Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five) Read online

  She came to a sheer wall of rock that sloped slowly backward, and had to scramble several feet upward to reach the only hole in its surface. She listened at the opening for a minute, lighting a tiny flame on one finger to make sure there was nothing inside. There was not, so she slipped inside, sliding for a few meters before entering an enormous, bowl-shaped clearing.

  The space was illuminated by an undulating red light from above, which cast shadows of dark magenta at odd angles all ‘round the gently sloping edge of the bowl. The center of the bowl was obscured by a deep red pool, over which was raised a round stone platform, suspended by four equidistant flights of stone stairs, like the points of a compass. In the center of the platform was a waist-high pillar of stone, with a small metal bell set on its flat top. Where the scarlet light fell strongest, she noticed a small hammer of bronze lying to one side.

  There was a white skull set in the base of the pillar. It had the pointed shape and curling horns of a mountainhorn, but it was far too large. No… oh, no… no…

  She had seen something like this only once before, in the ordeal immediately after Gramling’s tortures. Something was very, very wrong.

  Silence. She cocked her head, realizing for the first time what had been putting her on edge for the past few minutes. There had been a sound buzzing in the back of her head for some time, barely loud enough to be heard, but steadily growing louder the farther she progressed. Now, all at once, it had ended, and she might not have noticed it except for the sudden absence. What could it have been? It had almost sounded like…

  …Insects. Oh Aura. Oh, Aura of the Heavens.

  Cjathrier.

  Something twinkled in the air above her. She looked up, expectant, and saw the shiny black circle of a testing portal some two hundred feet above her, surrounded by jagged stalactites. It was directly above the pool, the platform, and the bell. Elia’s Striding senses went wild. She leaped from her crouch, hurtling down the incline as fast as she could. Without warning, the buzzing, chittering sound at the edge of her hearing began again, louder than ever.

  Then the underworld itself broke loose around her.

  The ground shattered in a hundred different places, all between her and the pool, as an entire horde of the writhing, shrieking beasts broke free from slumber, intent on only one thing: death.

  Her death.

  Bloody light reflected off their armored carapaces and glistening mandibles as they wrung themselves free of the stony ground. She sprinted faster, pushing herself to the very limit of her endurance and beyond… but the distance was too great. She would never make it before…

  …She was in among the monsters now. Only moments, and they would see her. She tried to remember the things Gramling had taught her, drawing from the shadows and bending the light to make her harder to see…

  It only bought her a few more seconds. Cjathrier didn’t need to see her to kill her. In a moment, the closest of the abominations caught her scent, screaming and striking at her with its serrated jaws, mandibles clicking and whirring in the light.

  She hurled her knife with deadly precision; the creature twitched as the blade shot into its open maw, plunging deep into the back of its throat. Blood sprayed and its strike went awry, missing her by a foot. She leaped over the thrashing body, free for a few more precious seconds… but she cursed herself for losing the knife so quickly. She’d need it soon…

  …As in now! A second of the beasts lunged at her, and she threw herself into a tight roll that hurt her back as she slammed into the curving slope. The first Cjathrier was still writhing when its hive-brother missed her and hit it instead. A spray of smoking gore went up behind her as the monsters collided, but neither of them would be out for long…

  Time to speed up. She felt the water particles in the air, seized them, and pushed on them with her Sea Striding, propelling herself forward at twice her usual pace. A few yards more, and the ground exploded with two more Cjathrier, which immediately turned on her with foaming jaws.

  Cupping her hands, she sprayed the first one with a blistering Fellspark. The power of the blast spun her sideways; using the air-water, she turned the spin into a twisting flip, narrowly avoiding the seething maw of the next Cjathrier as she curled over its body backwards. Now she thanked the Aura her hands were free. A handspring, another roll, and a dodge to the side followed in rapid succession.

  She left a trail of tangled, furious Cjathrier behind her, but there were dozens more surrounding her on every side. Heart pounding, she frantically wove in and out of the living forest of creatures, all the time aware that it would be impossible to escape.

  Another dodge, another narrow shave… and it was over. A seething mass of the things walled her in on every side! She had nowhere to go, and time was up.

  “NO!” she shouted, projecting with her voice and her mind. She thrust out her arms, turning in a tight circle, and white-blue Fellsparks burst from each hand, lancing outward in a cocoon of hellish flame that incinerated everything within yards.

  The red light of the cavern was drowned in the torrent of pale fire. Elia closed her eyes, falling to one knee from the strain, but she kept turning… kept summoning the fell flames… kept giving.

  It seemed she would blow away like ash on the wind… but she did not. It seemed like she would melt from the burning strain… but she did not. The unearthly shrieks of the Cjathrier all around her felt like they would tear her apart… but they did not. There were a thousand reasons she should die… but, through sheer force of will and force of Striding, she did not.

  Never give up. Never give in. Never surrender. She recited the words to herself again and again, intermingled with broken bits of hymn and verse she’d learned in the Sacred Place as a child. On and on the inferno around her seemed to rage… on and on the wails and gnashing of dying Cjathrier echoed…

  …But bit by bit, the world began to grow quiet, until finally it was absolutely still, save for the constant roar of her Fellsparks. When the time came, she felt the last reserves of her power drain away. Her defenses melted away, and the Fellsparks each shuddered, flickered, and died. She collapsed on the small space of open ground, gasping.

  On every side lay the smoking husks of half the Cjathrier in the crater. Some still twitched in their death throes… but not more than a few steps beyond the farthest of them lay the stone stairs, the pillar, and the bell.

  But the corpses had not just been burned… they’d been burned, blasted, and somehow frozen blue! What she had done… whatever she had done, it had been more than a Fellspark. Had she melded Water and Fire? Pit and Sea?

  Stormspark. The name echoed in her mind as if another had spoken it… but she accepted it. There was no time to muse, no matter what had happened.

  Elia forced herself to rise, whimpering in spite of herself. Not only did she feel drained past belief, but she was bleeding from a dozen places where she had been nipped and cut, or bruised… In the heat of the fight, it was easier to ignore, but now that the climax had been reached, the wounds almost overcame her.

  Just… one step… at a time. So she moved around the corpse of one Cjathrier, jumped another, slipped under the arch of a third… one step at a time. She could do it. She was almost there. Just ring the bell, she thought, and you’ll make it. It’ll work… just… ring… the bell. One more test, and it’s over. You’ll have won.

  The words were a lie. She would never win, until the Golden One himself had gone to whatever hideous fate awaited him beyond this life… but burnt, bloodied, and tired, she could almost make herself believe.

  She navigated the graveyard of corpses, slowly, and at last stepped foot on the first stone step.

  Deep-thundering explosions rocked the cavern all around, and she fell heavily onto the next few steps as the whole world tried to shake itself to bits. Moaning, guttural roars filled the air, as a second wave of Cjathrier burst free from the rubble. These were larger, and more bloated, with gooey spines along their back that hung with ragge
d flaps of rotting flesh… their own.

  No… NO!

  Sobbing with sheer panic, Elia forced her body to pull her up the last few steps. The Cjathrier surged inward around her spitting and screaming, chittering so loudly she couldn’t hear her own thoughts.

  She slipped, banging her chin on the edge of the bell pillar. Stars raced across her vision, and she fumbled for the hammer, trying to rise…

  …when something enormous latched onto her upper body with fangs of steel, almost knocking her unconscious with its heating, stinking breath.

  A Cjathrier had her. Its mandibles slashed at her face and arms as its massive mouth wrenched her off the platform and into the air. The horror of the situation pierced her mind like the monster’s teeth pierced her body, and her broken consciousness spread outward like the shattered wreckage of a downed ship.

  It flexed its jaws, ready to snap her in half… and her eyes widened in shock.

  Salvation. The pool!

  Reaching out with her mind, Elia seized the contents of the blood pool beneath the platform. Desperation pushed her far beyond the usual limits, as she struck at the Cjathrier with all the combined might of her rage and fear.

  A bolt of the foul liquid surged up from below, frozen into a titan’s crimson blade by the Power of Sea. It stabbed the Cjathrier just behind the head, severing its maw from its body only inches from her flailing hand. In an explosion of carnage, Elia fell free of the black jaws, tumbling back onto the platform, which had cracked and tilted to one side, spilling the bronze hammer into the frothing depths of the pool.

  Pain. Searing, numbing, suffocating pain. It lanced through her entire body, wracking her with bloody coughs as she struggled against all odds to stay conscious… and alive. She twisted, breathing despite the hideous suffering it caused. She had to get up… had to hit the blasted bell with her bare hands, if nothing else…

  Another Cjathrier towered over the platform, muck dripping from its mandibles. It looked as if it had been feasting on its brethren.

  “Enough…” she moaned, desperate. “Enough…”

  The Cjathrier lunged.

  “ENOUGH!” she screamed, lurching to her feet and striking out with her right hand.

  The monster of the depths froze, unmoving, only inches from her outstretched hand, as Sea Striding blazed in her veins once more. It twitched, sputtered, and wrung its body, but its head remained immobile.

  She had it in her grip. She had its blood in her grip. And she was going to kill the Creator-forsaken thing, if it killed her as well.

  As the rest of the Cjathrier slithered closer, she made her hand into a fist. The blood in her prisoner’s head boiled, and it shook with convulsions, but still she did not let go.

  You are a beast. Not a person. I am right to slay you. Be gone. Be not. Die.

  She squeezed her fist shut, pulling her arm back, pulling the very blood from the thing’s head.

  A thin line of red-green ooze burst from the middle of the Cjathrier’s mouth, and she drew it towards her. More and more she siphoned, ripping the very life-blood from its head, killing it slowly from the inside. More and more… more and more…

  The other Cjathrier formed a circle around the deadly combat, hissing and spitting.

  She pulled.

  The Cjathrier’s skull imploded, crunching inward as she sucked the last of the liquid from its head.

  Form the elements with your mind. Shape them however you wish. It was Gramling’s voice, speaking to her from across the gulf of their minds.

  She pulled the crimson fluid towards her, and forced it into a frozen shape of the hardest ice. One word formed her vision.

  Sword.

  What resulted was a jagged, curving blade unlike any other she had ever seen. She grabbed it out of the air with both hands as it dropped towards her, and the icy handle molded to the contours of her grip. A bloodsword. A creation of her own Striding.

  The corpse of the bloated monster toppled to the side, shattering one flight of stone stairs. The ring of Cjathrier surged inward. Elia spun, smashing the bloodsword down across the bronze bell. The blade broke into a hundred oozing fragments, splattering her neck and body.

  The bell tolled with a clear, crystal ping…

  …Ten meters between her and the Cjathrier. She slipped in her own blood, falling…

  …The black glass portal shuddered and fell from its roost, dropping down upon her from above…

  …Five meters. The portal was falling. It was going to crush her. Creator. O Creator…

  The portal hit with a sickening squelch, consuming the pillar, platform, and Elia herself just as Cjathrier mandibles scraped the blood-slicked stones.

  Darkness fell. She tumbled through nothingness, wounded beyond recovery, barely able to process the fact that she had passed the third portion of the test.

  Three down. One left.

  I can’t go on…

  Chapter Eleven: Searing

  Elia felt herself leaving the portal. There was a tug that rippled through her from toe to forehead, and she slipped out of the blackness onto a smooth metal floor. There she lay sprawled for many seconds, not moving, not trying, not fighting, not caring. Two minutes, Gramling had said. Don’t pause for longer. But she ignored the admonition. It hurt. Everything hurt. She was too tired. She couldn’t go on.

  But you must.

  She looked up through a veil of blood. The chamber, the last chamber, was a circle only a hundred feet across. Three grooved circles were carved or molded into the floor, and just inside the smallest was another portal… but instead of holding black glass, it held only the purest white light.

  She was dying. If there were more traps, she would never make it. It was already too hard to think… the loss of blood through the bite wounds the Cjathrier had given her severely limited her chances.

  A squelching sound interrupted her despair, causing her to look bewilderedly up. Then she saw them. Nineteen more portals, identical to hers, lined the room’s round wall. And as she watched, the other Acolytes began to step, fall, tumble, or crawl out of them. Directly across from her, Tressa toppled out of the blackness… screaming. Her hair was on fire, and she was bleeding tremendously.

  Elia’s heart caught fire at the sound. No! Please… not her. Not her!

  Gasping for air and life, she reached out to the largest circle’s edge, only a few feet away. Jamming her fingertips in the groove, she dragged herself across it, desperate to help the Kinn girl while she still had the smallest ounce of life left.

  As her heart passed over the curving line, it began to pound in her chest so hard she thought it would rip itself free.

  The world flashed white.

  ~

  Elia was no longer crawling. She was no longer dying. She felt… peaceful. She was walking on ice, cool ice that reminded her of the berg where she had lived as a child. She was on the berg… and approaching her own village from the East. Creator Almighty…

  She was home.

  The wind whipped her hair- blue-brown, as it should be, instead of the unnatural black- and played with the streaming end of her First Form dress. She stopped, gasping…

  …She was a full nymph again. She could feel it. Elia almost jumped in joy… she was free! The sun on her face, the waves all around, the salt in the air… it was perfect.

  “Elia!” called a hearty voice from around one of the nearby Icewaves. She walked quickly around it, trembling with expectation.

  “Yes?” She answered, hurrying. It was the voice of her father. She turned the corner…

  …and screamed. The village… her village… was in flames. Corpses lay scattered about, frozen in death throes, and the tents in the Tribe Circle were sending mountains of oily smoke heavenward as they burned out their lives in minutes.

  In the midst of it all lay her father, bleeding from horrific bite-wounds in his neck and side, his face a mask of suffering. The ice beneath him was tinged red with his blood… he had been there for a long time.<
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  “No! Father! Father…” she sobbed, racing forward heedlessly to fall at his side, tears streaming down her face. What she had mistaken for vigor in his voice had actually been the urgency of death. “Father…” she gasped, holding him in her arms and pouring healing energies into him… but it was too late, and she knew it.

  “E… Elia…” he moaned, blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. “You have to… help me… Have to… stop this… Have… to…” He began shaking, and his teeth chattered so hard he bit his tongue, spilling more blood. Elia wiped it away, weeping, as the cold wind bit into her with renewed force.