Chapter 23 #3
But the device listened. The barriers disappeared, and the light level dramatically lowered in the laboratory. Only the glows of a few artifacts and Jhiton’s foul swords gave off illumination. But it was enough for the prisoners to realize they were free and to hurry out of the alcove.
“Go up to the castle,” Syla yelled, waving urgently at them. “I’m going to—” She almost said blow the place up, but she caught Jhiton looking over at her.
Vorik was on one knee a few yards from him, his sword raised as he struggled to rise again, but Jhiton didn’t continue his advance toward him. From the beginning, he’d been focused on Vorik, but now he turned and strode toward Syla.
“I’m going to follow you!” she yelled to the prisoners, not wanting to give away her plan. Just because Jhiton was possessed didn’t mean he didn’t understand. She didn’t want to warn him.
“Syla,” Fel barked, rushing into the laboratory with Teyla.
“You need to get out of here too!” Syla waved for them to return to the tunnel. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Fel looked at Jhiton and kept coming.
“Don’t let him cut you!” Syla yelled. “It’ll kill you. I can’t heal it.”
More roars came from the direction of the cliffs.
You and Agrevlari need to get out of the way, Syla warned as she reached out with her mind toward the weapons platform.
She was farther away now. Would it hear her? Would she be able to command it to fire again?
You need our help! Wreylith replied.
I’m going to fire a projectile from the weapons platform at the cliff. And that hole.
Wreylith roared again. With defiance? Frustration? Either way, Syla hoped it included acquiescence. The prisoners reached the tunnel and hurried away, Relvin in the lead, eager to escape. Maybe he had a sense of what would happen.
Fel reached his target, but Jhiton moved with such speed and power that he knocked Fel flying in an instant. It had happened so quickly that Syla hadn’t even seen Jhiton’s attack. Behind him, Vorik rose to his feet. Bleeding from myriad wounds, he rushed at Jhiton once more.
Syla felt the weapons platform acknowledge her and respond.
“Stay back from him, Vorik!” she yelled, trying to add power to her voice so that he would obey.
But Jhiton had almost reached Syla and lifted his swords. As she skittered back, she commanded the weapons platform to launch. Four projectiles sprang forth and sped toward the cliff. She couldn’t see them but sensed them and their routes.
Vorik swung at Jhiton from behind. Jhiton spun, deflecting his slash, then kicked and knocked Vorik away once more.
Good. Three of the projectiles slammed into the rock around the tunnel entrance, blowing huge slabs of the cliff free, but one found the opening and entered.
Blazing silver, it sped into the laboratory. Jhiton must have sensed it because he spun and threw one of his swords at it.
Syla swore, afraid that might intercept or deflect the projectile, as he’d once used a knife to knock aside an explosive she’d hurled at him.
And the two powers did meet, not ten feet away from him.
They blew up with a huge blast of light and energy.
It flung Syla against the stone wall again, and her head struck, pain lancing through her skull.
This time, she couldn’t recover and slumped to the ground, unconsciousness threatening.
She tried to push it away, afraid that Jhiton hadn’t been struck and that he would survive and kill her and Vorik.
She might never waken again, never get a chance to thank Vorik for helping and say once more that she loved him.
But blackness won out, and, as magic swirled in the air all around her, she lost consciousness.
Each breath brought pain, but Vorik managed to stay conscious as he lay on his side, his vision slowly clearing after the tremendously bright and powerful blast. Had that attack come from the weapons platform? It must have.
He could make out Jhiton, down to one sword and lowered to a single knee. He’d kept the projectile from hitting him, but he’d been so close to the blast. It had to have hurt him.
Vorik tried to summon the strength to rise but couldn’t.
He could feel malevolent energy in him, oozing through his body from all the places where Jhiton had bypassed his defenses and stabbed or slashed him.
It would kill him, he realized numbly, but he needed to save Syla first. She’d been knocked into a wall and wasn’t moving.
Her bodyguard was down too, and all the prisoners had escaped and fled.
Vorik had wanted that, but now there was nobody left to help Syla. She would be an easy target.
But Jhiton struggled to rise, and Vorik sensed Agrevlari and Wreylith approaching. Earlier, they’d been outside the cliff, unable to get in, but now they were entering. Had one of those projectiles blown open the way?
Stop Jhiton, he told Agrevlari. Please.
Stones cracked, and thuds sounded. Maybe the way wasn’t entirely clear.
Jhiton rose and turned toward Syla with his one remaining sword. He looked dazed and confused, but then determination solidified on his face.
“No,” Vorik rasped and again tried to rise.
She has proven herself, a feminine voice said.
That wasn’t Wreylith, and Vorik couldn’t tell where it came from.
Many times, a gentle male voice said with a laugh.
That couldn’t be the storm god, could it? No, it sounded kindly rather than malevolent and mad.
She will again unite humanity, the female voice said.
She is the one to do so, the male agreed.
A silver glow started up near Syla—no on Syla. Jhiton paused.
The glow intensified, outlining her body and then growing so bright that Vorik could no longer see her through it.
Jhiton stepped back, but some of the silver light flowed toward him.
He turned and tried to run for the exit, but Wreylith appeared with Agrevlari behind her.
She roared, and Jhiton paused. He lifted his black sword, but the silver glow caught him, enrobing him fully, and soon he also disappeared within it.
Would he be killed? Sorrow filled Vorik, but he reminded himself that his brother should have died in the mine. Maybe he even had died there and only his body and a few memories, that which had been needed to serve the whims of the storm god, had survived.
Are you alive? Agrevlari asked, turning his head as the silver light brightened.
Barely, Vorik replied, and I don’t know if these wounds will kill me. They—
Some of the silver light spread toward him, and Vorik gasped as a rush of pure divine power filled him.
He almost blacked out as the magic seemed to tear through his body.
It wasn’t healing magic, and he wondered if he was to be killed because he was a stormer, because he’d acted against Syla’s people.
But as he continued to breathe, he realized the silver magic was driving out the black magic, the infection that Jhiton’s swords had delivered.
Was it eradicating the storm god’s magic within Jhiton too?
Vorik couldn’t tell. If it did that, Jhiton might soon be dead.
It could be all that was ambulating him.
The magic left Vorik, the silver light all around growing less intense, and he could see the laboratory again.
The fog was being swept out, and he sensed the vestiges of the storm god’s magic disappearing with it.
Above the islands, above all the Kingdom, the clouds were dissipating, and the sky was returning to normal.
And did he sense that the hole in the shield had been repaired?
Movement brought Vorik’s focus back to the laboratory, and he groped around for the sword he hadn’t realized he’d dropped. If Jhiton was coming after him…
No, Jhiton lay on the ground in the spot where the silver light had enveloped him. Though it had also faded there, he wasn’t moving.
It was Syla who was crawling toward Vorik, exhausted weariness emanating from her, but her eyes were bright with awareness and lingering power. She reached his side and rested a hand on his chest.
“You’re alive,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” Vorik’s throat hurt—everything hurt—but that didn’t keep him from adding, “I wanted to see you again.”
“I’m glad. May I use my magic to heal you?”
She didn’t look like she had the energy left for that, but worry filled her eyes, and he suspected he was in bad shape.
“Yes, of course,” he said.
One of her eyebrows twitched. “It wasn’t always of course.”
He remembered their night in the temple, how he’d told her not to use her magic on him because he hadn’t wanted to risk feeling beholden to her and sharing his people’s secrets.
“It is now,” he said firmly.
Syla smiled. “Good.” The pleased relief in her eyes suggested she’d also been thinking of that time. “Good,” she said again and patted his chest.
Much gentler magic than the gods had used flowed from her fingers and into him, and he closed his eyes, feeling safe with her. Always.