From around the feet of the magus, pebbles and rocks were sucked up into his vortices of flame, glowing bright red.
I tore myself away from dreams of vengeance and ran for my life back down the tunnel.
WhumpWhumpWhumpWhump – flaming bolts of rock blasted from the vortices to explode against the cavern wall. Razored fragments of old bone and stone scythed out. The tunnel shook from multiple impacts. My left leg collapsed beneath me. I tried to keep moving, using the wall to keep myself upright. Explosions deafened me as I lurched blindly down the passage. The ceiling cracked and groaned, and finally came crashing down behind me. A dust cloud enveloped me. Choking and coughing I dragged myself forward. Visions of being buried alive kept me moving. Fragments of rock bounced off my back in eerie silence, my ears stunned and useless.
Eventually the air cleared and my ears started working again, the only noise that of my battered body scraping across the ground. A dim light in the darkness made my heart soar. I’d never been so eager to see light. No, that wasn’t true – visions of being a child locked in that room with the revenant flicked through my mind. Sweat burst from every pore.
Have to get to Charra, I told myself. Get help. My leg throbbed, the pain ramping up to searing agony that eclipsed that of my shoulder. I focused on the pain and used it to blot out my terror, crawling into the light to discover I’d left a bloody smear along the floor behind me. Jagged shards of hot rock had torn through boot and trousers to bury in flesh. My clothes still smouldered and I realized that my wounds being cauterized was the only thing saving me from bleeding out. Charra’s breathing was ragged, the red streaks angry and weeping. I had to get her out of here. If the poison didn’t kill her then that magus would when he came looking for the remains of the intruder.
The Worm of Magic was awake inside me and yelling promises to help if only I would let myself go. It was only a small terror compared to Charra dying in front of my eyes. My body was a wreck. What other option did I have? With a useless leg and a torn-up shoulder I couldn’t possibly carry her.
So I swallowed my terror and did what every part of my Collegiate indoctrination and common sense had trained me to deny. For the first time in my life I gave in to the Worm, flung wide the doors of my Gift and welcomed in unrestrained magic.
Power roared into me. I was a demigod filled with all the power of life and death. All tiredness and pain washed away and my wounds itched with quickened healing. Strength returned tenfold. The darkness retreated to a crystal-sharp half-light.
My sanity cracked. The physical world wavered around me, glimpses of other worlds and strange dimensions drifting past my eyes. I slid towards Charra, tripped out on the majesty of creation, trails of thought billowing out behind me. Below my feet lay a yawning abyss of darkness, a place I knew I could never escape. A cloud of creatures darted in and out of my thoughts like a shoal of silverfish. It was so tempting to drift off on a wave of magic, my mind gone elsewhere, leaving my body behind as a mindless animal host for the Worm of Magic, or perhaps an empty suit of meat for something else to take up residence. A dark mass blotted out my vision. The feeding things fled from a vast predator. I shuddered and flinched back to the physical, focusing solely on Charra.
I picked her up, light as air, and cradled her carefully, afraid I might crush her brittle human bones. Tendrils of dark magic were spreading towards her heart. Convinced of my own god-like power, I almost reached into her body to rip them out, but managed to stop at the last moment. My confidence was a delusion; I didn’t have the knowledge or skill to heal, and probably never would. The tides of magic roared through me, trying to twist my mind and body, but through force of will and the mental conditioning required for my talent, I resisted the worst of magic’s seductions. For now.
I broke into a sprint, feeling my way through air currents towards the freshest air, through cavern and corridor and tomb, until I came to a place that shook me to my core. My delusion of godlike power cracked and dropped away beneath me. I staggered through a doorway cut through a rock fall and into the room where I had been trapped as a child. The old stone block with strange carvings had been removed, but otherwise the room remained untouched.
I couldn’t control myself – my hand snapped out and blades of air lashed out to shred the room, gouging stone. I howled with the effort, power straining mind and body. Vulgar magic was arduous for me, something like this normally impossible. The walls started to crack and crumble. Pain roared through me. I drew deeper on the magic and flung out all my fear. I had to destroy this room. These nightmares haunted me and destroying them was the most important thing in my world.
Charra groaned, her breathing too rapid. It cut right through my self-absorbed fear – my only living friend was far more important. She was the only light in the dark of my heart that kept me human.
I tried to stop, and found that I couldn’t halt the magic. I had opened myself too wide and drawn too deep. Panic tried to rise and failed, swamped by the pleasures of pain, power and promise. It hurt, and it was ecstasy. My Gift shuddered, threatening to tear itself apart due to the torrent roaring through it. I’d be little more than a gaping hole through which magic flowed into the world – an abomination, warped and twisted at the bestial whims of the Worm. I found myself at peace, not caring. Maybe it would even be a good thing? Pleasure pulsed at the thought.
Agony exploded in my leg, cutting through pleasure and disrupting the aeromancy to drive me to my knees. A few flickers of air swirled in the dust. The surge of magic slowed. Dissever had somehow managed to slice through its sheath and into my leg. Before I knew what I was doing my hand found the hilt. Bloodlust and rage swarmed through me, fighting back the pleasure and dreamy confidence, and stamping down my terror of the dark.
Idiot, Dissever thought at me. Brainless bald ape. Do not. I will not be lost again. Care for the female, you fool.
Charra!
Fucking weak idiot, letting myself get sucked in. I clutched her to my chest and glanced at the half-destroyed room of my nightmares. Then I turned my back on it and ran for the way out. I sped through the tunnels I’d been carried from as a child, wishing that I was once again safe in Byzant’s arms. The magic stormed through me and my mind kept drifting off in scattered directions. Dissever’s counteracting influence rapidly waned.
An archway lay ahead, closed by a gate of massive warded steel bars blocking my exit from Boneyards. Barely pausing, I hefted Dissever and sliced through. Warded steel sparked, then parted and thudded to the ground. I stepped through the hole and an array of hidden wards activated. I spun to shield Charra with my body. An alarm shrieked and a web of force squeezed me like a giant fist. Despite being filled with a torrent of power, I was held fast, barely able to breathe. Magic built up inside me, screaming to be unleashed. These paltry wards couldn’t hold me. Nothing could hold Walker. I shuddered, trying to fight the madness down.
A trio of magi tore in, magic crackling around them ready to destroy whatever twisted monstrosity had emerged from the depths.
Dissever writhed from my grip. Jagged metal teeth pierced my wounded leg and then the enchanted weapon sagged, black iron turning into a viscous liquid that flowed into the cut, hiding inside the wound. The pain felt distant, like it belonged to somebody else. “Help her!” I pleaded. “She’s been poisoned.” The floodwaters of magic rose inside me, an unstoppable tide breaking through every shred of my restraint.