Collision: The Alliance Series Book Three (33 page)

Lightning flared up around the remaining two magic-wielders. The deity’s presence pushed at me again, insistent and crushing. Being an amplifier probably aggravated it.
I don’t need this.

As magic flared, my hand appeared. Damn. The invisibility had worn off. The surviving summoners only needed to look up and they’d see me.

“Thanks a fucking lot,” I snarled at the lightning flickering overhead, and prepared to face the two remaining opponents. But one had already slit the other’s throat. I froze, eyes widening as he dragged his companion towards the chasm.

And a hand appeared from the fog behind the doorway, and dragged both men after it. A giant, stone-like hand.

I stared, the blood freezing to ice in my veins. What the hell was that thing?

What
world was behind the door?

Veyak whispered in my ear, “I am as much a slave as you are, magic-wielder.” No, the voice came from a summoner, the one I thought I’d killed. His head lifted slightly, but the gleam of red in his eyes was inhuman.

“You’re not alive,” I said, more to myself than anything, ignoring the voice of reason that posing existential questions to a mad deity wasn’t going to end in my favour.

“You humans gave me life and consciousness. I feed on all, but I am the servant myself, magic-wielder.” The summoner’s head fell back, his eyes closing, as lightning flashed in the air above us again. I stepped back, and again, blinking rapidly, the deity’s presence pushing against me like a pressure on my skull.

“No,” I said. “I won’t submit to you.”

Something clamped around my legs. Swearing, I struggled forwards, but was snatched backwards again. My vision cleared, revealing a stonelike hand that held me, and it dragged me into darkness.

***

ADA

The lightning flared again, and this time, I pushed back.
Get away, Veyak.
I could feel the deity’s rage, and Avar’s words came back to me. Someone had shackled magic to a vessel. Not a human one. But I knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that though it might not be living in the usual sense, it was conscious. And angry.

A clap of thunder sounded behind and I whirled around to see smoke rising from somewhere in the distance, near the jungle.

“Stop that!” I shouted.

“It can’t hear you, it’s living magic!” Iriel barely kept her feet, and Raj all but clung to the ground, as though afraid it might throw him off.

Light flared across my vision again and despite myself, I found my eyes drawn to the doorway… which appeared bigger than before, filling the entire space between the canyon walls and blotting out the sky with white fog.

A gigantic, stone-like hand came from the mist beyond the door, pawing at the ground. Snatching at anyone who came near.

“Kay!” I shouted, running at the doorway, ignoring the others’ shouts. Screaming his name, I ran full-pelt over the bumpy ground, paying no heed to the shadow rising behind me, and to the struggling, re-forming kimaros. A wall of energy knocked me off my feet in a flare of red lightning. I yelled, body convulsing.

Just as suddenly, it stopped. Gasping, I quickly checked for injuries. Nothing. I was pretty sure the third level shot would have killed anyone else.

The summoner who’d fired it marched towards me. I shakily stood up to face him. Undaunted by the shaking ground, the summoner watched me with those blanked-out, dark eyes. The mark of a powerful-magic-wielder.

Red smoke curled around him.
He’s not really alive. Veyak’s already killed him,
I told myself, ignoring my too-fast-beating heart, and calling magic of my own. Mine. Not Veyak’s. I wouldn’t let the god control me. Magic flowed through my fingers, building higher, and I let go as he fired a bolt of energy at me. I jumped out the way, the magic grazing my side in a shower of sparks and scorching another hole in the pitted ground. My own attack did likewise, missing the summoner as he dodged aside.

“Get out of my way,” I said.
Kay.
He was on the other side of the doorway.

Smoke swirled around the summoner, enveloping the man in reddish-purple. He raised a hand and I dodged the attack, firing another of my own. I missed.
Damn.
Magic at a distance was too unwieldy, and too likely to hit the wrong target. I moved towards him, dropping into an attacking stance. If I could get him to keep still, maybe…

Not ‘him’. He’s not alive. Not alive.

I ran at him, firing magic at the ground in a diagonal pattern to drive him into my path. Tackling him, I took him by surprise and we both crashed to the ground, me pinning him in a perfect Alliance guard restraining position. His body shook all over, eyes gleaming red.

The kimaros charged at us. I pulled magic into my fingers, lightning flashed down from the sky, and I leaped back as it struck. His head hit the stone, unmoving. Dead.

And the kimaros charged at me, smoky feet blurring, pit-like eyes raging. Raj and Iriel attacked it from behind, but the bolts of magic they sent at it only seemed to fuel its rage. Raj moved slowly, injured, while Iriel’s eyes flashed black and she cringed away, clearly aware the god was fighting for control.

It wanted us to be the next sacrifices.

Smoke struck me in a blast, sending me head over heels. My back hit the ground again, the world spinning. Dust filled my mouth and I coughed, turning onto my side. The momentum had carried me right next to the open door.
Kay.

Another summoner approached. This one was armed with several of those arrow-like spears. I might not be able to die from magic, but I could be stabbed. Rolling to my feet, I took a step back, drawing my own weapon. But he was possessed by a deity, while I was only human, for all the magic I had. The whisper pressed against me again, insistent, angry.

A figure launched themselves at the summoner from behind, knocking him down. The two grappled on the ground, magic sparking.

Mathran?

Second level magic sent the old man flying back, but he hurled a spiked weapon at the summoner and brought him down. The possessed summoner stood, betraying no hint of pain or injury.

I couldn’t breathe. I moved to enter the fight but the two had already clashed–the glint of a blade–and Mathran fell back on the ground, blood pooling from a wound in his chest.

The summoner was on the ground, too, crawling away, towards the door. “Die, magic-wielder,” he hissed.

And the ground trembled. My last sight of Vey-Xanetha was of Iriel and Raj facing down the re-formed kimaros. A shot of guilt hit my heart, but it was too late to stop myself tumbling into another world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

KAY

Mist surrounded me on all sides. The hand held me loose enough to push myself upright, but I didn’t dare jump until I saw what I’d be landing on.

Very good job, too. The mist cleared, revealing the ground… a fifty-foot-drop away. Marshy ground dotted with boulders.

Except the boulders weren’t boulders, and the rock-like figure holding me was a bigger version of one of them. I knew which world I was on. One I’d never been on, though I’d come close enough in the lower levels of the Passages.

Cethrax
was the world behind the door. And one of their kings held me in its hand. A giant head the size of a small car glared at me with wheel-sized black eyes. It was literally a colossal boulder, or an oversized version of the much milder mannered vox-kind that roamed around the lower levels of the Passages through Cethrax’s many doorways. Its craggy face was offset by two curved horns the length of its head, its tusks at least five feet long.

Mother-fucker.

As unappealing as it was to be fifty feet off the ground in the hand of a giant stone monster, struggling would bring me a quick death. Cursing, trying to remember anything I’d picked up about negotiating with the vox-kind, I fought the instinct to panic. For one thing, there was nowhere to run, for obvious reasons. And on the other side of the white fog above, Vey-Xanetha lay out of reach, rampaging gods and all.

The shifting sensation beneath me was a jarring reminder that a very different kind of giant might drop me at any moment. I had only one way to get back to the doorway: magic.

No time to question. I shifted in the giant’s hand and aimed a second level shot at the ground, enough to propel me up and through the doorway.

The giant’s other hand moved to block it.
Shit.
I’d forgotten higher vox-kind had naturally magic-proof armour. Not enough to block third level–but I couldn’t access that here.

Here, I was prey.

“Do not try it, human,” hissed the Vox… in English. I’d forgotten how fucking clever they were. Though as far as Voxes went, they didn’t usually need a translator to interpret the screams of any unlucky humans they caught straying into their swampland.

But nobody ever said I was sensible. “Who opened that doorway?” I demanded, fairly certain I’d join those unfortunate humans in a second.

“Magic-wielder,” said the giant. “You are not a native of the Veyak.”

“No, I’m from Earth,” I said. “And your world has a treaty with the Alliance.” I pulled out my communicator as a last resort, flicking the touch screen to show the Alliance’s logo. Though Cethrax might hate the Alliance, their world was far outnumbered and they knew how swiftly the Alliance could retaliate if they provoked an attack by killing an Ambassador. Not that I really wanted to set an example.

The Vox hissed, but said nothing. Its hand shifted beneath me and for a heart-stopping moment, I thought that was it for me.

“Did you open the doorway?” I asked, putting my communicator away before I dropped it. My hands shook from the adrenaline.
Fuck me. I’m actually going to die on Cethrax.

It gave a rumbling laugh. I hung onto the side of one of its gigantic fingers, swearing in seven languages. Including Cethraxian. The only words I knew in that crude language were curses, of which there was an abundance.

“I am the guard of the doorway, magic-wielder.”

I stared. I hadn’t expected an answer. I should be dead already, crushed in its hand or a snack for its servants fifty feet below. It hadn’t killed me. And… the Vox wasn’t just sitting here. Heavy metal chains covered its tree-trunk-sized legs, weighing it down, and it sat in a permanent crouch.
How
in the hell had that happened? Had something even more powerful chained it down?

“I am the guard, magic-wielder, and the commander of Veyak.”

“On whose orders? Who opened the doorway?”

“My master.”

That’s helpful.
Employing sarcasm against a fifty-foot giant wasn’t the best plan, but urgency and fear for the others in Vey-Xanetha made it difficult to think clearly. It hadn’t killed me already… and it was a prisoner itself. Which meant—no. Had the Vey-Xanethan people migrated from
Cethrax?
There
had
been people living there, a long time ago–that was why the Cethraxians retained a few characteristics which seemed oddly human compared to their otherwise brutish way of life, and they had technology they themselves didn’t know what to do with. Nobody ever wanted to get close to the swamp and find out, for obvious reasons.

The humans were slaves and playthings of monsters.
It actually made sense. The magic-wielders had combined their power together to open the doorway, the chasm. And the Cethraxian shadow-monsters were
remarkably
similar to the kimaros. I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before.

“If you’re not going to kill me, let me go back.” I pointed to the doorway.

“You have trespassed here, magic-wielder.”

Damn.
I’d forgotten, of course, given the number of thick-headed foot-soldiers and idiot pain-tripping chalder voxes I’d fought, that Cethrax’s leaders were far more intelligent. It had actually proven an evolutionary advantage, even if they only used their brains to decide how best to kill trespassers.

“Fine. What does your master want with Vey-Xanetha?”

“Sources,” hissed the Vox. “I do not pretend to understand the whims of magic-wielders, but he was very insistent. The force known as Veyak can transfer power through the doorway.”

Its master is a magic-wielder?

“So this master of yours is here?” O
r a source?
The god’s power must be going somewhere.

“If he were, you would be dead, magic-wielder. He has already killed three of my brothers. I am the single remaining Vox in the Janx territory, by the undergods of–” The name came out as unpronounceable gibberish.

“Great,” I said, caution fading. “So there’s a mysterious magic-wielder who’s using
you
to enslave Veyak, a living deity?”

Another rumbling laugh shook the world and I came close to dropping my communicator.

“Veyak is no deity, magic-wielder,” said the Vox. “Veyak is power given life, power chained to a living creature from the rage of ancient magic-wielders. But Veyak will die along with the rest of its world, as will the other magic-creatures formed from its strength.”