The Sorcerer's Destiny (The Sorcerer's Path) (39 page)

“Sandy is a dear friend and considered family. She is no one’s pet and has been risking her life fighting for our cause. It would be ill-advised to show her disrespect again,” Raijaun warned, his voice as frigid as the northern wastes.

The laughter abruptly ceased and General Haskins looked chagrined. “My apologies. My attempt at levity was poorly applied, and I meant no disrespect.”

“How bad was the damage at the gates?” Jarvin asked, quickly getting back to task at hand.

“Nearly total. We have lost two of the three gates to the surprise assault and some unexpected tactics.”

“What of Brightridge? Have you been in contact with Headmaster Florent?”

“I warned her of the attack from the sewers. They had not yet come under attack, so they had a small chance to counter it. I lost the speaking stone while in combat with a dragon and have not spoken with her since.”

Jarvin nodded, his face ashen. “Is our plan still viable? Can we evacuate the city through just one gate?”

“From what I saw of the multiple battlefronts, it is very unlikely we can evacuate the city in its entirety. That is why I came here now, because only you can choose our course of action.”

“What are out choices?”

“Stand and fight to the last man and send word to the valley for everyone to flee. Some will survive in the world to come, although most might prefer not to. Our other choice is to give our fighting forces priority of the gates, particularly the wizards. If all our allies have answered the call, we will have a substantial force waiting at the valley, but they will require all of our mages if they are to make a stand. It is possible that we might still win this war there; assuming Brightridge is able to reach the valley mostly intact.”

“You would abandon nearly half the city and leave those people to the hands of those monsters?”

“No, Sire, you would. I would stay and defend the gates. The amount of power I can wield is substantial if I hold nothing back and allow it to consume me. I should be able to oppose the Scions and their horde long enough for most of the fighters to get away.”

Jarvin stood and smashed his fist against the table, upsetting several brass figures placed on a map like chess pieces. “You give us a devil’s choice! We’re damned no matter what we choose.”

“It is not I who forces the choices but our situation. I merely point them out.”

“No, I will not abandon my people. Not one. Not even to save ourselves. If we do that, then we are no better than these false gods. It is best not to exist at all than to give up the one thing that defines us.”

“Here, here,” his officers declared solemnly.

“Then there is but one last thing we can do.”

“What is that?”

“Pray for a miracle.”

CHAPTER 19

“…So I shifted my tower between dimensions and disturbed the sleep of some giant dragon,” Azerick said. “We fought and he tossed me into your world. That’s my life story and how I got here. It’s quite a lot when I sit down and actually think about it. I think the worst part of all this that it has become normal, almost rote. What kind of life is that?”

The borghast matron sighed deeply. The killer had been making noises for two days almost nonstop. She wished it would simply kill her and be done with it. Instead, the creature sat on the tree helplessly pinning her on the ground barking noises at her. It even brought her food and water. If this was its method of torture, it was a bizarre one.

Azerick’s hand hovered over one of the runes etched into the face of a large boulder. “Well, I think it is time for me to go.”

The sorcerer gripped his staff and used it to feed power into the runes and enhance the latent energy trapped within them. It was an agonizing effort, like trying to breathe through a very small tube. His mind and magic demanded more, but there was no more to give. The runes began to glow, faintly at first, but they steadily grew brighter as they shaped the meager magic leached from the rock, trees, and air. When the power reached its crescendo, Azerick released it.

Four searing rays shot into the sky, creating the luminous outline of a massive pyramid stabbing into the sky, and struck the weakened scar in the veil between worlds at a single point. Thousands of wallix took to the air with loud squawks and began circling the strange lights with uneasy, territorial aggression. The sky tore open like a sail in a storm. Azerick could feel the magic pouring in from the other side. He inhaled the ethereal power with his mind and body like a drowning man gasping in a lungful of air.

He leapt into the air and pushed himself skyward, shoving against the air with his wings. With a backward glance, he motioned to the tree trapping his foe. Abyssal magic happily answered his call, causing the wood to rot, crumble, and release its prisoner. The wallix swarmed after him the moment he breached the treetops. Azerick used his magic to coax more speed as the swarm behind him closed in, so massive it blotted out most the land below.

“Come on, you rabid vultures!” Azerick shouted as he raced for the pupil in the rift’s eye. “I’ve got a really big meal waiting for you if you’re so damned hungry.”

Azerick pushed through the rift, urging the ravenous, angry wallix to give chase. The alien world vanished as the sky swirled into the strange, twisting ether of the space between worlds. He emerged hundreds of feet above his tower and immediately spotted Ancalon’s colossal form curled around it, basking in the radiating energy of the Source pool. Azerick pulled in his wings and went into a steep dive. Rolling onto his back, he opened a massive portal directly behind him and in the path of the pursuing Wallix.

“Hey, Ancalon, I thought you might be bored, so I brought you some friends to play with!”

The Father of Dragons looked up just as the flock of wallix entered the portal. The gate’s exit point opened just over his head, and the swarm of ravenous creatures burst through like the snowflakes of a furious blizzard. Ancalon roared in outrage and indignity as thousands of beaks and talons dug under scales and sought out vulnerable areas to claw and bite. The creatures were little more than the irritating nuisance of bedbugs to the great dragon, but they stoked his rage and he lashed out. Fire rippled over his body like a wind-blown robe, incinerating the pests in their entirety.

The Father of Dragons searched the sky for his tormentor. “Sorcerer, I will take great pleasure in devouring you, body and soul!”

Azerick pulled in the power of the Source pool until he was certain taking in any more would consume him and leave not even dust to be carried away on the winds of this shadow world that looked so much like his home. He fed that energy into his staff until it thrummed with power demanding to be unleashed. He fell from the sky just as Ancalon looked up, shouted, and brought the arcanum ball down upon the dragon’s head with a mighty overhead chop.

Azerick’s comparatively diminutive size made the attack look almost comical, but there was nothing amusing about the power with which it struck. Ancalon’s world blacked out for a brief second, and his head swam as the blow shook him to his core and staggered him. A massive shockwave rolled through the air in a perfect ring, stripping and brutalizing every nearby tree that had managed to withstand their first battle. Azerick used his wings to arrest his fall, reeled back, and delivered a second, identical blow that drove the colossus to the ground. A cloud of dust billowed up around the dragon’s body substantial enough to make a small city vanish within its choking haze.

Azerick rode the dragon’s fall to the ground, stood on the back of his neck, and jabbed the now spear-tipped staff beneath Ancalon’s scales and into the base of his gigantic skull. Arcane energy crackled over the staff, waiting to deliver a jolt directly into the dragon’s brain.

“Enough!” Azerick shouted. “I am not your enemy, but I will be your executioner if you do not cease this childish tantrum immediately!”

Azerick felt Ancalon’s body tense beneath him before going limp with a hurricane-like sigh of surrender. “How pathetic a father am I that I have twice failed to protect my children?”

“I am not a threat to the dragons, Ancalon. The Scions use them, and I must protect my family and my people. It is the Scions who are the enemies of us both, so stop fighting me and help destroy them.”

“I cannot fight them,” Ancalon said morosely. “I tried the first time they invaded my realm and lost.”

“Why did they come here and leave you be if they were victorious?”

“Father of Dragons is far more literal than a mere title. My blood runs through the veins of every dragon in existence. Thousands of years ago, those creatures came and took some of my blood like leeches. Through it, they are able to bind my children to their will and use them to act as your overlords.”

“If you help me, we have a chance to break that link and free them,” Azerick urged.

“We cannot. Although I am the master of the spaces between worlds, I cannot go to any of them. You are obviously powerful, but you are not enough to be more than a nuisance to them.”

“I know that challenging gods sounds ridiculous, but we have done it before and triumphed.”

Ancalon snorted derisively. “Gods…”

“You do not believe them to be gods?”

“What is a god but a being with the power to control another?”

“Then help us. There is far more than just me to fight these creatures and their unholy minions. My son has the blood of dragons running through him. Does that not make him a child of yours as well, a child fighting your most hated enemy?”

“He is a Guardian?” Ancalon asked.

“He is, and he is brave and kind and wise beyond his years. He is fighting for what is right and is willing to die to save the peoples of our world. Will you be a coward and hide here, or will you fight for your children like a true father would no matter the cost?”

The Father of Dragons rumbled deep in his chest. “I am no coward. I would fight those false gods with the last drop of my blood, but I cannot leave this place, and they are not likely to willingly come here.”

“Then I will force them to come here with your help. I cannot easily open a gateway between worlds, but you can. Share your runic knowledge with me so I can lay a trap for them. Our gods’ presence in my world is limited by their nature and a higher power, but I suspect the same does not hold true here.”

Ancalon’s eyes narrowed in thought. “You are correct. Their power and presence would have no limitations here. I do not know if your gods’ strength is up to the task of posing a real challenge to the Scions. In your Great Revolution, it took them, the power of a dozen Guardians, and the host of the elven nation to bring them down. I felt the death of every Guardian and know there are no more with the exception of your son.”

“Fortunately, my son is exceptional,” Azerick responded. “There is also me and you. I do not know if we have the power to slay these creatures, but I know this is our best and only chance.”

“Very well, sorcerer. I can show you how to open a rift to this world with my help, but it will be up to you to force the Scions through it. Once through, we face another challenge in keeping them here. Their ability to cross dimensions is as great as mine.”

“Hopefully, their desire to kill me and our gods is great enough to make them stay. This will present them with the best opportunity to kill us all and be done with us. I have spent these past years positioning our pieces on this board as best I can, but I cannot guarantee the actions of the other players.”

“Indeed you cannot.” Ancalon drew a complex sigil in the ground with a single massive claw. The furrow created by the etching was deep enough to provide a proper grave and so large Azerick had to hover above it to get a proper view. “The Scions will not willingly leave their citadel until it is time for them to personally engage in battle with your gods. It is the seat of their power much like the Source pool within your tower. Place these markers in a position to surround their fortress and activate them when they are at their weakest. I will sense their power and add my own strength to it. Even so, the Scions will resist, and I do not know if even our combined magic will be sufficient to bring them over without first having weakened them in some way.”

“How can we weaken them?”

“I do not know. It will be up to you to find a way.”

“Ancalon, I do not know what has happened since I have been gone. Do you know where my son is? Have the Scions started their invasion yet?”

The Father of Dragons closed his eyes and peered through the veils between worlds with his senses. “A number of my children gather near the cities you call Brelland and Brightridge. They are angry, and there is much magic being unleashed there.”

“Then we have already lost our coastal cities,” Azerick muttered to himself. “Can you send me to Brelland?”

“Easily.”

Ancalon pointed a talon at the sky and ripped open a hole in space. Azerick flew upward and dived into the swirling, multi-hued mists and auras. His heart raced with the fear of what tragedies might have befallen since he was away. Was Raijaun and Miranda all right? Were they able to evacuate the cities as planned? Did Sandy still hate him and abandoned them? He feared for Ellyssa, knowing she would put herself directly in the face of danger and never yield despite what wisdom might demand. He could not lose another family. Just the thought of it threatened to drive him into madness.

Azerick grabbed hold of his fury and clutched it to his heart like a mother cradling her babe. He reached behind him with his magic and pulled up a chunk of granite the size of North Haven’s castle. The miniature mountain streaked after him and followed its master into the rift like a well-heeled dog. Azerick and his mountain appeared several thousand feet over the city. Below, dozens of dragons wheeled about, spitting fire and hurling magic at the people within. Beyond the walls, ravagers covered the land like writhing, crimson snow, their bodies stacked against the walls in several places like deep drifts with the humans fighting furiously to shovel them away.

The rift spit his colossal boulder out like a cherry pit, and it began falling inexorably to the ground. Azerick fueled its descent with his magic, shattered it into hundreds of pieces, and enervated them with arcane power. The ravagers and at least half a dozen dragons found themselves pummeled by a meteor shower the likes of which had not been seen since the near world-shattering battles of the Great Revolution. Hundreds of fiery stones struck with enough force to shake the city and knock people from their feet. The meteors shattered the ravagers’ drive to the city and the ground upon which they stood.