Volinette's Song (19 page)

Bolts of white streaked past her. Baris had thrown his first missiles into the corridor, sending them racing toward targets that either deflected them with dark magic of their own or roared in pain as they were hit. The journeyman unleashed their spells next, filling the corridor with summoned ice and magical fire. Electricity crackled in the air. She could feel it dancing on her skin. Several
Acolytes stepped forward, adding their own spells to the tumult. One of the demons fell and the others scrambled over it, ignoring its death throes.

A writhing green missile, a mutated mimic of the same spell Baris was using, split the air, shooting into the room and hitting the dark-haired girl who had summoned the cube for them squarely in the chest. Her anguished cry turned into a sickly burble as her skin bubbled, the flesh and muscle melting away from gore stained bones, which collapsed in a haphazard pile.

Full blooded panic swept through the room like a dark tide, and Volinette waded into the fray.

Chapter Nineteen

“Look out!”

Volinette’s shout only just kept Baris from being skewered by the razor sharp claws of the demon that towered over him. Baris brought both his hands together, as if he were applauding their performance. Instead, the magic missiles he had summoned merged with each other, becoming a single massive bolt. He twisted his hands and thrust them forward. The missile flew straight and true, slamming into the demon waist high. It burned a hole through flesh and bone, letting them see straight through to the battle raging on the other side.

Bodies littered the floor. Half a dozen apprentices had fallen to claw, fang, or spell. In places, the floor was slick with blood, and they had to be careful not to slip, lest the demons take advantage of the temporary weakness. Though they’d lost a few of their force, Volinette was impressed with how well the students were working together against a threat that never seemed to ease.

The apprentices who couldn’t concentrate enough to cast, or who didn’t have the confidence to add their spellcraft to the battle, had been shoving cots, tables, and chairs up to the doorway, creating a waist high barricade that the demons were throwing themselves against with undiminished fervor.

Volinette and Baris crouched down behind the barricade now. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will away the pain that burned in her chest and made her head feel like it was going to explode. She’d taken a nasty knock to the ribs while the barricade was going up, and that made it hard to inhale, much less sustain a proper note. Still, the Quintessential Sphere was singing through her, and as long as it continued to whisper the words, she would give them a voice.

“You alright?” Baris spared her a quick glance, but his attention was on the barrier and the journeymen standing guard. There had been a few of these brief lulls in the battle, just enough time for them to catch their breath. Baris had guessed that it was the time it took for another wave of demons to come through the portal. That, or the growing pile of otherworldly bodies stacking up outside the barricade had given the demons cause to think twice.

“I’ll be fine. How is it out there?”

“Juicy. We’re gonna need to find a way to close that portal. I don’t think we can wait for the Masters to rescue us. I think they’ve got their hands full.”

“What about the cube? Maybe we can figure out how long it’ll be before we can count on reinforcements.”

Baris rummaged around in his pocket and tossed her the Seer’s Cube.

“You heard the cantrip it requires, it’s pretty simple. Don’t be long though. We really need you here fighting.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

He ducked suddenly as something struck the other side of the makeshift barricade. Wood splintered. Baris shook his head.

“Can’t. Both of us can’t go. Hurry.”

He gave her a little shove, pushing her deeper into the room and away from the barricade. No part of the room was particularly safe, but at least being further away from the door would minimize the risk of being hit by a rogue spell. She half-ran, half-crawled to the back wall, hunkering down over the cube and whispering the words of command. A moment later, she was hovering above herself, seeing the carnage from a new angle.

Through force of will, she appeared in the entrance hall of the Great Tower. The arch demon was gone, but his summoned portal was there, disgorging more of his minions. At the rate they were arriving, the students on the third floor would be fighting forever. She wondered if there was anyone still alive on the second floor. There almost had to be, because they alone couldn’t be fighting off the sheer numbers coming through the portal. In fact, all the levels of the tower must have been coming under siege. After all, the curved stairs ran the entire height and depth of the tower, from the top floor down to the
Inquisitors’ cells.

The
Inquisitors’ cells! Janessa was still locked away down there, waiting for Adamon or Olin to return. If the incursion from the Deep Void had reached the lower floors of the tower, she’d be completely at the mercy of the demons, and they’d shown precious little mercy. She’d be slaughtered, unable to defend herself.

Volinette was torn. Her goal was to find out how long it would be before reinforcements would arrive,
but she needed to know if Janessa was still alive. If she was, they had to find a way to get her out of the cells. That was no way for anyone to die. She was penned up like an animal, waiting for slaughter.

A moment’s more hesitation and Volinette made up her mind. She popped onto the landing outside the
Inquisitor’s level. It was the only place she knew well enough that she wouldn’t end up adrift in the void. Not that she couldn’t get back, but there wasn’t any time to waste. She chose one of the three hallways at random and set off. Gliding out into the corridor, she was struck by how quiet and still it was. No bodies were scattered along the hall, no echoing roar of demon or shouted spell. Maybe they hadn’t penetrated this far into the depths of the tower. Maybe there was still time.

Every minute she spent searching the
Inquisitors’ level was one that she wasn’t helping to keep them safe. She could hear the faint sound of the battle raging around her physical form and knew that the demons were making another push. She made a wrong turn into a storeroom, then into a privy. She was just about to give up when she noticed a stairwell leading deeper into the earth under the tower. The door was banded in iron, its bars and hardware polished steel. That was the door to the dungeon. She recognized it from her very brief passage when Olin and Adamon brought her before the Head Master.

She glided through the door into a stone corridor. It was forty feet long, with four cells on each side. The first two were empty, as were the next two. One of the third set had a cot in it, on which the man with the long white beard was curled and covered with a thin blanket. Consistent with her luck, the very last cell on the right
was the one where Janessa was held. Her ankles and wrists were bound with iron manacles, and she hunched in the far corner, half hidden in shadow.

Volinette had seen what she needed to see. She focused her will and popped from the dungeon out into the courtyard by the fountain. It was the one place of all the grounds that made up the Academy that she would be able to find without any effort. She’d spent so much time there that it was ingrained in her memory.

The fountain was broken, the pool shattered on one side, spilling water out onto the cobblestones of the courtyard. Rubble littered the paths. The Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences looked like a war had taken place. Was taking place, she hurriedly corrected herself. She looked out toward the gate and saw Olin there, standing with Casto, Janessa’s mother, and a handful of mages she didn’t know. They were ranged in a loose circle, performing a ritual. Their hand gestures were complex, the words of power nearly unpronounceable. Volinette felt the Quintessential Sphere tremor, even though her body was in the tower and these Quintessentialists were so far away.

Something tickled her senses and she looked skyward, seeing a familiar blur that extended from the tip of the tower to the outside walls of the Academy. The Masters had assembled a barrier, much like the one that had been used in her trial. This shield seemed to be much thicker. Where the one at
the Trial had been nearly transparent, now she could only just make out the fuzzy shapes of buildings beyond the walls. The Great Library, the nearest building to the grounds, was just a blurry shadow.

As she watched, a demon bounded out from behind the administration building and loped toward the far gate, unguarded by the Masters who were clustered near the broken fountain. It hit the barrier at a run, its head lowered as a battering ram. Volinette heard the crack from where she was hovering. Its neck broken, the demon collapsed, twitching on the path. Whatever happened now, at least Blackbeach would be spared from the invasion. The
Quintessentialists would have to face the demons on their own.

“Volinette! We need you!”

Snapping back into her body like a taut bowstring, Volinette blinked and looked up at Baris. His face was a mask of panic, features contorted by fear.

“I’m here,” she said, shaking her head to clear the last of the cube’s fog from her mind. She realized she still had the cube in her hand and handed it to Baris. “How can I help?”

“You were supposed to be finding reinforcements.” Baris looked pained.

“I did, but it’s not good news. They’ve got their hands full. The portals are still open and Olin and Fulgent were just out by the West Gate.”

“Why?”

“They put a shield over the Academy grounds. Like at the
Trial, only a lot more powerful.”

Baris looked crestfallen, his eyes taking on a haunted darkness that hurt her heart.

“They sealed us in. We’re going to die in here.”

“They saved the city,” she said firmly, hoping to quell his panic. “We’ll make it out of this. We just need to figure out how to close those portals.”

“How are we gonna do that when the demons just keep coming? The bodies are probably waist deep out there.”

“Wait a minute,” Volinette said suddenly. “Hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That’s my point. It’s quiet. It hasn’t been this quiet since we got here.”

The apprentices were a huddled mass against the far curve of the wall. The journeymen were crouched by the barricade, their faces drawn and haggard. Every now and then, they’d peek over the edge and then hunker back down. The howls and screams of the assaulting demons were gone. Uneasy silence had settled over the tower like a musty blanket.

“I never thought the quiet would creep me out,” Baris said, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Check the entry hall.”

“Now? Really?”

“Hurry up, or let me do it. Who knows how long it’ll be before they’re back. Better to know, right? We can’t stay here forever.”

Baris clutched the cube so hard his fingers turned white and passed into his spirit form. A moment later
, he opened his eyes and a wide grin spread across his face.

“Adamon’s here! Olin too. They’re in the entrance hall. The portal is gone.”

“Okay, we need to get out of here. We’re safer with Adamon and Olin. Come on.”

She trotted back to the barricade. The journeymen looked dead on their feet. Volinette had wondered earlier about the apprentices being able to continue with
their education. Now, looking at the journeymen, she doubted any of them would ever fully recover from what they’d been through.

“We need to tear down the barricade and get downstairs,” she said to the older journeyman. “Adamon and Olin are down there.”

“How do you know?”

Baris held out hand, displaying the cube. “We’ve been keeping an eye on things between waves. We need to get out of here now. If we don’t do it now, we might not be able to later.”

“We were told to stay here.”

Volinette cast an appraising eye at the journeyman. He was only a couple years older than she was, and he wasn’t nearly as confident as he let on. She left Baris arguing with their appointed guardians. She trotted over to the cowering apprentices.

“The Inquisitors are in the entrance hall. You all want to get out of this room, right?”

There were nods and murmurs of assent.

“Okay, then we need to go now…and we need to be quick and quiet. Can all of you do that for me?”

The idea of getting out of the room they’d been trapped in appealed to most of the apprentices. They followed Volinette willingly to the barricade, where Baris was still arguing with their protectors.

“Listen,” she interrupted. “We’re leaving. Come with us, or don’t, I don’t care. If you want to stay here, I wish you luck, but we’re going. Two of the most powerful Inquisitors in the realm are two floors down, and they can protect us better than we can protect ourselves.”

A moment later, she’d summoned the power of a gale and directed it at the already battered barricade. It tumbled aside like so many matchsticks. Getting past the bodies of the demons they had killed was far more complicated. It was slow going, but Volinette managed to lead the apprentices to the landing. She listened at the lift shaft, then at the head of each set of stairs, and heard nothing that sounded the return of the rampaging horde of demons. Baris brought up the rear of the column of students, with the journeymen tagging along behind him.

Reminding them to be as quiet as they could, they worked their way down the stairs. A few dead demons lay across the stairs. It took time to get around the massive hulks of the bodies after she’d made sure they were dead. The landing of the second floor looked as if a wholesale massacre had taken place. There were many more dead Quintessentialists among the dead demons here, and Volinette urged everyone not to look at the carnage as they passed.

They moved into the next stairwell, the one that would lead them to the entrance hall and would determine whether the risk of their move was a gamble that would pay off. The last few steps seemed to be more imposing than she remembered. As her foot touched the smooth glass floor of the entry hall, she looked out and saw Olin and Adamon still standing there. She’d never been so relieved to see anyone in her entire life.