The Sorcerer's Destiny (The Sorcerer's Path) (40 page)

***

“What new kind of hell is this?” Jarvin shouted as his war room shook, paintings fell from walls, and his recently uprighted battle figurines toppled atop the table once again.

The terrifying impacts continued, and all within were certain the entire castle would soon crumble around them. Candelabras and braziers toppled and men raced about on unsteady legs to ensure they did not set fire to the room. Raijaun lit the room with his magic and saw the pale, fearful looks of everyone in the room turned his direction.

“Raijaun, what is happening?” Jarvin asked urgently.

Raijaun raised a hand as if feeling for a draft. His concern vanished and a smile spread across his face. “Father has returned.”

“Thank the gods,” Jarvin murmured along with the others in the room.

After only a few minutes of tense silence, a bright, thin line split the air near where Raijaun had gated into the room earlier. The portal widened and Azerick stepped into the room wearing his more comfortable human guise. Jarvin’s hand unconsciously fell to the hilt of the sword resting at his hip.

“Father, it is good to see you well. We have been very worried since you did not return as expected. I suspect something went amiss?”

“You could certainly say that.”

“Let me guess,” General Brague interrupted, “you ran out of people to aggravate in this world so you found another to pick fights in.”

“Actually, it was two worlds.”

“Forgive me. Perhaps one day I will learn to stop underestimating you.”

“I pray we all live so long.”

“Azerick, I am heartened to see you back,” the King said.

“Are you?” Azerick turned back to his son. “How are Miranda and Ellyssa?”

“Miranda is seeing to the moving of refugees. Ellyssa has been battling at the gates but fairs well. Sandy has also returned and is providing a great deal of help distracting the dragons and pulling them away from the battle over the city.”

“I am relieved. I feared that I had driven her irrevocably away. Has she forgiven me?”

“She has come to understand why you did it and accepted its necessity. Father, there is an urgent matter we must attend to. We have lost two of the three gates. The ravagers managed to get beneath the city and struck where we least expected it despite having reinforced our guards there.”

“I must take much of the blame,” Jarvin said dejectedly. “Your son advised me to place a larger force to guard them, but I took some of them away and put them back on the walls. It seemed that was the more immediate threat at the time. If we die here, it is my fault.”

“Possibly, but I have no intention of us dying here. It goes against my plans, and that I cannot allow. Accompany me to the gates, Raijaun.”

Azerick opened another portal and stepped through. Raijaun immediately followed, and they both entered the plaza through a narrow alley. Masses of people packed the plaza beyond the alley trying to get through the single gate while soldiers and mages tried to keep them orderly. It was a battle they were quickly losing, and Azerick’s cataclysmic return had panicked them even further as they feared the Scions had finally appeared to destroy them once and for all. Ellyssa and Roger saw Azerick and Raijaun emerge from the narrow cleft between buildings and broke away from the crowd.

“Azerick, you made it back!” Ellyssa shouted and wrapped him in a tight embrace. “I’m sorry, I tried to protect the gates but I failed.”

“You did not fail. You did your best, and I’m sure you are the reason we have any left at all.”

“Raijaun and Sandy are the ones who stopped them from coming into the city.”

“You all did your part, and I am proud you. Show me the ruined gates.”

It took some shouting, shoving, and even some magic to push through the mass of people, but most moved out of their way when they saw Raijaun towering over them.

“So, it was you making all that racket,” Roger noted as he shuffled beside them.

“It was. I do like a grand entrance.”

“Where did you go? What happened?”

Azerick stopped and looked at the shattered remains of the toppled pillar. “We don’t have time for that now.”

“Can you fix it?” Ellyssa asked. “The other one is even worse. An exploding goblin blew it up.”

“Goblin?”

“Whatever they’re called. They are dark blue and kind of look like Grick.”

“They can also ignore our wards and walk right through them,” Roger added.

“Is there any way to make another one?” Ellyssa asked.

“I can’t, but I know someone who may. Fortunately, I have not been idle while I was away and made a friend.”

“How big a fight was it before you became friends?”

Azerick grinned. “Pretty damn big.”

He reached into his pocket and retrieved the door handle made of arcanum. Jabbing the end of it between the stones of a nearby wall still standing despite the rest of the building lying in ruin, Azerick turned the handle and pulled. A section of the wall opened up as if it were a door on well-made hinges. The interior was dark except for the glowing silver pool in the middle of the chamber.

“What is that?” Raijaun asked, indicating the handle.

“It is a piece of the Source pool made solid. It allows me to return to the tower.”

“Could you not have used it to return home?”

“I had no connection to the pool from where I was so could not open a doorway. It also only works one way, so do not let this door close behind me.”

Azerick walked into the chamber containing the Source pool and up the stairs to the living room. Exiting the outer doors of the foyer, he stepped back into Ancalon’s world and found himself staring into the dragon’s massive eyeball.

“You have returned.”

“I need your help.”

“So soon? I hope this is not a prelude to the level of give and take for our alliance.”

Azerick ignored the dragon’s barbed words. “I created a series of gates to allow my people to flee ahead of the Scions and their minions. Two of the three have been destroyed. With their loss, we cannot evacuate Brelland before they overrun us. Can you create a rift in my world to replace them?”

“I felt your gates when you activated them, though I did not know their true purpose. Primitive but effective devices. Yes, I can open the channel you require. Since I now know what they are, I can use your gates as markers to know where to create the entrance and exit points of an acceptable rift.”

“Thank you, Ancalon; we are all in your debt.”

“Only if you survive and we are triumphant. Remember our bargain. There must be no retaliation against my children when this is done.”

“I will do everything I can to ensure it.”

“Then there will be no debt between us.”

Azerick returned to his tower and the doorway that would return him to his world. Something impacted his face the moment he stepped through, leaving a stinging heat on his left cheek. He braced himself as Miranda began punching him in his chest and calmly waited until her fury subsided.

“I’m told you have returned only to catch your back as you vanish once again with no idea whether or not you are returning!” his wife railed and punched him again. “I thought you were dead! You cannot keep putting me through this. It’s not fair.”

Azerick held her close as she collapsed against his chest and wept. “I’m sorry. I do not mean to be so selfish, but I am back now, and I am not going anywhere.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise, not until I must face the Scions. If I do not return form there then it will not matter anymore.”

Miranda pushed off Azerick’s chest, forcing aside her wifely concerns and resumed her duties as the Daughter of North Haven. “We need to get the people out of here.”

“I have addressed the issue. Get everyone clear of the area, particularly from around the gates. Tell the crowd that we are going to open another portal to get them all through, but they need to step back.”

“Can you do that?” Ellyssa asked.

“No, but I have spoken to someone who can.”

The soldiers and mages urged the pressing crowd to back away, issuing promises to any who resisted and clouts to their shoulders and bodies when words failed. They had barely cleared the area when the air tore open in a line bisecting the two destroyed gates. The rift opened wide like the mouth of a giant, invisible creature to reveal the valley hundreds of miles away. The valley defenders scurried about and formed ranks, unsure what the rift portended.

“That should facilitate our evacuation. Continue to defend the walls as best you can until the noncombatants are safely through. If we begin to get overrun, retreat to the secondary defensive line. This is not the place to stand and die. We will punish them as best we can, but reaching the valley is our priority. I have greatly expended myself of late and need to rest.”

“We can manage, Father. Where shall I find you?”

“I will take a room in the castle. Jarvin will know which one.”

Azerick opened a portal and stepped into the small room he had stayed in during one of his previous visits. He lay upon the small bed and allowed his exhaustion to pull him into a rare period of sleep. The Scions mocked him in his dreams as fire, flood, and ravagers scoured his home from the face of the planet. He fought the fallen gods in a fierce battle until only he and they remained, fighting atop a mountain made of the dead. The world below was in flames, creating a place more hellish than anything found in the abyss.

A soft wrapping at his door pulled Azerick from his nightmares and back into the forsaken world of reality. He did not startle nor wake in the cold sweat such dreams would normally induce in a person. His life had long been a thing of nightmares, and they no longer greatly affected him. Not even the awareness of his apathetic reaction bothered him anymore.

“Come in, Raijaun.”

Raijaun opened the door, ducked low to clear the frame, and entered. “Father, the bulk of the evacuation is complete.”

“What is the hour?”

“Mid-morning.”

“How do we fair at the walls?”

“Thanks largely to the destruction you inflicted upon your return, we were able to hold the outer walls for nearly ten more hours. We have retreated to the inner curtain wall and are facilitating the evacuation of our fighting forces.”

“All right. Let’s make sure we get everyone through. Our job is done here, and there is no reason to stay and fight.”

“Some would believe dying to protect their homes is reason enough.”

“That is because some people are idiots who do not see that dying wins nothing but death. Only by surviving and fighting will they earn something worth dying for.”

“You sound like Daebian.”

“There are times I feel he has the right of it.” Azerick sighed at the thought of his son. “Come, everyone will need our help to retreat through the rift. Are you rested enough to take on an entire army with me?”

“I have been resting in place and using my power sparingly for this purpose. Despite knowing the pain it will cause me, I am looking forward to giving it back to these vile creatures.”

Father and son walked through the nearly abandoned halls of Castle Brightridge, likely one of the last few to ever do so. Once teaming with court attendees, residents, and an army of servants, only the hollow sound of their feet striking stone and marble, the cacophonic war raging outside, and the pervasive smell and thin haze of smoke now took residence inside.

The fouled air grew thicker the moment they exited. Black smoke rose in hundreds of curling columns toward the sky where dragons wheeled and dived, spewing fire and hurling magic at the retreating defenders. Azerick looked into the distance and saw several black specks in an aerial duel only visible to his and Raijaun’s keen eyesight unless one had a spyglass at hand. Through the bright flares of light and the exchange of fiery breath, Azerick knew Sandy had not left them and still fought to bring even a slight respite to the humans by pulling some of the dragons away from the city.

Azerick and Raijaun did not have to travel far to reach the forward lines of battle. They held the inner curtain wall, but their defense was tenuous. The wizards’ knew they were soon to retreat and so fought with little reservation, keeping the ravagers at bay and preventing the dragons from tearing through the wards and wreaking uncontrollable havoc.

“Azerick!” Alex called out as he jogged toward the sorcerer.

Alex’s armor showed the ravages of war, what was visible of it beneath the layer of black, viscous blood. His eyes were a mirror of his armor; weary, battered, and fatigued but still resilient and refusing to yield. “We cannot hold here much longer.”

“You do not have to. Pull everyone away from the wall and move with all speed to the rift and the remaining gate,” Azerick instructed. “Raijaun and I should be able to slow them enough to give you all time to flee. Is the inner city still ours?”

“Mostly. A few bands of ravagers and an occasional dragon manage to break through or sneak their way inside, but so far we have been able to strike them down or push them back. We should have little trouble with any that might be terrorizing the city between us and the gates.”

“Good. The moment we create a break, order everyone to the rift.” Azerick turned to his son. “I know this is going to cause you a lot of pain. Are you ready?”

“I will manage, Father. Thank you for your concern.”

Azerick and Raijaun walked the parapet and took positions a few hundred yards apart to cover a wide front. Azerick sent his arcane power into the wall beneath his feet. Stone spears erupted from its face like the many spines of a hedgehog, piercing the flesh of the ravagers piled up against its surface as they fought to reach the summit. The mounds of creatures toppled as the protrusions stabbed into their bodies. He used his abyssal magic to cause the stone to weep poisonous acid that decayed the flesh of anything touching it.

Alex led the humans in a full retreat from the wall while Azerick and Raijaun tried to buy them time to get clear and reach the rift. It was not going to be an easy feat. Thousands of soldiers and wizards packed the battlements with thousands more occupying the streets and defenses in the district.