said as she waved him over to his bed so that he could sit. “Now, if they want to see that thing in you, they’ve got to start pushing your limits. If they can find them.”
Oh, they most assuredly found them, Mira whispered softly in his ear in her typical fashion.
Sylvas had already regretted allowing any part of Strife’s magic to influence his own, but now, hearing from Kaya that the whole point of the exercise had been to force it to the surface, he could have kicked himself for not realizing it earlier. “It was intense. The eidolon… if it… if I didn’t have it, I’m not sure I would have made it through.”
“You…used it?” The words came from Vaelith in a whisper that, despite its low volume, still cut through the room all the same.
“Not exactly, no,” Sylvas replied with a helpless shrug as he made his way over to his bed. “But the harder they push me…the more it…comes forth. Every time I try to do anything, I can feel it there, under the surface, just looking for a way out. Every spell I cast. Every move I make.”
The answer left Vaelith weakly shaking her head as she swore softly in elvish. Their translation spells had never managed to fully cope with the wide variety of expletives that came out of Kaya in her native dwarvish, but this was the first time that there had been something so obscene in Elvish that the spell hadn’t been able to comprehend it. Sylvas hadn’t even thought that there were elvish swearwords, given how uptight the species was as a whole.
“You can certainly say that again.” Kaya grunted, surprising absolutely no one that she, of all people present, had been able to parse the curse word. “Though, that still leaves us right back where we’ve been all this time. What do we do next?”
“Would be that I had an answer to that, Cadet,” Vaelith replied with a careful shake of her head as not to disturb the casts busily mending her body, her tone dropping in uncharacteristic fashion. Or at least it would have been to everyone who had known her before their lives had taken such a drastic turn.
But that futile shake was about as far as any of them were about to get before they were interrupted by an awful shrieking sound from all around, prompting each of them to leap to their feet. A moment later, Sylvas felt the spells wrought around their cage begin to fall away, one by one, like chains being uncoupled and dropped.
With a thud, the room dropped a few feet. Then, as abruptly as the noise and magic had all begun, it stopped. Kaya growled in frustration. “What in the—”
As one, all four walls of their cell melted away, the stone turning fluid and flushing down through the metal grates beneath. They were suddenly in the midst of a far larger chamber, and there was one more added to their number.
The elf that stood to one side of their now larger cell was instantly familiar to Sylvas, though they’d only ever met once. He was robed heavily despite the temperate conditions, in a deep and oceanic green, and were it not for the wires visible at the side of his face, connecting from his temple to the mechanical parts concealed beneath those robes, he would have looked just like any other young elf man on this planet.
But he was not just any elf. He was Theron Greenmantle of the Technocratic Union, one of the most powerful men in the entire Empyrean, and a member of the high council. He spread his hands to show that they were empty of weapons, even though one of them was a jagged-looking metal claw that would have served as one quite easily.
“Good morning,” he said without any preamble as he glanced between each of them. “Our assessment is now complete, and as such, you are all now invited to stand before the high council to address the…situation that has brought you all here.”
There was a long pause as everyone soaked in those words and the promise of freedom that they brought. They had all been here long enough to have built up countless fantasies as to what they would do if they ever had a chance to escape their prison, and now that they had found it, they hesitated.
Or at least everyone but Kaya did.
“Oi, is that all you’ve got to say after all the kragh you put him through?” she demanded in a hot tone, Sylvas turning his head just in time to see that both she and Vaelith looked ready to attack and maim the councilor.
Not that he could blame either of them, considering the nigh blinding rage that he felt surge through him now that he had someone responsible for his imprisonment before him. One whose flesh he could rend and break as an example to any who dared think he could be treated this way.
Sylvas, Mira’s abrupt voice cut through the crimson curtain that had all but fallen over his vision. One that vanished a moment later as she all but physically forced Clearmind upon him. It’s happening again.
And it was, Sylvas realized as the cool, detached logic of the Paradigm washed over him, prompting a frustrated howl to ring out from somewhere within the depths of his mind before it suddenly vanished. In fact, it did so with such abruptness that Sylvas found himself needing to take a deep breath to steady himself before he could bring his focus back towards the others, only then noticing that everyone was staring at him.
They’re waiting for you to say something, Mira added quickly, dumping the terse exchanges of conversation he’d missed into his mind. Not that they changed his decision in the slightest.
“Thank you for the invitation, Lord Greenmantle,” he said in a voice that sounded far too unlike his own. “Please…take us to wherever the council wishes to meet us.”
“Very good. This way, please.” There was a hint of a smile on Theron’s face as he nodded and turned his back on them. It was a show of trust, or ridiculous arrogance, to turn his back on four furious Ardent soldiers. But he did as Sylvas bid him anyway, opening up the solid stone wall of this chamber with a flourish of his flesh-and-blood hand and proceeding ahead of them.
The building that their prison had been in was quite beautifully appointed now that they were out of the cell. White marble pillars were spaced evenly along the passageways, carved intricately to resemble trees, with branches stretching out to support the ceilings. In the gaps between the pillars were intricate frescoes depicting sites of natural beauty, no doubt from around the planet—crashing waves on golden sand, elaborately planted gardens set on mountain slopes, and many different forests—all painted with a pale and delicate watercolor appearance.
Sylvas was surprised to find Vaelith didn’t even give them a glance, even though it was the homeland of her people on display. Malachai, for all his stern demeanor, kept pausing as he walked to take in the frescoes, to the point that Kaya had to put a hand on his lower back to keep him in pace with the rest of them, even if she was grumbling all the way about being a babysitter.
The passages of whatever palace they’d found themselves in were far from being as labyrinthine as the place Sylvas had spent the previous day, but there were many turns that seemed to backtrack or loop around the way that they had already come, staircases that they had to ascend, only to descend other ones later. If it weren’t for his other senses, Sylvas might have thought that Theron was leading them on a pointless circuit through the building, but he could feel the presence of other people everywhere that they went, populated parts of the building that they were deliberately avoiding so as to maintain their isolation, even now. Greenmantle might have been trusting enough to lead them himself, but the risk involved in exposing others to them was apparently too much.
Finally, they came to an outdoor courtyard with bioluminescent hummingbirds flitting between the flowers growing up around the pillars and the green of the sky shining above. Sylvas felt like he could breathe properly for the first time now that they were in the open air, but it was only the briefest moment of respite before a set of grand doors swung open to allow them entry into the council chambers.
Arrayed around the room, like in his last trial before the council, stood the podiums, and standing at them were the very same people, but in the flesh instead of transposed in through communication spells and illusions. Elenya Starweaver, in her iridescent robes, welcomed them with a smile from the far side of the chamber, but Sylvas was surprised to find that there were other friendly looks beyond her endless graciousness. Durgan Ironfist’s teeth shone out from amidst his whiskers when he saw Sylvas and grinned.
Do you think he knows we’ve spent weeks locked up, being tormented?
Elenya spoke up before Sylvas could answer. “We bid you welcome to this council, Sylvas Vail, and we offer our sincerest apologies for the ill treatment that you have suffered in our guardianship over the days that have recently passed.”
All eyes were on him, and he realized with a start that there was a podium left empty in front of him that he was meant to walk up to. He climbed the steps to it, laid his hands on the smooth marble, and let Clearmind fall away from him as he looked up at the smiling faces looking towards him. Almost immediately, he felt the rage simmer back up within him. But this time he didn’t push it away from him. Instead, he pulled it closer and said the only words he could after all he’d been through.
“Damn you all for putting me, for putting us, through that nightmare.”
Chapter 8
“How does one describe the indescribable? How does one learn the limits of the limitless? These are not idle fancies to the mage, and they are not philosophical conundrums to be pondered. They are the reality in which those who master their magic must face.”
