Shadow of the Otherverse (The Last Whisper of the Gods Saga Book 3) (52 page)

“It was even less inviting when I was here,” said Sorial. “We had to fight our way in and out. And the stairs are there, just buried. The street level of the old city is two hundred feet underground.”

“I can smell death in the air. This is a vile place,” said Lavella. “The portal isn’t tainted but men made this an altar where sacrilegious acts were commonplace. Sacrifices, orgies, abominations against the gods.”

Sorial sensed nothing of the sort, and it was likely the gods had been dead by the time any “abominations” began. The earth told him only that beneath his feet were the remains of men he had entombed here and, farther down, the buried remnants of mighty Havenham, the greatest of all the ancient Southern cities. But Sorial lacked Lavella’s religious indoctrination. She had spent most of her mature years in the temple, serving out her sentence as The Wizard’s Bride before Alicia had replaced her. Fifteen years of life with priests was sure to leave an indelible mark.

“I don’t know ’bout that. I’ve always taken a liking to things others call ‘abominations’,” said Excela. “But I don’t want to stay here no longer than necessary. Let’s do what we’ve got to do and move on.” Then, perhaps recognizing the insensitivity of her words, she added with a nod to Sorial, “Once you’re ready.”

Sorial wasn’t ready and he doubted he ever would be. It was hard to accept that the time had come, that he was face to face with the moment of his destiny. He couldn’t even take solace from the knowledge that his action would save the future because there was no certainty. He didn’t know if the procedure they intended to use, cobbled together from riddles and guesses, would serve its intended purpose. If it failed, Sorial supposed it wouldn’t much matter to him. Oblivion would welcome him and he wouldn’t know the difference.

“Every man must face his end,” intoned Lavella, sounding like the priests she had lived with and studied under. “It comes upon many unawares but those who face it with certain knowledge of its arrival must do so with calm stoicism.” It sounded like something Ferguson might have said. Perhaps it was. Was Lavella the late prelate’s disciple?

“Spare us,” muttered Alicia, clearly in no mood for her aunt’s homilies. “We all know what this means. We traveled for two weeks to get here for this purpose. That doesn’t make it any easier.”

Now that it’s come, I don’t want to go
. But there wasn’t a choice and delaying the inevitable served no purpose. The last grains of sand had trickled through the neck of the hourglass. His time was up.

He stepped forward to embrace Alicia for the last time. He held her tightly against him, breast to breast, feeling her heart beating in tandem with his as his good arm encircled her back. His lips found hers and pressed against them with urgency, lingering until they were bruised. Their breath and saliva intermingled. The tears in her eyes were mirrored in his own. He wanted to say “goodbye” but couldn’t find the voice for that word. It was terrible in its finality. Dying wasn’t the source of his fear of the portal; losing Alicia was. Last time, he had come here with the hope of gaining her. Now, he was letting her go.

He loved her with the entirety of his being, this beautiful woman whose face and form echoed that of the golden-haired girl who had barged into his stable and his life when things had been so much simpler. With her flashing green eyes, imperious manner, and fear of mice, she had been with him ever since, first as an occasional burr, then as an unattainable desire, and finally as a companion of his heart and soul. He was glad for the time they had spent together and regretful that it had to end so soon. He looked into her eyes and read the same things. Her lips formed one word: “Stableboy.”

He stepped away from her, tears spilling down his cheeks. In the relative darkness of the room, no one could see them except Alicia.

“How do you want to do this?” asked Lavella once it was clear the moment between husband and wife was done.

“We stand next to the portal at equal points. Then, at the same time, all four of us direct our magic into it. I don’t know how long we’ll need to do it; I’m hoping there will be some indication when it’s primed. Then I’ll step in and we’ll see what happens.  Dorthik, stay well back. The others can protect themselves in the event of some kind of backlash but, at least for the moment, you’re vulnerable.”

“No fear there. The way that thing’s singing to me, if I get close, I might get pulled into it.”

“Don’t let that happen, at least not while I’m still around.”

“That’s it?” Excela’s surprise was evident. “No intricate spells? Just send raw energy into that black hole?”

“That’s it,” said Sorial.
And hope we’ve got it right
.

As Dorthik retreated toward the chamber’s entrance, the four wizards took their places on the shelf surrounding the aperture with Sorial between Alicia and Lavella and Excela directly across from him.

“Open yourself to the power and let it flow through you as we practiced,” said Alicia, offering guidance to the newest wizards. His wife had assured him they were capable of maintaining a flow of magic for long enough, although neither knew what that might entail. Long enough for what?

“It’s been a pleasure working with you all, though we ain’t been together for long. If I don’t come back, Alicia will take over as
Magus Prime
. I hope what I do now will be enough to make the future safe.” Sorial took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and did his best to relax his body. “Let’s begin.”

Simultaneously, four strands of magic poured forth: fire, water, air, and earth, all aimed into the gaping maw of the portal. There was immediate feedback as the magical energy emerged from the portal only to be returned from whence it came. At first, nothing happened. The portal absorbed the magic without any seeming effect. Sorial was beginning to worry that their approach might be wrong when he noticed the change.

It started out faintly but built with surprising speed. The “noise” was sharp and irritating, a buzzing like a hive of angry bees. The assault wasn’t on Sorial’s ears but on his mind. Anyone in the chamber without magical sensitivity wouldn’t have noticed a thing. It took a force of will to maintain the stream of magic. He hoped the new wizards would be able to hold. If they faltered… As if from a distance, he heard a scream. Dorthik. But he couldn’t worry about the young man now. The point of crisis was nearly here. He could sense it.

From the depths of his mind, the chorus began:
Comecomecome
. It was grating, not soothing as it once had been. The tone was angry and resentful, but it carried the same sense of compulsion, the nearly undeniable urge to act. This time, however, it promised rage and pain, not peace.

The door was open. Almost without thinking, Sorial stepped through.

His experience entering the portal was a polar opposite of the first time. The sense of serenity that had previously accompanied his slide into blackness was absent. Instead, his body was poured into a cauldron of turmoil, a vat of seething elemental energy. Making intimate contact with such raw power was stunning, shocking, devastating. It elicited unimaginable pain. The touch of the efreet had been mild compared to this. He couldn’t scream because his voice, like his sight and hearing, was gone, stripped from him. Fire seared him, air buffeted him, water drowned him, and even earth was no friend. His stewardship was gone. His flesh melted from his bones and then even the bones were gone. That which had been his body was destroyed. But
he
remained.

Sight returned but not through his eyes. Before him was a door, the same one he had glimpsed during his previous excursion into the portal. This time, with no way back, it was open. Caught up in a current he couldn’t fight, he was swept through that opening and into a different reality. The door slammed shut behind him, trapping Sorial in the Otherverse.

CHAPTER FORTY: BYPASSING GRIEF

Alicia stopped the flow of magic as soon as Sorial disappeared. There was no point in keeping it up. She had watched him go, almost as if in a dream. Present one moment - real, vital, and able to be touched - then gone the next. Despite being assaulted by the portal’s tortured, incessant, ragged
Comecomecome
, she had kept her eyes fixed on her husband, as if by looking she could hold him close. She had been determined to watch him until there was nothing left, until he was beyond her ability to see. She could tell that Excela and Lavella had been faltering, but she had ignored them for the moment. In this brief instance, a sliver of time between seconds, it had been all about Sorial. Then he had taken the fateful step forward and slipped into the portal.

He was gone and didn’t return. As soon as Sorial passed into it, the portal
stopped
. Its sense of power vanished. The
Comecomecome
ceased along with the buzzing. The portal was dead. But what about Sorial?

She continued to stare at the opening through which he had vanished. The deep blackness of the void was gone; all that remained was a conventional shaft. Sorial’s body hadn’t been expelled by the portal but he could have fallen all the way through. Regardless, he wasn’t here. Whether that meant he had passed through the gate or died in the process, she didn’t know. The “where” was the biggest, most critical question of all, and one for which there was no ready or obvious answer.

Lavella and Excela had exited the portal area to check on Dorthik. Unwilling to turn her back on the place where she had last seen her husband, Alicia continued to stare into what had until moments ago been one of the continent’s three remaining portals. Eventually, overcome by the weight of the situation, she lowered herself into a sitting position, buried her face in her hands, and wept. Sorial might not be dead in the usual sense but
he was dead to her
. His arms would never again enfold her. His fingers would never again caress her skin. His lips would never again brush her neck. It was too much to bear but duty and obligation -
his
duty and obligation - had left her with no choice.

After a while, she felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Lavella gazing down with sympathetic eyes. “Do you need more time?” she asked, her voice gentle.

I need more time than I could ever have
. But that wasn’t an answer or at least not the kind of self-indulgent one she could give. Sorial had made it clear that he was relying on her to lead the wizards once he was gone and that’s what she intended to do. For now, she had to do her best to bypass the grief that threatened to overwhelm her and make the choices and decisions demanded by their current circumstances. There was no better way to honor her husband.

“How is Dorthik?”

“He’ll survive. He was less equipped than we were to deal with the intensity of what happened. The beautiful call suddenly turned resentful and bitter… Excela’s helping to relax him.”

“I hope he still wants to be a wizard because he’s going to get his chance.” It was a calculated risk, she knew, to expose him to a portal so soon. There was no convincing evidence that Sorial was dead. Using her magical sight, she couldn’t locate his signature but the same would be true if he had somehow slipped into a void. If he had passed into the Otherverse without actually dying, would the portal still consider him to be the reigning earth-wizard? Would sending Dorthik through the portal be a death sentence?

She found that it didn’t much matter to her. It was unanswerable. She needed an active, available Lord of Earth, so she was going to try it. If the portal rejected Dorthik, it would provide her with valuable information regarding Sorial’s status. If he was still alive, she would search for him. If he wasn’t, the plan might not be much different.

Lavella wandered back to where the others were gathered, leaving Alicia in darkness, giving her a more time to collect her thoughts and calm her emotions. Instead of mourning her loss and allowing the natural grieving process to take over, she began analyzing her options and planning her next move. At some point, she would need to cope with this situation as Alicia the widow. For the moment, however, she had to be the
Magus Prime
. That meant curbing her tears.

Sorial’s objective had been for the group to return to Vantok, report to Myselene, then await some means of confirmation that the situation in the Otherverse had been resolved. It wasn’t the best developed of plans because no one had known what to expect when he had stepped through the portal. Right now, the only thing they understood was that Sorial was gone. As far as Alicia could determine, there was no body. The portal was dead. And her magic couldn’t detect any sign of him.

Adhering to Sorial’s vision of how they should proceed didn’t seem reasonable, and she felt he would agree with that assessment. If he had failed, the danger would be as great as ever, and they had no way to ascertain whether he had succeeded… unless someone else went in. Did two wizards have a better chance than one? Altemiak had followed his brother, Malbranche, in what might have been the only other broaching of the Otherverse. Was there a lesson there? If she crossed over, would she be in a position to help Sorial or would she simply become another victim?

Lavella and Excela were kneeling beside a prone Dorthik when Alicia approached. His eyes were open and he struggled to a sitting position when he saw her. Her features were frozen into a cold mask. She was every inch The Lady of Water,
Magus Prime
. None of them had seen Alicia quite so determined.

“We’re going to Ibitsal.”

“As soon as we report to the queen?” asked Lavella.

“No. Now. Not back to Vantok. Directly to Ibitsal. Dorthik can make his trip through the portal then the three of you can help me follow Sorial.”

Lavella gaped at her. “That’s not what he said we should do.”

Alicia’s green eyes hardened. “He didn’t know what we should do because he didn’t know what to expect. If we had a clear notion of whether he succeeded or not, of whether he’s dead or alive, it might make sense to return to Vantok. But we don’t know. The limited information we have tells us he’s gone and the position of earth-wizard is vacant. It would be foolish to believe that equates with the danger in the Otherverse being extinguished.”

“If you go in after him, we’ll be left in the same situation we’re currently in: not knowing. And we won’t have a water-wizard so there’s no way anyone else will be able to make the attempt.”

“It’s a risk, I know. But we’re limited by the number of portals. We know of only two more - Ibitsal and one in the far south. That means only one more attempt can be made to enter the Otherverse while keeping magic alive. Sorial and I discussed the possibility of us attempting to enter through the portal in tandem, but we felt it was too dangerous, in part because of our lack of understanding of what would happen. But if there’s a way that my entering the portal can help him, it’s a better chance than waiting. What if the presence of a second wizard can mean the difference between success and failure?”

Lavella pleaded with her niece to see reason. “But you don’t know that he survived and if there was a mistake, you’d be repeating it.”

“If there’s a mistake in the process, there’s little hope that a prolonged period of study will help me rectify it. The Yu’Tar Library is no more and, despite the assertions of the cities’ best scholars, only a small fraction of the knowledge can be found on the continent. Waiting is a trap.”

“As might be precipitous action.”

Alicia nodded. “It could be. I won’t deny that. But if Sorial is fighting for his existence against forces of power and experience, he might not last for long. Action is required
now
, while there’s still a chance. The need for urgency has never been greater. The longer we wait, the less potential there is for his success.”

Alicia could tell by her aunt’s expression that Lavella wasn’t convinced, probably because the argument wasn’t sound. But Alicia couldn’t support the idea of waiting. If Sorial had succeeded in entering the Otherverse but couldn’t control the forces there, the best time to strike was now, when The Lords of Order and Chaos might be depleted or distracted.  If he was there, still fighting, she hoped she could join her strength to his. And if he had never made it to the Otherverse then she would die in the same way he had regardless of whether she attempted it today, in a week, or in a year - if the world of matter survived that long.

But those arguments were rationalizations and Alicia knew it. Although she could construct a logical case for entering the Otherverse, the foundation of her desire was personal.

“I agree with her,” said Excela. “Don’t see no point in waiting. Two’s better’n one in any fight.”

Alicia’s eyes narrowed. The show of support was unexpected and Alicia’s suspicious nature caused her to wonder whether this was a power-play on The Lady of Fire’s part. With Sorial and Alicia gone, Lavella would hold the position of
Magus Prime
but it wouldn’t be secure. An alliance between fire and earth would be enough to topple her. So, although Excela’s support for Alicia’s plan might be genuine, she could also be seeing this as an expedient way to remove her most experienced adversary.

“I’m ready to do what’s necessary,” said Dorthik.

“Take a few minutes to gather yourself. When you’re recovered, we’ll travel to Ibitsal using magic.” Covertly motioning Lavella to follow her, Alicia wandered back toward the defunct portal, out of earshot of the others.

“After I do this, you’ll be
Magus Prime
and, judging by what I’m seeing, the other two are forming an alliance against you.”

“I’m more perceptive than you give me credit for. They jumped at the opportunity to remove you, but if they seek to challenge me, they may find themselves unprepared for the response I can deliver. I’m no delicate old maid who’s frightened of dirtying her fingers. I didn’t spend 15 years in the temple chanting and praying. When I was a little girl, Ferguson told me he believed I might be the first Wizard’s Bride in a thousand years to find her match. So, in the years after I gained the title but before disillusionment set in, I spent much of my time in the prelate’s personal library researching magic - not because I expected to use it myself but because I wanted to understand something that would be important to my future husband. It’s ironic how things work out.

“My magic is considerably more advanced than Excela’s. There may be areas in which my understanding surpasses even yours although, to be sure, your experience makes you my superior. But with those two, even if Dorthik proves to be a quick learner, it will be quite some time before they represent a threat. Hopefully by then I will have recruited a new Lord of Water to balance the scales.”

Alicia nodded, glad to know that her aunt understood the politics of the situation. Lavella’s mention of Ferguson prompted a question. “What did you think of the prelate?”

Lavella didn’t respond immediately and, when she did, it was obvious she was choosing her words carefully. “He was a great man who lost his way toward the end.”

“Only toward the end?”

She nodded. “When I was younger, he was very kind to me. In fact, he was always gentle where I was concerned. The burden the gods laid upon him weighed heavily, especially in recent years when his plans were in disarray. The time in the temple, you know how lonely it can be. He paid me a visit once or twice a week. He would sit with me and we’d talk. And, while some of the other priests would pretend to be attentive to the concerns of a young woman, he actually listened. I know you and Sorial had issues with him and I’ve heard rumors about some of the terrible things he did, but I choose to remember the man who gave me comfort during the darkest years of my life, when it seemed that being The Wizard’s Bride was a sentence rather than an honor.”

Alicia didn’t say anything but she wished the Ferguson she had known had been closer to the one Lavella described than the one blinded by ambition and his own self-importance.

* * *

One by one, with Alicia leading the way, they arrived in Ibitsal’s portal tower, appearing as if out of thin air. Their method of travel utilized as a reception point the large water-filled basin Alicia and Sorial had established on their previous visit. Alicia had previously experimented with near-instantaneous water-based travel but this was the first time she had attempted to bring others with her and she was surprised at how draining the experience was. On a solo trip, her ability to use the tiny droplets of water in the air to facilitate transportation occurred involuntarily. When accompanied, however, complete concentration was required for her to map out her companions’ progression. It wasn’t something she was eager to repeat.

With the silence and solemnity of a funeral procession, they ascended the narrow staircase to the top with Alicia in the lead. She could sense her aunt’s unease - not only was she concerned about Alicia’s proposal but she was cognizant that Excela or Dorthik might attempt some form of treachery during the process. There was a short yet critical juncture when Alicia would be vulnerable and if either chose to withhold their power at that moment, the results would be unpredictable. Although it made little sense to attack someone who was in the act of departing, people didn’t always act rationally when they saw what they deemed to be an opportunity. Death was, after all, more decisive than disappearance.