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WHAT SENSE IS THIS? A vermillion haze, so warm. Zan. She engulfs me in love, but this is not the neuron forest where we usually wander. We float for ages. Is it ages? Time is elusive here. I hear deep tones, booming and creaking like the shifting of earthly tectonic plates. In the distance, blue fire that coalesces into a circle, spinning fast against the Void, an opposite circle, more sensed than seen, a slash of velvet, black, so very black. They dance, create, and destroy with the energy of their perfectly Balanced movement, pushing us through time and space. My love, we can dance with them. They are Balance. Creation and Destruction, life and death, love and hate. The Guardians are here, watching, holding, adoring from their still center. We can join that power. Come with me, my love. We belong and can taste the eternal circle. They have told me, the Guardians. Can you hear them? Love will power our mission. Hatred will power our mission. We are ready.
And they were through, into the frigid wind of the Wasteland plain, surrounded by foothills, silhouettes of mountains in the distance, the din and stink of battle flying at them in tattered waves. Soon, a deep hum subsumed all sound. Zan’s dark-helmeted head darted about. Pellus gazed upward. At first, Barakiel could not tell the source of the hum. It seemed to be all around them, but he felt a pull and raised his eyes to the Stream. The vibration came first, building in the reddish-brown dirt beneath his feet, and then the fists of light pounding in the heavens, faster and faster and faster, followed by swirling currents of deepest black and frosted white. They sought Barakiel. Glistening shafts of onyx shot horizontally from parts unknown while glowing pearl reached down from the Stream. The two met, entwined, and pumped into Barakiel like lifeblood, a welcome to the Realm. His Realm.
I understand now, father. This is what you would have been if Yahoel had stayed with you. If you had not been deprived of her love. What you both would have been. I will honor love. I will return Jeduthan to her mate.
Barakiel roared, limbs tingling, chest pounding with bloodlust. He readied his sword, its blade shimmering with energy.
“Zan, you’re with me,” he said. She fell in behind him and they moved forward, toward the pitched battle happening on the twilit plain between them and the entrance to the dungeons, which were dimly visible behind the dull green glow of an adept’s barrier. “Pellus! Seek us in the dungeons when you can.”
The adept nodded and was lost to their vision as he concealed himself and sped off on his mission. Barakiel pushed into mêlée, systematically slaughtering every enemy within a ten-swordspan radius. Zan took out a wider circle with the opal-buttoned multitargeting function on her blaster, slaps that slowed the fighters so Remiel’s tired warriors could meet them on equal footing. Barakiel heard his comrades shouting his name, then chanting it as the Stream played a symphony above him and the blue-dancing-with-black-velvet fire played in his mind’s eye, pulsing to the rhythm of death beat by his blade. When an explosion of fluorescent green crackled in the air near the dungeons, Barakiel joined in the shouts that went up from Remiel’s forces.
The barrier! Pellus is giving them all they can handle.
Shortly after, Barakiel and Zan penetrated the first defensive line. Except for a few fighters that got through with them thanks to a blast from Zan’s weapon that sizzled across churning limbs with a sound like a steak on a grill, Remiel’s troops could not follow. Abraxos’ forces closed the gap until Barakiel, a handful of fellow fighters, and Zan formed a slow-moving circle, pushing inexorably toward the half-reconstructed barrier and the massive doors to the dungeons, clouds of dust rising all around as band after band of foes attempted to stop them. Surrounded as they were, without scores of Remiel’s warriors to keep their adversaries occupied, Barakiel knew Zan would be a target. He stopped until she was beside him. As soon as the swell of enemies had closed behind them, she’d altered her targeting and blasted now with killing force, but the sheer number of enemy fighters meant she struggled to keep them at bay even with her augmented helmet. Her targeting was only as fast as her fingers could move. Barakiel was about to snatch her up when a knot of seven rushed her at once, the warrior in front bravely taking the death strike so the others could reach her. One knocked the weapon from her hand while another sliced at her legs, the blade stopped only by the miracle of her suit. Barakiel did not wait to see how many blows it could sustain. He bellowed with such resonance that he stunned his enemies with sound. With a glance toward the still flashing Stream, he became a whirling dervish of violence, each blow delivered so quickly his enemies seemed to be standing still as if submitting to his judgment. The warriors foolish enough to threaten Zan were dead in a few pulses. He placed her blaster back in her hands, set her on his hip, and resumed his blood-splattering march to the dungeons.
By now, they were only fifty swordspans away. The handful of Remiel’s warriors who had followed them behind the first defensive line had fallen, one by one, and the cracks and booms of clashing adepts joined the chaos of sound that hung over the plain and echoed from the jagged mountains. The main battle had crept closer to Barakiel and Zan’s position, but Abraxos’ first defensive line still stood.
This will not do. Not if we hope to escape easily with Jeduthan. Not if we wish to liberate the prisoners and give them the chance to flee.
“Zan! Put your earpiece to my mouth,” he shouted. She obliged. “I will return to the defensive line and run across the width of the battlefield,” he said. “I want you to strafe every enemy warrior you can. We must help Remiel’s weary fighters break through.”
“Copy that,” she said in his ear. “Ready when you are.” She wrapped her legs around him as she had done so often when they loved each other, her strong thighs now working in the service of Destruction. She rested her weapon on his right shoulder, peering out between the blaster and his head. He turned on the speed. When he had positioned himself so that Zan faced into the enemy forces he slowed enough for her targeting system to function. They zoomed down the line, disrupting the formation. Barakiel heard only the Stream, the furious sapphire torrent above him. He gripped Zan’s body as elation took him.
Has my purpose ever been so clear, so free from doubt? My heart beats to match the Stream. I am grateful.
When he reached the edge of the plain he turned in a grand sweep and increased his speed. A glance assured him that he and Zan’s lethal commotion had given Remiel’s fighters the opportunity they needed. He stopped to seek out his erstwhile commander and found her mowing down every minion of Abraxos who dared confront her. The few warriors from her personal detail who’d survived the battle with the Corrupted were once more at her side. Even though many among the enemy saw Barakiel standing there, none approached.
So, they are not stupid. Zan and I will reach the doors unhindered.
Uncorking all his speed, Barakiel reached the last line of defense before Zan could complete a breath. Again, the warriors hesitated to attack, shocked to find him standing in front of them. Behind his frightened adversaries, he faintly sensed the fluctuating energy of the barrier erected by one of Abraxos’ adepts. This close, he could see better through its faint green glow, to the dungeons’ doors set in the reddish-brown blocks of the entranceway. He brought his lips to Zan’s earpiece to cut through the noise of the boisterous Stream, clashing swords, and howling wind. “I will signal the force stationed in cliffs above and then help Pellus remove the barrier.”
Zan nodded and gave him the okay sign. He grinned.
The dungeon guards are in for a rude surprise.
A few steps closer to the barrier and Barakiel could feel the adepts’ battle, one that raged mostly unseen around them—electromagnetic waves, streams of particles, manipulations of air, dirt, temperature. Occasionally, a burst of light, a cascade of color, would manifest as Pellus confronted adepts who’d had half a phase to practice in this spot. Though he hadn’t succeeded in collapsing their barrier and keeping it down, his efforts helped nonetheless. Barakiel suspected that the traitors were so consumed by the struggle they would have no effort to spare to reinforce the doors. Not that these doors appeared to need reinforcing. Twenty swordspans high, they were constructed of the strongest alloy ever developed by the artisans.
Even the sturdiest door has hinges.
Zan had shifted in his arms to get a look at the last line of enemy warriors in front of the barrier. She spoke in his ear. “Will you, or shall I?”
Something about her tone, as if she was having a marvelous time, sparked laughter. He let it out in great riffs, and though he could not hear her because of his own noise, vibrations told him Zan laughed too. He leaned to her earpiece. “I will, my love.”
By this time, the last line of warriors had decided to attack in a wedge that would curl at both ends in an attempt to flank them. Barakiel’s laughter bubbled through once more as he remembered the tactical meeting in which he had proposed this formation to the commanders. With Zan laying down covering fire to his rear, he pivoted from side to side, severing heads and legs and arms until the last defensive line before the barrier fell apart, its warriors fleeing to the safety of the main force. Lifting his gleaming sword, Barakiel signaled the warriors hiding in the cliffs above the dungeons.
With their descent set in motion, Barakiel faced the barrier. He recalled the onyx-and-pearl river of might that had flowed into him when he first set foot back in the Covalent Realm. “You may get a bit hot, my love,” he said, then walked into the translucent wall. He felt a strange pressure that pushed and pulled simultaneously until it abruptly subsided with a million pops, sharp and dry. He absorbed every shred of energy those adepts had poured into that barrier as if he were the god of the chukka beasts condensed to the size of a warrior. Everyone nearby stopped moving, gaping at the spot where the barrier had been. Zan hooted in celebration and patted his face to assure him she was all right. Barakiel imagined the faces of the adepts when they realized a single warrior had absorbed their double-constructed barrier like it was no more than air. He had faith that Pellus would prevent them from reforming the structure until Remiel’s forces could storm the dungeons. The outer defensive line had nearly collapsed, and when it did, the fight would become a free-for-all. He could not say how many of Remiel’s warriors would make it through, but those that did would find the mammoth doors wide open.
Zan used her opal multitargeting function on the warriors near the doors. Stunned or wounded, they became easier prey for Remiel’s fighters who’d dropped down from the fractured cliffs above. Barakiel tightened his arm around Zan and pirouetted into the fight, enemy heads thudding and rolling at his feet.
When most of the warriors who’d been guarding the doors were dead or dying, Barakiel set Zan down beside him. He glanced at the Stream, still a chaos of pearl, black, and sapphire, seized the handle of one massive door, and yanked. With a high-pitched squeal, the metal tongue of the lock gave way. He pried the door open, the screeches and scrapes growing louder as the larger mechanism was destroyed. Pushing his foot against the bottom, Barakiel reached as high as he could along the door’s edge and pulled with all his might. It ripped away from its hinges. When he had finished, Zan stepped up and cut the hinges on the other side with her emerald laser. The door fell forward with a deafening crash and an effusion of dust. Barakiel looked at her with raised brows.
‘You should have just asked me,” she said. They entered the dungeons.
Zan noticed the difference in the atmosphere. “It seems warmer. Can I take my helmet off? Is it protected like inside the city’s barrier?”
“No. The protection here is de minimis, barely enough to keep the prisoners alive.”
“Helmet it is then.”
Among the corridors and tiny cells built from reddish-brown stone in blocks a swordspan thick, enemy warriors leaped from hidden clefts. Barakiel dispatched them easily. Zan refrained from firing her weapon in the close quarters and stuck close by Barakiel, warning him when her targeting system detected movement. Soon, enemy fighters charged down the corridors in twos and threes, but in the narrow spaces, their greater numbers were useless. Barakiel killed them one after the other with no more effort than it would take to move sacks of grain out of his path. He left the liberation of the prisoners to the warriors who’d come down from the cliffs and who skirmished with random enemies charging in from the shadows. Barakiel and Zan marched down into the dank, dark nether reaches of the dungeons, into the most heavily guarded area—according to Pellus—where they suspected the highest-value prisoners were kept in thick-walled, frigid cells. Surely, this meant the former leadership of the Realm—and Jeduthan.
Five levels down, only muffled sound came from above. The hiss of falling sand came from somewhere and dim light orbs cast the narrow halls in putrid yellow. Surprise attacks had trickled to nothing. As they walked, Zan stuck her face up to small grates in the doors of the cells to assure those inside that all political prisoners would eventually be freed. Barakiel stopped at an intersection and motioned her closer.
“This corridor is different from the others. You see, it has no cells along its walls. I also sense structured energy. If it is an adept’s barrier, there may be someone down there we want to find.”
Halfway down, they did indeed encounter a barrier, but of lesser strength than the one outside. Barakiel absorbed it then darted into an alcove to discover the adept whose leg he’d broken on the mountain in Idaho. “You!” he said, then grabbed her by the throat. He stepped back into the corridor with her as she squirmed in her black robes. “Look who I found lurking in the alcove. She may be a source of information, my love, but she is an adept, so please keep your distance.” Barakiel scrutinized her unkempt brown hair, her gray eyes. “Yes, I am sure. She is the same adept I encountered during my first fight in Idaho.”
Zan moved away, her weapon at the ready. Barakiel released his prisoner and pushed her through the narrow entrance back into the alcove, using his huge body to hem her in. She crouched and eyed him fearfully.
“Unless you want me to break your leg a second time, you will tell me who is at the end of this corridor.”
When the adept remained silent, Barakiel stepped towards her. She raised her hands and backed away. “Very well, I will tell you. You offered me mercy. You could have killed me in the Earthly Realm.”
“I might kill you yet,” Barakiel said in his best murderous voice.
“Please, I am only doing as I am told. You will find Council President Ravellen at the end of this corridor.”
Ravellen! An adept almost as skilled as Pellus. She can help.
“Excellent! Where is Jeduthan, mate to Pellus?”
“I, uh, I do not know.”
“You lie!” Barakiel thundered.
“I do not. I do not!” She cringed. “I know High Commander Camael is in a reinforced cell somewhere below only because I overheard the regular dungeon guards talking, distressed they had to imprison so illustrious a Covalent. Perhaps Jeduthan can be found below as well.”
Barakiel glanced at Zan, who shrugged. He resumed his scrutiny of the adept.
Is she truly a pawn? For all I know she was a friend of Domist, Abraxos’ dead mate, and has every reason to hate me.
“Perhaps Ravellen can tell us where to find Jeduthan,” he said. He grabbed the adept by the arm and they hurried to the end of the hall where it widened into a circular space surrounding a reinforced cell. Five guards stood in front of the door, swords wobbling in front of them, eyes darting about. Barakiel knocked the captive adept unconscious and threw her in a heap against the wall. Zan knew what he was about to do.
“Rainer, do you have to kill them?” she said in English. “They look terrified.”
“Of me, perhaps, but they are warriors. If I let them go, they might later take the life of one of Remiel’s exhausted fighters.” Zan pursed her lips and nodded. The guards barely had time to scream before Barakiel sliced off their heads. He peered through a small aperture in the fortified door to spy Ravellen lying on a rock shelf, seemingly asleep, her face cut, purple and swollen. Zan squeezed in so she could peer through as well.
“Is she drugged?” Zan asked.
“I suspect so. If it’s dire essence, we won’t be able to revive her. Only time will help, and we don’t have enough.”
“If she wakes up, she could help Pellus. I think it’s worth the time.”
“Can you cut open the door with your laser?”
“I think so.”
Though not entirely successful, Zan weakened the door enough for Barakiel to rip it from its frame. Through the burning, screeching racket, Ravellen did not move, confirming their belief that she was drugged. When the other adept regained consciousness, she tried to run to Ravellen. Barakiel grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“What do you think you are doing?”
“Is she all right? They never let me get near her to make sure she is all right.”
“As if you care,” Barakiel growled. “You are in league with Abraxos.”
Zan ran to Ravellen, removed a glove, and held a hand to her bruised neck. “Her pulse is slow but strong enough. She seems to be breathing normally.”
“Thank Balance,” said the captive adept. She fell to the floor. “I had no choice, no choice,” she sobbed. “I have looked up to Ravellen my whole life, but I was ordered to help guard her or risk ill-treatment of my loved ones. I was ordered to take warriors to the Earthly Realm to attack you, the hero who saved us from Lucifer! I did not want to do these things.”
With gentle slaps and shakes, Zan attempted to revive Ravellen, then shook her head. “What is your name?” she asked their captive as she walked back out of the cell.
“Koreth. I was Ravellen’s apprentice.”
Barakiel snapped his head to glare at her. “You are lying. Why would Abraxos assign Ravellen’s former apprentice to guard her?”
“He is arrogant! All he learned about me were the names of the Covalent he could threaten to keep me in line. He does not consult his adepts and has no idea of my relationship with Ravellen.”
“And you would submit to this treatment of her? Coward!”
“I am, I know. I am.” Koreth sniffled and curled on the floor.
“Would you like the chance to redeem yourself?” Zan crouched beside her.
“My love, we don’t have time for this,” Barakiel said in English. “I’ll kill this adept and be done with her. I showed mercy once because of your voice in my head, but the stakes are too high at the moment.”
“Look at her.” Zan gestured to the weeping adept. “That’s sincere regret, take my word for it.”
“What will we do with her? We must find Jeduthan and I’ll have to carry Ravellen.”
“Let this adept help me bring Ravellen outside, to Remiel’s warriors. They can take her away from the battle until she wakes up, and then she can help Pellus. It’ll free you up to find Jeduthan. You’ll be faster.”
Barakiel snorted. “Zan, you cannot trust this adept!”
“I don’t trust her, but I can tell when Pellus is about to get up to some of his woo-woo shit from that strange look he gets in his eyes. If she gets up to something, I’ll be able to tell. I’ll fucking shoot her.”
“Woo-woo shit?”
“You know what I mean!”
“Enemy warriors may be lurking on the upper levels. It’s too dangerous.”
“That where she comes in.” Zan pointed to the adept, who had ceased her weeping, gotten to her feet, and now looked compulsively from Zan to Barakiel in the dim antechamber as they spoke a language she didn’t understand. “She’ll conceal us. Thanks to my suit, it will be easy for me to carry Ravellen. I’ll walk with my blaster pressed to Koreth’s ribs. If she tries to bolt, I’ll shoot her. If she drops the concealment, she’ll be the first to die. That should be enough insurance. Besides, I think she wants to help Ravellen.”
“No. It’s too dangerous.”
“Rainer, we don’t have a choice. It’ll be too much, for you to protect an unconscious Ravellen, look out for me, and still do what you have to do. You had to save me outside.” She placed her hand against his chest. “And what about the trap they’ve set wherever they’re holding Jeduthan? You’re expecting one, aren’t you? You’ll handle whatever they throw at you much better if you’re unencumbered. You know it’s true.”
For the first time during this whole endeavor, Barakiel’s certainty wavered. He stared at his mate. He wished she could take off her helmet so he could kiss her. While it would indeed be better if he went on alone, Zan could not possibly anticipate every trick an adept might play, no matter what she claimed. If Koreth decided to expose her, she would likely die. He could not abide it.
Perhaps there is better insurance, as Zan called it.
“Koreth,” he said, grabbing the adept’s arm hard enough to make her cry out. “You will help my mate. You will conceal her while she carries Ravellen to safety.” He leaned closer and poured Destruction into his voice until it came out a chilling, dead thing. “If you drop the concealment or take any other measure that endangers my mate, I will hunt you down and kill you. If anything happens to her at all, I will kill you. And your loved ones. You were so concerned for their wellbeing that you turned traitor, so listen. If anything happens to my mate, I will murder them all in a manner so gruesome and painful that Abraxos himself would faint to think on it.” He gripped her arm harder, barely able to stop himself from snapping it like a toothpick. “Do you understand?”
Koreth, weeping once again, nodded.
“Speak!” Barakiel thundered.
“Yes, yes, I understand. I will help. I, I want to save Ravellen.”
“This is the best way, honey,” Zan said. She patted Barakiel’s back before she strode into the cell and hoisted the slight Ravellen onto her shoulder with ease. She came back with her weapon cocked at a battle-ready angle. “How long before she wakes up?”
“We have no way to know. It depends on when they last administered the dire essence. Koreth, when was that?”
“I do not know. I was not here.”
“Balance willing it will be soon,” Zan said.
“I wish I could kiss you.”
“I had the same thought.” Zan smiled and touched his face. “At least you can charge me up. Make sure my suit is at full power.”
Barakiel obliged, grasping her arm and thinking murderous thoughts about the Covalent who dared to keep Pellus from Jeduthan. Azure blue light raced along the beads coiled on Zan’s suit.
“Whoa. I’d rather have a kiss but that does feel good.”
“I promise you endless kisses when we have succeeded in our mission. Good luck, my love, and please be careful.”
“You too, honey.”
They moved down the corridor. When they reached the stairwell, Zan and Koreth went up and Barakiel headed down. He paused and turned for a few pulses, watching his mate trudge away, the unconscious Council president on her shoulder. He wondered if he’d just ruined his life.